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
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.
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.
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 Quinta das Cruzes
Funchal
A manor-house museum uphill from the cathedral whose romantic garden - stonework, old trees, a small chapel - is free to walk and open to anyone.
- Partly covered
- From 2
- Children free
Karting, climbing, escape rooms, surf schools and riding lessons, with the minimum age each operator actually enforces.
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
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.