Fun things to do in Southampton with dd's aged 4 and 6

minimad1970

lostinrates wrote: »

Do you have car? If you are not local it's worth the drive to the new forest.

And then a visit to Carlo's ice cream parlour at Wellow, nicer than Sprinkles and about a quarter of the price

fozziebeartoo

City centre has lots of green park areas......but not a lot of play areas.

Mayflower Park is right by the water (little cafe/ice cream van), some play equipment, not a lot.

You can watch the boats/ferries go in and out!

http://www.southampton.gov.uk/news-events/events/allevents/mayflower-park.asp



Indoor play area:-

http://www.junglejeans.co.uk/

Havent tried it but others say its fine.

Swimming in the city centre:-

http://www.activenation.org.uk/leisure-centre/the-quays-swimming-diving-complex-southampton/

The Rapids at Romsey is good too but hang onto little ones......I got washed away in the "rapids" and I am in my 50's :o:o

Sprinkles at Portswood is gorgeous, loads of flavours of ice-cream but gets very busy, they have recently opened a garden area.

http://www.sprinklesgelato.co.uk/

Carlos is a long drive but nice, but is a cafe and ice cream place and quite old fashioned, which is not a bad thing, of course, but its a not a yippy-zippy ice cream parlour!! Cheaper than Sprinkles......but unless you are "sitting in" most people sit in their cars to eat the ice cream.

I dont like Carlos ice cream, not rich and creamy enough for me (but its entirely a personal thing, my bestie loves it).

If you dont have access to a car, there is an ice cream place in the west Quay shopping mall.....expeensive but VERY high quality ice cream. Dont remember the name, but Italian Gelato and you can sit on the little pretend pink bikes while you eat.

Can you tell I like ice cream

If you have a car, Manor Farm is lovely:-

http://www3.hants.gov.uk/manorfarm

City centre museums (there are several) include:-

Tudor House

http://www.tudorhouseandgarden.com/

Loved it there as a kid.

For grown up MSEers there is a big 99p Store and Poundland in the city centre.

Sadly no Home Bargains, B&M etc.

Hope you have fun here in sunny (at the moment) Southampton!!

dsab

At that age I would say Peppa Pig land would go down a treat. Planning to go there ourselves later this year, and gets positive reviews from what I found online so far.

faith2009uk

Would also recommend Paultons Park, Romsey Rapids and especially Longdown Dairy Farm. Longdown is great for the little ones, they can hold ,the animals, feed the goats and go on a tractor ride.

Also a little further down the road is The New Forest Centre where they can see different wildlife, see the deers up close and a newish play area which looks great fun. It's quite a large park so would burn some energy off.

As for parks, mayflower park is nice, Sports Centre (where the ski slope is) has plenty of space to play football, small play area, crazy golf and tennis etc.

spartacusthe1st

Wow thanks guys done really good ideas there,thanks for your tine

maman

spartacusthe1st wrote: »

Wow thanks guys done really good ideas there,thanks for your tine

'The Quays' pool in the city centre has a fun part as well as the main pools.

If you go to Town Quay you can catch a small ferry to Hythe. It's just across Southampton water (about a 25 min trip) but a fun experience for the children to travel on the boat. There's a pier the other end with a little train. Hythe doesn't offer much but you can have a coffee and then go back or get some sandwiches in Waitrose or fish & chips and sit (weather permitting) on the front watching the boats.

http://www.hytheferry.co.uk/

It's worth walking part of the walls as most children love climbing!

spartacusthe1st

Ohh thanks maman sounds perfect!

spartacusthe1st

Hi guys thought I would let u know the outcome!
Went to hungry horse the first day for lunch then had a walk along the marina even though it was pelting it down!
Found a soft play place called play shack which was ok but we were just glad to be out of the rain!
Checked in to travelodge which was quite nice really v basic but clean and big,had to ask for more towels as we only had 2 between the 4 of us!
The pillows were like pancakes but they had no spares apparently!
Next morn had a fry up in a big tescos cafe the we went on the hythe ferry which the girls loved £14 for the 4 of us.
Then we went to the manor farm which wasn't great really luckily we found vouchers so adults £7 and the kids were free.
There WERNT many animals but it was quite interesting to walk around the old farm house.
Only saw some chickens lots of sheep a few baby pigs and some goats so not great really.

And that's it!

Didn't get time to do the ice cream parlour and the weather was so rubbish we couldn't do bike hire in the new forest,