With the weather not being at its best we sometimes struggle to find things to do when trying to break the cabin fever sitting in the house.
Today we decided to bring AJ to the W5 Discovery Centre which has all sorts of activities for all ages.
On the second floor there is an area very suited to toddlers which has a music and lighting studio including foam guitars and a backdrop with a camera on it so you can see yourself rocking out on TV. They have a mini spar supermarket which is surprisingly realistic, a small yacht, bendy mirrors and lots more.
AJ was particularly interested in working the lights and music.
We moved on to the automotive area where they had soft play in the form of car parts and then a real Fiat 500 with some modifications to make it child friendly. AJ naturally picked up a soft play tyre and tried to change the wheel on the Fiat 500. Could be a future in the Ferrari Pit Crew!
After trying to get AJ away from the car and over to the wet play area (yes we took him to the wet play area and he just ran right back to the Fiat 500 car every time) he decided to stay and watch the plastic balls go down the water slide. They have a number of weird and wonderful ways of loading the balls in to the chute such as vacuum tubes and a cork screw which has to be manually turned until the balls get offloaded on to a rail then in to the chute. AJ’s favourite part was waiting for the balls to fall down the chute so he could catch them and throw them away again.
The fourth floor has a lot more see and do type activities for different ages some scientific such as a wave and wind simulators. There are bubble tubes, puzzles such as safe cracking but all AJ wanted to do is run around the vast expanse and tire himself out.
We had lunch back on the first floor in the cafe before taking AJ on one last trip back up to the water activities. On the way we took the stairs from the cafe which act as piano keys as you can hear the sounds with every step you take.
AJ quickly popped back in to the music and lighting area to flick some lights on then over to the fiat 500 again before getting himself completely soaked at the ball slide.
This is one of the coolest places to go in Belfast if you have kids but it can be quite expensive. We paid for two adults only as AJ is under two but it was over £18 and we had our lunch and parking to pay on top of that. Although there are no time limits imposed we found that 2-3 hours is enough for AJ’s age but he did have a ball (see what i did there) and I’m sure we will be back soon.