Piscinas Naturais do Porto Moniz
Porto Moniz
Lava pools the Atlantic fills and refreshes, fenced and lifeguarded, with a separate children's pool and a playground on the terrace.
- Outdoors
- Any age
- Children free
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.
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.
Aquaparque Madeira
Santa Cruz
The island's only water park: five slides, racing lanes, two seawater pools including a shallow one, a lazy river, and a birds-of-prey session included in the ticket.
- Outdoors
- From 3
- Children free
Complexo Balnear do Lido
Funchal
Funchal's municipal lido: two seawater pools, one of them shallow with play equipment, plus ladders straight into the Atlantic, for five euros a head.
- Outdoors
- Any age
- Children free
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
Espaço Multiusos do Porto Moniz
Porto Moniz
The municipality's exhibition hall on the Porto Moniz seafront, whose permanent show explains the UNESCO laurel forest the family has just driven through.
- Indoors
- Ages 5-14
- Children free
Museu A Cidade do Açúcar
Funchal
A free, small archaeology museum on Praça Colombo, built over the excavated foundations of a 15th-century sugar merchant's house.
- Indoors
- Ages 7-12
- Children free
Karting, climbing, escape rooms, surf schools and riding lessons, with the minimum age each operator actually enforces.
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
Skate Parque do Almirante Reis
Funchal
A free street-skate park of about 900 m² in Funchal's old town, next to the cable-car base station, with rails, a step-up, a pyramid and several funboxes.
- Outdoors
- From 5
- Children free
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
Teleférico do Jardim Botânico
Funchal
The island's second cable car, nine minutes each way across the Ribeira de João Gomes valley between the Botanical Garden and Babosas in Monte.
- Indoors
- Any age
- Children free
Playgrounds, gardens, picnic parks and the levadas a pushchair survives, nearly all of them free.
PR11 Vereda dos Balcões
Santana
A kilometre and a half each way, flat, along a levada through laurel forest to a railed balcony facing the island's highest peaks - the walk that actually works with a five-year-old.
- Outdoors
- From 4
- Children free
Fanal
Porto Moniz
Flat open pasture at a thousand metres, scattered with twisted centuries-old til trees, where children wander between the trunks instead of walking a path.
- Outdoors
- From 2
- Children free
Jardim de Santa Luzia
Funchal
Thirteen thousand square metres of central garden with a playground and a café terrace, ten minutes' walk from the cathedral - and shut every weekend.
- Outdoors
- Ages 1-12
- Children free
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.