Think tank - Birmingham
legoland as its 5mins away
My grandson is not quite two so everything is new and exiting but one place he truly loves is The Deep on riverfront in Hull. Lots of brightly coloured fish and quite a few interactive exhibits and of course the shark tunnel.
For kids aged 5 and 7 Gullivers world is brilliant. Have tried Alton Twrs but that is geared towards older kids.
The Yellow sub in otterspool is also a good way to spend a day.
A cheaper alternative would be Acorn Venture Farm, Kirkby.
We have a couple of favourite places to take our daughter. She loves animals, so we often take her to Mead Open Farm near Leighton Buzzard, there is a fantastic assortment of animals and activities like Lamb racing, tractor ride, an indoor activity play area called Shaggys where you can also get a meal.
You can feed the animals, play with and stroke rabbits and guinea pigs, milk the cows and there is even an outdoor adventure playground and ride on go-karts.
If you want something a bit slower you can play crazy golf or watch the sheepdog herding the sheep.
Its a fantastic day out for all the family.
We also love gullivers in milton keynes, as its only 2 minutes away from us, we have been a couple of times and its great fun for younger children.
What we enjoy about that theme park over the bigger ones like Alton towers etc.. is that the queues are much shorter, and the younger children are not overwhelmed by all the teenagers you get dashing about. Its a much slower pace and the rides are all suitable for young children, so they hardly ever have to miss out on the rides like they do at the bigger theme parks.
I'm a big rugby league fan so I'm really chuffed that my three year old son is following in my footsteps. We love spending an afternoon at a game.
We love Marsh Farm in Essex!!
anfield
Something a little different to the general theme as one of our favourite places to visit with the kids is the rockpools at low tide. We go to Peacehaven as that is near us but obviously any will do! All you need is a bucket! The kids love it and have such a fantastic time hunting for crabs and sea creatures etc amongst the rocks (needless to say all are returned, don't fancy taking those home lol). We can spend a whole afternoon there and the kids need to be dragged away at the end. Good harmless fun and best of all it doesn't cost a bean!!!
We like Flamingoland. It has rides for me and ed, and lots of wild animals for mum and yd to watch, while they're waiting for us to finish the ride
The Hawk Conservancy at Andover. A fantastic day out with stunning bird of prey displays.
My kids really enjoyed the Natural History Museum - didn't manage to get round it all in a day and the life-sized moving T-Rex scared the beejeesus out of them! Best thing of all is it's free, so except for the travel (if you live outside London) and the obligatory icecreams it's a pretty cheap day out ( and educational, obviously, which keeps the other half happy...)