Go Kart Madeira
Machico
A covered 400-metre kart circuit at Água de Pena by Machico, where children drive their own kart from seven and smaller ones ride belted in beside a parent.
- Indoors
- From 7
- Children from 13 €
Madeira with children
What there is to do with a child on an island sold on levadas, cliffs and wine.
Everything here was checked against the operator's own source rather than a guidebook, and the awkward facts are kept: which museum shuts on Monday, which levada a pushchair survives, which lava pools have a lifeguard and which identical-looking ones next door do not, and how old a child has to be before an operator will take them. Where nobody publishes a price or an opening time, this page says so instead of guessing.
Places built for children rather than merely tolerant of them: indoor play, trampolines, soft play and the one theme park on the island.
Ilhapark
Funchal
A trampoline and play park in the Jardim Panorâmico above the Lido, roofed but open at the sides, with a restaurant along one edge.
- Partly covered
- Ages 3-12
- No price published
Joy Family Space & Brunch
Funchal
Seven separate play zones in central Funchal with a real brunch café attached, plus Laser Limbo - a laser-dodging arena game booked by the hour.
- Indoors
- Ages 1-12
- No price published
Lava pools, sea-water lidos, calm beaches and the water park - with which ones have a lifeguard and which of the identical-looking pools next door do not.
Piscinas da Ribeira Brava
Ribeira Brava
A modern indoor complex with a heated 25 m pool and a shallow learning tank, sold by the 50-minute slot and cheapest in the middle of the day.
- Indoors
- Any age
- Children from 2.2 €
Piscina de Machico
Machico
A heated indoor 25 m pool with a 500-seat gallery and a gym on the edge of Machico, run by the regional sports directorate.
- Indoors
- From 4
- No price published
Piscina de Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz
The covered regional pool inland at Santa Cruz, with a gym attached - the rainy-day answer near the airport, and not the seafront bathing complex of the same town.
- Indoors
- From 4
- No price published
Whales, monkeys, sharks in a tank, sugar under a glass floor and science you are allowed to touch - the wet-weather half of the island.
Museu da Baleia
Machico
Whaling history, life-size whales and stereoscopic 3D films in a purpose-built museum at Caniçal - the island's best museum for children by a distance.
- Indoors
- From 4
- Children free
Cinemas NOS Fórum Madeira
Funchal
Six screens inside the Fórum Madeira mall on Estrada Monumental, and the one place on the island where a children's film reliably runs dubbed into Portuguese.
- Indoors
- From 3
- No price published
Aquário da Madeira
Porto Moniz
Twelve tanks of Madeiran and Macaronesian sea life - groupers, moray eels, more than ninety native species - inside a rebuilt 18th-century fort by the Porto Moniz lava pools.
- Indoors
- Ages 2-10
- Children from 4 €
Karting, climbing, escape rooms, surf schools and riding lessons, with the minimum age each operator actually enforces.
Madeira Climbing Center
Funchal
The island's only indoor bouldering gym - low walls, thick mats, no ropes - in a basement on Rua Conde Carvalhal, taking children from about six.
- Indoors
- From 6
- Children from 8 €
Arquivo e Biblioteca da Madeira - "BORA LER!"
Funchal
A free story session every Saturday at 11:00 for children of four and up, with no booking and no ticket - the best recurring free thing for children on the island.
- Indoors
- Up to 14
- Children free
Campo de Férias "Biblioteca a Brincar... e a Aprender"
Câmara de Lobos
Câmara de Lobos's indoor, bookish holiday scheme, run at the municipal library through July and August as the wet-weather counterpart to its sports camp.
- Indoors
- Ages 6-14
- No price published
Cable cars, toboggans, tuk-tuks, catamarans and the pirate ship - the outings that are the ride itself.
Teleférico do Funchal
Funchal
Fifteen minutes in a glass cabin from the Funchal seafront up 560 metres to Monte, which most small children treat as the attraction rather than the transport.
- Indoors
- Any age
- Children free
Beluga Submarine
Funchal
Two and a half hours east from Funchal marina to the Garajau reserve on a small trimaran with eight underwater windows, so a child sees fish without getting in the water.
- Partly covered
- From 3
- Children from 10 €
Teleférico da Rocha do Navio
Santana
Madeira's first cable car, from 1997: five minutes down the Santana clifftop to the black-pebble shore of the Rocha do Navio nature reserve.
- Partly covered
- From 3
- No price published
Prices and opening times change without notice, and on this island they change often. Everything here carries the date it was checked in our research notes; if a place has moved or closed, tell us and we will fix it.