Zip World Manchester
The cheapest real activity anyone is recommending this summer, and it's indoors. An hour of play for a fiver a head, with picnic benches for when you need to sit down.
Play Factore
Trafford, Greater Manchester
One of Europe's biggest soft play arenas: a vast frame, laser tag, go-karts and a zip wire crossing the entire building. It is the rare soft play that a ten-year-old does not sneer at.
Height rules govern the zip wire and karts - check them at booking to avoid the great injustice of watching a sibling fly overhead.
Know before you go
- The zip wire and go-karts have height rules - check them before you promise anything.
Looking for more soft play & indoor play near Trafford?
Also in Trafford
Legoland Discovery Centre
Two rides, a 4D cinema, build zones and Manchester's skyline done in miniature bricks. Squarely aimed at 3 to 10, and it knows it: adults can only visit with a child.
Sea Life Manchester
Ocean tunnel, rays, seahorses and rockpool touch sessions, sized for smaller legs - you can do the whole thing in a morning and pair it with Legoland next door.
The Snow Centre Manchester
Real snow all year round at the venue Manchester still calls Chill Factore. Little ones get the Snow Park with sledging and slides; older kids can learn to ski or board on the UK's longest indoor slope.
Dunham Massey
A Georgian house in a deer park where the fallow deer wander right past you. This summer's Play Hub adds giant games and den building in the North Park, and the winter garden is the area's best cold-day walk.
Manchester United Museum & Stadium Tour
The full Old Trafford works: three floors of museum, then the players' tunnel, both dressing rooms and the dugouts on a 70 minute guided tour. Plan around the fixture list, because it all shuts on home match days.