Pomerania's two-week winter school break (ferie) lands in February, when the Baltic is gray and the days are short. These are the places we'd use to fill it: warm aquaparks, hands-on science centers, trampoline halls and puppet shows, plus the cold outings worth bundling up for, like open-air rinks and a floodlit ski slope. Here's what we checked, from Hevelianum's hilltop fort to Lumina Park's light trail.
Lumina Park is an open-air light trail through the parkland of Faktoria Cultural Park in Pruszcz Gdański, just south of Gdańsk. This season the glowing installations tell the story of Alice in Wonderland along a path of about 1.5 km.
Kids walk the route after dark, stopping at each scene for photos. It suits kids who can manage a long evening walk outdoors in the cold.
Gdańskie Lodowisko is an open-air ice rink on Plac Zebrań Ludowych, run by GAK. It opens each winter season for skating.
It is an easy pick for a cold-weather outing with school-age kids. GAK posts season news on the rink's Facebook page.
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.
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.
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.
An indoor water park with leisure pools, a grotto with a waterfall and hydromassage loungers, plus a year-round outdoor pool reached by a lit channel. The Wild River is a 71-meter rapids run, the only one in Poland. Tube slides range from a gentle family pipe to the 12-meter-drop Turbo.
Toddlers get a warm baby pool with water cannons, spouting animals, geysers and small slides.
A water park whose headline ride, the Shark Slide, runs 60 meters through a tunnel in an aquarium of real sharks. Pirate Bay is a 30cm-deep pool with a pirate ship, seven slides and water cannons for toddlers.
Older kids head for the wave pool, the 315-meter lazy river, the wide family slide and the Ultra Speed vertical slide.
Public skating in the Mała Hala, the smaller ice hall of the Hala Olivia arena, where the GKS Stoczniowiec club has run open sessions every fall and winter for close to six decades. Hockey matches are played on the same ice.
Beginners can borrow a "penguin" skating aid to push along, and there is a free cloakroom, skate and helmet rental, and a café.
An open-air rink with a 20 by 40 meter sheet of ice, set up each winter on the car park between Polsat Plus Arena Gdynia and Riviera mall. The rental point hires skates, helmets and penguin-shaped skating aids that beginners push across the ice, and a service desk sharpens dull blades. On opening night, New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day a DJ plays on the ice.
A 2,000 m² trampoline park with a large foam pit, sports trampolines, acrobatic tracks, an air track, trampolines with basketball hoops for dunking, a dodgeball arena and a gladiator zone. The 4.26 m Super Quad trampoline gives the highest bounces.
Trainers on the floor help kids learn flips safely, and there are changing rooms with showers, free lockers and a snack bar.
Loopy's World is a 3,000 m2 indoor play center built around a multi-level structure of mazes, tunnels and an obstacle course. Kids can try seven slides, including a steep adrenaline slide, a spiral slide and a four-lane family slide, plus five trampolines, a mini climbing wall, air cannons, a Ninja Park, a Spider Tower and a climbing tower.
Two toddler zones are set aside for 1 to 3-year-olds.
Gdańsk Zoo covers 124 hectares in Oliwa, with nearly 900 animals from 144 species, including elephants, giraffes, lions, cheetahs, orangutans and red pandas. Keepers feed the African penguins and gray seals in front of visitors most days.
At the Children's Zoo, kids pet and feed goats, rabbits and alpacas. The ZOOlandia rope park inside the grounds has 15 tree obstacles and a 26-meter zip line.
Łysa Góra is a forested hill in Sopot, one of the town's best-known viewpoints, that turns into a ski slope in winter. The single 286m run drops 39m and is served by a drag lift, with snowmaking and floodlights for evening skiing.
At the base there is ski rental, a storage room and the Klakier restaurant for hot drinks and meals.
Miejski Teatr Miniatura is the Tricity's only puppet theater for children and teenagers, running for nearly 80 years. The program starts with shows made for babies and runs up to plays for teens, mixing classic children's books with new Polish and international stories.
Productions play on a main stage, a smaller chamber stage and a rehearsal room, and some performances come with audio description.
