Places to visit in Cleveland, OH?

[HIU8]

DH and I are taking DS and DD to two weddings this summer. The first one is in State College, PA. We are driving and meeting MIL. We are then driving to MIL house and staying a few days. The next leg is to Columbus, OH for another wedding the next week with MIL. We are going through Cleveland. DH says there is a train museum there that DS would really like. What else is there that would be good to take DS (3.5 yo) and DD (1 yo) for a couple of days?


Thanks.

[Gena]

My best friend lives in Cleveland and we visit there every so often. We enjoy the Zoo and the Children's Museum. My son's favorite thing is the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. http://www.cvsr.com/ They offer several train excursions through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Cleveland has great Metroparks too, some of them have beachs for swimming.

[ThreeofUs]

Cleveland is a very kid-friendly city - but mostly not downtown.

University Circle has a bunch of great museums in one easy and fairly big area. Great for walking. This includes the train museum, children's museum (good - if small), and a really kid-friendly natural history museum. You could easily spend two days just here.

The Great Lakes Science Center, downtown, is also a blast for kids, but it's not really near much to do.

PM me if you want more info. I'm right there and know restaurants, places to stay, etc.

[mommy111]

Hi there! The Childrens museum in Cleveland is tiny, so if you're from a big city, don't even bother. But if you don't have a kiddie museum in your home city, do it b/c its fun the first couple of times. The museum of natural history is great and the botanical gardens are beautiful in the summer and have lots of little festivals centered around the little ones. Memphis kiddie park is another place that we love, its like a little old-fashioned kids fair and is open throughout the summer with rides just right for the toddler to pre-teen age group. We've gone to Geagua Lake which is an amusement park, good in the summer because of the outdoors water park for the kids and just a nice layout. We've also been to the 'beach' (ie lakeside) and those are fun esp for the kids in the summer, shallow, warm water. Try Huntington Beach. That's all I can think of now, but I'm looking for what other Cleveland mommies say on this board because we're always looking for new things to do out here.

[ThreeofUs]

We've gone to Geagua Lake which is an amusement park, good in the summer because of the outdoors water park for the kids and just a nice layout.


Ummm, just a note: I think Geauga Lake's amusement is being dismantled and sold off, but their water park will remain open.

[mommy111]

Ummm, just a note: I think Geauga Lake's amusement is being dismantled and sold off, but their water park will remain open.

Darn! And the only thing keeping me going this miserable winter is thinking about the rides in the summer! Oh well, at least the water park will still be open.

[mommyoftwo]

The zoo is really a very nice one and we go regularly. If you have a zoo membership elsewhere, you should be able to get in for free. The science museum is a ton of fun and they have a fairly large kids area both indoors and out. There is a really nice park that is on the lake front within walking distance of the science museum and my girls like to go there for a picnic and just to run around. There is no playground but it is along the lake so you can watch the boats go by (a big hit in our family). If you are going to be in columbus, you should definitely go to the science museum there as well. They have an entire floor dedicated to kids. I've never seen anything like it. It's amazing and the girls had an absolute blast last summer.

[kboyle]

i agree with pp, university circle has lots of stuff to do, the children's museaum is pretty teeny, but the natural history mueseaum is really nice...also, i haven't takent he kids to memphis kiddie park, but will definately this coming summer. every year it's been in the plans, but we keep forgetting...and it's right down the street from dh's cousin with little ones, and they go often, i don't know why we haven't gone yet??

and yes, GL is closed...i live 5 min from there and it's sad...i remember going when i was younger...i grew up with a season pass...it's kinda sad. i really really miss sea world being there...

if you are in town the first weekend of august there is the Twins Days (http://www.twinsdays.org/) festival that brings in WAAAY too many twins into my teeny town...though it's fun, you get to see many twins, lots from out of the country...there are contests for oldes/cutest/youngest/most alike/least alike, etc. nice crafts, something to do that's cheap (i think it's a $4-6 entrance) and great carnie food :)

[hellokitty]

The children's botanical garden is very nice. My DH and I were extremely impressed with it, my kids had a blast and we got some adorable photos of them playing. My preschooler always loved the natural history museum, their, "lab" for young children upstairs is very nice. I wish we did not live so far away, b/c it would definitely be a place where we'd get a membership. My biggest issue with university circle is that I HATE driving through that area and parking can sometimes be a PITA if there are other events happening at the same time.

The zoo is nice, but I am still partial to the columbus zoo over the cleveland zoo. We went on the thomas the tank event at the cuyahoga valley rail system last yr and were sorely disappointed by it, esp since my kids are train freaks.

I too miss sea world. We went to sea world san diego in october and my DH and I were pretty annoyed that the one in ohio (when they had it) was much better than the one in san diego.

Also, isn't there a science center by the rock in roll hall of fame? We have never been there before, only to COSI in columbus (totally recommend it, it's awesome), but for some reason I thought that cleveland had a science center too. Oh, I guess you could always take in a baseball game too, if you are into that. I guess growing up in a suburb of cleveland, I always resented how sports and beer crazed clevelanders tend to be, so we avoid that sort of thing.