Rain on the Baltic is a good excuse to head indoors. Kids here get more than glass cases: ships to climb aboard, hands-on science halls, tanks of fish from the Amazon to the coral reef, and old arcade machines to play. Here's what we checked, from Experyment Science Center to the Maritime Culture Centre.
A hands-on science center in Gdynia where kids test the exhibits instead of reading about them. Magnesto has 10 magnetism stations, including an electromagnetic accelerator and magnet races. Tajemnice głębin shows over 40 models of deep-sea creatures, from vampire squid to glowing jellyfish. Other halls cover the human body, water, health, physics and nature, and family workshops run alongside the exhibitions.
A branch of the National Maritime Museum in a brick-and-glass building on the Motława. Its interactive hall, "People, Ships, Ports", has over 60 stations: ship and bathyscaphe simulators, a lifeboat and evacuation chute, and a pool with a wind generator where kids sail remote-controlled model ships.
Over 40 traditional boats fill the glass lobby and the "Boats of Peoples of the World" exhibition, from a Venetian gondola to a sampan.
Gdynia Aquarium spreads more than 200 water species over eight halls on five floors, from Amazon tropics and a coral reef to the open Pacific, the Baltic and the cold North Atlantic. The Cold Seas hall, opened in 2024 below sea level in the basement, holds unusual jellyfish and crustaceans.
It is run by the National Marine Fisheries Research Institute, and a free web app guide explains each animal.
Hevelianum fills the barracks and casemates of a 19th-century fort on Góra Gradowa, the hill above the Main Town. Around the World crosses seven continents, With Energy! is hands-on energy experiments, and Puzzle is logic and math challenges. In Playing with History, kids try on old uniforms and fire a virtual cannon by gesture. Outside, 20 hectares of paths lead to a playground and lookouts over the old city.
An interactive museum of arcade games from the 1980s and 1990s, with more than 100 machines, all of them playable. The collection runs from Space Invaders, Galaga and Donkey Kong to Tetris, Street Fighter II, Tekken, the Time Crisis II light-gun shooter, pinball tables and the Dancerush Stardom dance machine.
It suits kids who like buttons and noise, and parents who want the games they grew up with.
Dar Pomorza is a three-masted sailing ship built in 1909 that trained Polish merchant navy cadets from the 1930s to the 1980s. It is now a museum ship moored at Pomorskie Quay in Gdynia.
Kids walk the main deck and go below through four levels: the commander's room, mess, ship's hospital, wheelhouse and engine room, each kept with objects from the ship and its crews.
The Naval Museum in Gdynia tells the story of the Polish Navy from 1918 to joining NATO, with a modern permanent exhibition, models of old sailing ships, and an armory of real naval guns, torpedoes and sea mines, many taken from Polish warships.
Next to it sits ORP Sokół, a Norwegian-built submarine that served until 2018. Kids can step inside the 47-meter hull that carried a crew of 21.
ORP Błyskawica is a 114-meter Polish Navy destroyer launched in 1936 at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, and the oldest surviving destroyer in the world. She fought through all of World War II, from the Dunkirk evacuation to the Normandy landings.
Now a museum ship moored in Gdynia, she still flies the naval ensign and keeps her own crew, and hosts official Navy ceremonies.
Rain on the Baltic is a good excuse to head indoors. Kids here get more than glass cases: ships to climb aboard, hands-on science halls, tanks of fish from the Amazon to the coral reef, and old arcade machines to play. Here's what we checked, from Experyment Science Center to the Maritime Culture Centre.
A hands-on science center in Gdynia where kids test the exhibits instead of reading about them. Magnesto has 10 magnetism stations, including an electromagnetic accelerator and magnet races. Tajemnice głębin shows over 40 models of deep-sea creatures, from vampire squid to glowing jellyfish. Other halls cover the human body, water, health, physics and nature, and family workshops run alongside the exhibitions.
A branch of the National Maritime Museum in a brick-and-glass building on the Motława. Its interactive hall, "People, Ships, Ports", has over 60 stations: ship and bathyscaphe simulators, a lifeboat and evacuation chute, and a pool with a wind generator where kids sail remote-controlled model ships.
Over 40 traditional boats fill the glass lobby and the "Boats of Peoples of the World" exhibition, from a Venetian gondola to a sampan.
Gdynia Aquarium spreads more than 200 water species over eight halls on five floors, from Amazon tropics and a coral reef to the open Pacific, the Baltic and the cold North Atlantic. The Cold Seas hall, opened in 2024 below sea level in the basement, holds unusual jellyfish and crustaceans.
It is run by the National Marine Fisheries Research Institute, and a free web app guide explains each animal.
Hevelianum fills the barracks and casemates of a 19th-century fort on Góra Gradowa, the hill above the Main Town. Around the World crosses seven continents, With Energy! is hands-on energy experiments, and Puzzle is logic and math challenges. In Playing with History, kids try on old uniforms and fire a virtual cannon by gesture. Outside, 20 hectares of paths lead to a playground and lookouts over the old city.
An interactive museum of arcade games from the 1980s and 1990s, with more than 100 machines, all of them playable. The collection runs from Space Invaders, Galaga and Donkey Kong to Tetris, Street Fighter II, Tekken, the Time Crisis II light-gun shooter, pinball tables and the Dancerush Stardom dance machine.
It suits kids who like buttons and noise, and parents who want the games they grew up with.
Dar Pomorza is a three-masted sailing ship built in 1909 that trained Polish merchant navy cadets from the 1930s to the 1980s. It is now a museum ship moored at Pomorskie Quay in Gdynia.
Kids walk the main deck and go below through four levels: the commander's room, mess, ship's hospital, wheelhouse and engine room, each kept with objects from the ship and its crews.
The Naval Museum in Gdynia tells the story of the Polish Navy from 1918 to joining NATO, with a modern permanent exhibition, models of old sailing ships, and an armory of real naval guns, torpedoes and sea mines, many taken from Polish warships.
Next to it sits ORP Sokół, a Norwegian-built submarine that served until 2018. Kids can step inside the 47-meter hull that carried a crew of 21.
ORP Błyskawica is a 114-meter Polish Navy destroyer launched in 1936 at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, and the oldest surviving destroyer in the world. She fought through all of World War II, from the Dunkirk evacuation to the Normandy landings.
Now a museum ship moored in Gdynia, she still flies the naval ensign and keeps her own crew, and hosts official Navy ceremonies.