Pomerania's two-week winter school break (ferie) lands in February, when the Baltic is gray and the days are short. These are the places we'd use to fill it: warm aquaparks, hands-on science centers, trampoline halls and puppet shows, plus the cold outings worth bundling up for, like open-air rinks and a floodlit ski slope. Here's what we checked, from Hevelianum's hilltop fort to Lumina Park's light trail.
Lumina Park is an open-air light trail through the parkland of Faktoria Cultural Park in Pruszcz Gdański, just south of Gdańsk. This season the glowing installations tell the story of Alice in Wonderland along a path of about 1.5 km.
Kids walk the route after dark, stopping at each scene for photos. It suits kids who can manage a long evening walk outdoors in the cold.
Gdańskie Lodowisko is an open-air ice rink on Plac Zebrań Ludowych, run by GAK. It opens each winter season for skating.
It is an easy pick for a cold-weather outing with school-age kids. GAK posts season news on the rink's Facebook page.
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.
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.
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.
An indoor water park with leisure pools, a grotto with a waterfall and hydromassage loungers, plus a year-round outdoor pool reached by a lit channel. The Wild River is a 71-meter rapids run, the only one in Poland. Tube slides range from a gentle family pipe to the 12-meter-drop Turbo.
Toddlers get a warm baby pool with water cannons, spouting animals, geysers and small slides.
A water park whose headline ride, the Shark Slide, runs 60 meters through a tunnel in an aquarium of real sharks. Pirate Bay is a 30cm-deep pool with a pirate ship, seven slides and water cannons for toddlers.
Older kids head for the wave pool, the 315-meter lazy river, the wide family slide and the Ultra Speed vertical slide.
Public skating in the Mała Hala, the smaller ice hall of the Hala Olivia arena, where the GKS Stoczniowiec club has run open sessions every fall and winter for close to six decades. Hockey matches are played on the same ice.
Beginners can borrow a "penguin" skating aid to push along, and there is a free cloakroom, skate and helmet rental, and a café.
An open-air rink with a 20 by 40 meter sheet of ice, set up each winter on the car park between Polsat Plus Arena Gdynia and Riviera mall. The rental point hires skates, helmets and penguin-shaped skating aids that beginners push across the ice, and a service desk sharpens dull blades. On opening night, New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day a DJ plays on the ice.
A 2,000 m² trampoline park with a large foam pit, sports trampolines, acrobatic tracks, an air track, trampolines with basketball hoops for dunking, a dodgeball arena and a gladiator zone. The 4.26 m Super Quad trampoline gives the highest bounces.
Trainers on the floor help kids learn flips safely, and there are changing rooms with showers, free lockers and a snack bar.
Loopy's World is a 3,000 m2 indoor play center built around a multi-level structure of mazes, tunnels and an obstacle course. Kids can try seven slides, including a steep adrenaline slide, a spiral slide and a four-lane family slide, plus five trampolines, a mini climbing wall, air cannons, a Ninja Park, a Spider Tower and a climbing tower.
Two toddler zones are set aside for 1 to 3-year-olds.
Gdańsk Zoo covers 124 hectares in Oliwa, with nearly 900 animals from 144 species, including elephants, giraffes, lions, cheetahs, orangutans and red pandas. Keepers feed the African penguins and gray seals in front of visitors most days.
At the Children's Zoo, kids pet and feed goats, rabbits and alpacas. The ZOOlandia rope park inside the grounds has 15 tree obstacles and a 26-meter zip line.
Łysa Góra is a forested hill in Sopot, one of the town's best-known viewpoints, that turns into a ski slope in winter. The single 286m run drops 39m and is served by a drag lift, with snowmaking and floodlights for evening skiing.
At the base there is ski rental, a storage room and the Klakier restaurant for hot drinks and meals.
Miejski Teatr Miniatura is the Tricity's only puppet theater for children and teenagers, running for nearly 80 years. The program starts with shows made for babies and runs up to plays for teens, mixing classic children's books with new Polish and international stories.
Productions play on a main stage, a smaller chamber stage and a rehearsal room, and some performances come with audio description.
