Ireland fun for school age kids

Irisheyes · Senior Member

Ireland fun for school age kids

Michele Erdvig · Host

Irisheyes,

The Clara Lara Fun Park is outdoors so not suitable for a rainy day. See these links:

http://www.claralara.com/

http://www.wicklow.ie/tourism/activities/children.html

http://homepage.tinet.ie/~edrice/news/claralara.htm

A lot of the open farms are like petting zoos. Some have demos of sheep hearding, etc. I think that the kids would like:

Cahir Castle (on your way to Killarney).

Muckross Traditional Farms.

Gap of Dunloe.

Boat ride to see the Dingle dolphin or even swimming with him.

Hiking to the top of Mount Brandon (Dingle).

Anyone else care to add their suggestions?

Michele

mcval · Veteran Member

In Kilkee, County Clare, there is an indoor water park that is great! It has a lazy river that pulls you around and a huge water slide. The kids had a blast there 8 years ago. We drove past it in June of this past year and it's still there.

Michele Erdvig · Host

Irisheyes,

Good advice from Val. Also in Tralee (not far from Killarney) is an indoor Aquadome: http://www.discoverkerry.com/aquadome/ , Kerry the Kingdom: http://www.school-trip.com/ireland/kerry/kerry.html & Blennerville Windmill and steam train: http://www.ireland.ie/things_2_do_results_single.asp?sID=1054

Have fun!

Michele

Irisheyes · Senior Member

Thanks for all the fun ideas! My kids loved the Clara Lara Fun Park web site. It does seem like it's not in the direction we want to go, but I'll check my map.

Melissa5 · Guru

Irisheyes, I'm here to be a big help (having never been to Ireland yet.)

But I have 3 kids who had enough fun on family vacation that they are still willing to come along, daughters are in college now. As you know we're going to Ireland next July, first trip. But my son can't come this time, he has graduated from college and is working full time so has limited vacation time, which he is saving for a big trip with a friend. We will miss him but I approve, he's young and single and needs to "sow his wild oats" as my Irish grandmother used to say.

Anyway I'm remembering back to what they loved on vacation when they were between 10 and 13, and what they hated.

Loved:
blowholes (spots where ocean water splurts up high through a hole in the rocks.

climbing on rocks, up rocks, over rocks.

having a camera to take their own photos, or being allowed to take some photos with the family camera.

making friends with other people's dogs and cats. (maybe a farm stay or a country house stay where the owners have friendly pets?)

buying junk like candy and tacky souveneirs

keeping a travel journal

keeping in touch with friends (sending post cards, gaining access to e-mail if possible, phone call to boyfriends when older.)

Getting to climb up to a very high place and standing looking down where the ground is very far below, right on the edge of the cliff/stairs/wall/, where you are inches from plunging to your death...

Getting to do stuff they can't do at home, like:
--having their own room and not having me tell them to clean it up.
--saying up late at night
--getting to order unhealthy imbalanced meals with no vegies. (They will like vegies when they are older, mine do now!)

Unique experiences we don't have at home...I am thinking they will find the pubs interesting, although they may or may not like Irish traditional music...

Here is what they HATED:
Staying all together in one room with us parents and having me telling them to pick up their clothes, clean up the bathroom, etc.

Long boring car drives where Dad kept insisting they look out the window at the gorgeous scenery ("who cares, Dad")

Listening to the adults have long boring talks with strangers (your kids aren't old enough to join in the discussion yet. My "kids" are young adults over 18 now and it's thrilling to see that they can join in as equals and like meeting new people, adult people older than them, around the world. That's ahead of you!)

Having parents insist they eat a healthy diet on vacation.

Being forced to do something that they don't want to do. (My son went through a phase where he couldn't bear to put on his swimming trunks and go out to the pool with us. We were mystified but finally gave up and let him stay in the hotel room. I think it was his self-conscious phase.)

Have fun with your family, irisheyes! One of my favorite memories with my son, when he was around age 16, was when we went to Yellowstone to see the geysers, and my hubby, who usually was in charge of leading us around with a map, was mad at me and went stomping off by himself. I handed the map over to my son and said, you can lead us. I had never done that before, and it was obvious that he loved being in charge. I wish I had thought of doing that more often! If you have never been to Yellowstone, they give you a map as there are a number of trails through a number of geysers and there's a schedule of approximately when they are due to blow, so it does require that somebody be in charge of leading and planning.

Irisheyes · Senior Member

Mcval - Thank you for the water park info. I looked up Kilkee and thought it looked like a very pretty coastal town. I don't hear about it much, I wonder why? Looks like some of the water parks are only open in July and August, which won't work for us.

Melissa - I liked all your ideas! Hey, I can tell you're a mom w/ real kids.

My kids would love any of those ideas you mentioned. I'll print it out for my green file. Thanks so much for the time you put into your post to me. I have read many of your posts on other forums - you're quite a good writer too. Besides Costa Rica and Italy, what other destinations would you recommend? Not too early to start planning a trip for 2007! The furthest I visited and toured was Southern Africa and South America (Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina).

Melissa5 · Guru

Both Costa Rica and Italy are great with the age your kids are at! Also Yellowstone (the geysers). Zion National Park was pretty cool. Kaui is better for kids than Maui, in my opinion. We saw a porcupine in a tree very close to our heads (we were walking on a steep trail) which was really cool for the kids, how often do you get almost eyeball to eyeball with a porcupine, but darn if I'm having trouble remembering where that was...either a trail in Zion National Park, or else it could have been our Sequoia and Kings Canyon trip. The giant redwood trees up in Northern California are really cool too.

Have a great time in Ireland! You'll have a lot of great experiences to share with us when you return. Maybe one of your kids will log in here and post a trip report from their perspective. (Somebody did that on fodors, it was so cool.)

My best Italy trip report is actually on www.slowtrav.com . They may have changed their web-site name since I last logged on, I hope not. I have a long trip report there, with section titles and page numbers. " Trip Report #487: Mind-Boggling First Glimpses of Italy with Teens".

Probably one of the most awesome family experiences we have had was walking into St. Peter's Basilica (on our own, no tour guide), and staring up in astonishment at...well...heaven! What I mean is, it's so huge, you just can't believe it. Plus every inch of it was lovingly created with great talent and artistic vision. My daughters were 16 and 17 at the time, and my older daughter said, it was so awesome, she just didn't think it was fair that some people would never get to see it in their lives. They also loved climbing to the very top of the stairs at St. Peter's (great view). I skipped the stairs!

When my older daughter was around 8, at one of our national park trips, she came upon a woodpecker nest with babies, right about at her eyeball level, which was truly amazing! Again, it was a case of standing on slightly elevated ground looking right into a hole in a tree, where the woodpecker had amazingly built her nest!!!