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
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.
Pura Vida – Family Space
Funchal
A staffed indoor playground of 450 square metres in central Funchal with a proper café, sold in two-hour slots for children aged two to ten.
- Indoors
- Ages 2-10
- Children from 12.5 €
GTC Madeira AutĂłdromo Virtual
Funchal
A racing-simulator centre that ran in Funchal near the Jaime Moniz school. It is gone.
- Indoors
- Any age
- 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 €
Piscinas Paulo Camacho - Clube Naval do Funchal
Funchal
Two heated indoor pools, 20 m and 25 m, at the Clube Naval sports complex - the island's main children's swimming school, and open to non-members.
- Indoors
- Any age
- Children from 34.65 €
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.
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 €
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 JoĂŁo 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.