Things to do in Dublin with an 11-year-old next weekend

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We're going to be in Dublin next weekend with 11-year-old DS and will have quite a bit of time to fill. I don't know very much about the city at all so I thought I'd ask the MN hive mind for ideas. We'll be staying in the centre and won't have a car. DS loves anything to do with cars/driving and will probably want a tram ride. DH wants to go to Dublinia and pop into the national museum to see a specific exhibit, but other than that we're fairly easy and it would be nice to find something exciting/memorable for DS to do.

ooooh!

www.nationaltransportmuseum.org/ - open weekend afternoons. old trams and trolly buses, cars etc. It's in North Dublin - Howth. You can get the DART (regional coastal railway) or a bus up there. Journey up the coast is nice in its own right.

www.explorium.ie/ - this is in South Dublin, in Sandyford. You can get public transport there - tram (LUAS), bus, bit of walking.

dublin.sciencegallery.com/ - central Dublin - on the edge of Trinity Uni campus - not that child-oriented, but might be of interest

Viking splash tour

www.vikingsplash.com/

Fab - thank you! Explorium looks perfect! He'd probably love the transport museum as well.

Splash tour looks good too but DH gets horribly seasick.

The crypts in St Michan’s church aren’t far from Dublinia and well worth a visit if he won’t be creeped out.

The crypts in Christ Church cathedral are also well worth a visit. There’s a mummified cat and rat among other more serious artifacts.

The 1916 tour bus is quite good if guns, battles etc are of interest.

Oooh - crypts sound good! I like a good crypt. DH is a war historian and DS is fascinated by WWII, so we'll look into the bus tour as well.

DH thinks Explorium might be too far out to get to without a car in the limited time we have :(

Is the Future Shock VR place any good?

Don't go to the Natural History Museum. It's terrible.

Bus tour is quite good, and not expensive.

Dublin has a very good zoo.

Definitely zoo. It's awesome and its in Phoenix park grounds too so plenty of running space. Dublin centre is imo just a beautiful place to explore. Hubbys Irish and we always visit there when we 'go back home'

Also open top bus is a 24 hour ticket, and you can get on and off at any of their stops as often as you want in those 24 hours. One stop is right by the zoo

Epic museum is good and interactive.

My dc are older but loved Epic.

Ds(12) really loved Trinity Library. It's very Hogwartian.

I took my 12 year old a few months back - excellent zoo and he loved Kilmainham gaol.

Dublin is fabulous (bet get credit card ready as expensive).

I love the Natural History Museum. It's like stepping back in time, all those glass cabinets, and typed explanations on little bits of paper. You just have to know what you're getting and not expect a modern interactive museum 'experience'. I hope they never update it.

@treaclesoda the empty cases with "artifact removed" don't do it for me 😂 The giant deer was interesting to see, though.

I haven’t had a chance to go, but the EPIC centre seems fab each time I’ve walked past - it’s all about Irish emigration epicchq.com

Dublin Zoo is brilliant.

Do a ghost walk in the evening - the south side one is very good.

The natural history museum is amazing- we felt like we had travelled back in time!

The zoo is good too.

Thank you all so much! Loads of ideas for us to look into. Excited now :) :)

We're back - what a great weekend! We did:

National Museum of Ireland (Archaeology) - brief stop here to show DS the bog bodies, as he's just studied them at school.
National Wax Museum - supposed to be another brief stop but DS loved it so much that we were there for ages. The strangest, quirkiest, kitchest place I've been to for a long time! The mirror maze was mental.
Guinness Storehouse - more for DH than DS, but he actually found it really interesting and had his first ever sip of Guinness.
Evening meal at Cornucopia, which was amazing.

Dublinia - good fun trying on Viking helmets etc.
Phoenix Park and Dublin Zoo - blooming freezing! DS spent ages in the underwater sea lion bit and we saw the tiger cubs.
Future Shock virtual reality arcade - DS's favourite bit. Quite pricey for an hour but he absolutely loved it.

DS now wants to move to Dublin!