Anyone live near Dorchester and can help with toddler recommendations?

[AluckyEllie]

Hello,

I’m going to be spending a week in an air bnb for my mums 80th birthday with a one and a three year old. 6 other adults (4 x 80 year olds!) and no other children. Does anyone local have recommendations for things to do? I’ve looked online but the teddy bear/dinosaur museum and monkey world all have really poor reviews. I’ll have a car. I plan to do a day at Weymouth and go to sealife centre. A day in Dorchester- I’ve found a softplay called Nikki’s cafe. Any other recommendations? They are at the age (especially the three year old) where they need to burn off some steam every day, I also don’t want to be totally bankrupt at the end 😂.

Not sure what time of year you'll be there so may need to check, but Kingston Maurward agricultural college at Stinsford is open every day and has lots of safe space, animals and cafe.
From there head into Dorchester and there's a good play area first left over the bridge.
About 1 minute between the 2!

Thank you! It will be in a few weeks. It’s those sort of recommendations I was looking for- somewhere you can easily escape to with the kids to let them run around a bit.

The children’s farm at Kingston Maurward
Farmer Palmer’s (I would opt for this one over Kingston Maurward if you have to choose one).
Swanage railway and then amusements, ice cream, beach in Swanage
Fossil hunting in Charmouth (you don’t need to bang away at the cliffs, they’re just lying around on the beach, also fossil museum)
The library in Dorchester is very big and modern if weather is shit and you just need somewhere to go)
Big park and playground in town too
The Blue Pool - nice pushchair friendly walk (as long as you have a decent pushchair), tearoom, playground

I would definitely skip monkey world with a 1 and 3 year old, and I never went to the dinosaur or teddy bear museum in 10 years of living there because it just looks shit from outside. 😂

The sea life centre is okay, but the best parts are the outdoor play areas, a lot of which are closed in winter. It won’t be super interesting to the 1 year old.