
Blue Planet Aquarium
Sharks over a moving walkway tunnel, all under cover. A dependable answer to a washout forecast that still feels like a proper day out.
Ellesmere Port, Cheshire

Paradise Island is indoor adventure golf on the Coliseum Leisure Park, the cinema and restaurant strip just off the M53 at Cheshire Oaks. There are two 18-hole courses across 13,000 square feet, done up as a tropical island, and a 19th hole that gives you a shot at a free game. It opens at noon on weekdays and 10am at weekends, and runs into the evening every day.
A child is £9.25 for one course and £13.25 for both, and a family of four is £37.50 or £53. The Early Bird offer makes those prices look silly: two courses for the price of one, Monday to Friday before 4pm and on Sundays before 11am, though not in the school or bank holidays. The site advises booking, but you can also turn up and pay at the booth.
Tenpin Cheshire Oaks is in the same leisure park, so golf and a game of bowling make a full wet afternoon without moving the car.
What it costs: One course (18 holes): under 5s £6, 5 to 16 £9.25, adult £11.50, family of four £37.50. Two courses (36 holes): under 5s £8.50, 5 to 16 £13.25, adult £16.25, family of four £53. Early Bird: two courses for the price of one, Monday to Friday before 4pm and Sunday before 11am, not in school or bank holidays (code EARLYBIRD online or say 'Early Bird' at the paybooth). Super Sundays: two courses for £13.50 on Sundays after 6pm, not in the school holidays. Carers free with a paying concession.
Looking for more adventure & rides near Ellesmere Port?
★★★★★ 4.2 across 425 Google reviews.
Read all 425 reviews on Google - filter by star rating there
Sharks over a moving walkway tunnel, all under cover. A dependable answer to a washout forecast that still feels like a proper day out.

A real working dock kept as a museum: historic narrowboats, locks, indoor galleries, boat trips and a waterways playground. Under 6s free, and the annual pass costs less than two visits.

Ellesmere Port's main park: two play areas, a skatepark, tennis courts, formal gardens and a fish pond, with Theatre Porto in the old hall. Free, with free parking off Stanney Lane.

Three of the oldest surviving First World War hangars in the country, holding historic aircraft, vehicles, engines, a Chester tram, a printing museum and cockpits to sit in. Volunteer run, and open on set days only.

Ellesmere Port's biggest leisure centre: two pools, a cafe, parking on site, and a day that runs from half six in the morning until ten at night on weekdays. Under-threes swim for £2.

184 acres of wooded valley and brook a minute off junction 7 of the M53, and the traffic noise is gone two hundred metres in. Paths, picnic meadows, a permanent orienteering course, bluebells in spring.
One email a week: what is on this weekend within a sensible drive, and the places worth booking before they go.