
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

Tenpin Cheshire Oaks has 24 lanes on the Coliseum Leisure Park, a few minutes from the designer outlet, plus laser tag, escape rooms, karaoke rooms, pool, table tennis and an arcade. It opens at 10am on weekdays and 9am at weekends and goes on until midnight or later, but daytime is when families have it.
A game is £9.95 each booked online, and Tenpin reckons on about ten minutes per player, so a family of four is looking at 40 minutes a game. Tuesdays are half price, all day in term time and after 6pm in the holidays. Parking on the leisure park is free, and Paradise Island adventure golf is next door if you want to turn it into an afternoon.
What it costs: One game of bowling £9.95 booked online; Tenpin reckons on about ten minutes per player per game. Tenpin Tuesday is 50% off bowling and selected drinks; Friday Frenzy is 20% off up to three games after 6pm. Laser tag £36 for 30 minutes online. Escape rooms from £13.50. Karaoke £25 for 30 minutes.
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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.