Dundee Waterfront – Science, Lunch and Design
A day.
The route
Dundee's waterfront makes a whole family day of a wet one, with two of the city's best indoor places a short, flat walk apart.
Dundee Science Centre is hands-on from end to end, V&A Dundee's design galleries are free, and lunch in between is at the museum's family-friendly café, with the Tay filling the windows. Both are step-free, so it's an easy day with a baby in a buggy as well as with older children.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The nearest of ours is Airdit, 6 miles away. Sleeps 2; next free Sun 25 Oct to Tue 27 Oct.
Book a timed ticket for Dundee Science Centre online before going, for the 10am session: it's open every day 10am to 4pm, each ticket gives two and a half hours on the exhibition floor, and the latest suggested entry is 1.30pm.
The day
Dundee
Science in the morning, while the children have the most energy, then lunch by the river and a gentler afternoon among the design galleries.
About five and a half hours
Dundee Science Centre
Park in one of the two council pay-and-display car parks beside Dundee Science Centre on Greenmarket, charged at city-centre rates, and leave the car there for the day. The centre is open every day from 10am to 4pm, and entry is by timed ticket, best booked online, with two and a half hours on the exhibition floor, so the 10am session leaves the afternoon free. The exhibitions are hands-on from end to end, with things to try, test and play with, and there's a Sensory Zone and a Sensory Garden. Children under 16 must be with a paying adult, and ticket prices are on the booking page. It's a level-access building, with a lift between the ground and first floors and a Changing Places toilet. Pets aren't allowed, though registered assistance dogs are. Over Christmas and New Year, check before going.
About 8 min on foot
Tatha Bar & Kitchen
Lunch
Lunch is at Tatha Bar & Kitchen inside V&A Dundee, about eight minutes' walk east. It serves homemade soups, salads, deli rolls and hot specials, with a children's menu, highchairs, bottle warming on request and free design activity sheets, and it holds the Kids in Museums Family Café Standard. It's open every day from 10am to 5pm, and only afternoon tea needs booking. It's step-free with space for buggies, with baby changing and a buggy park beside the café. If it's full, 77º South, the café in Discovery Point next door, does light lunches and cakes.
V&A Dundee
An attraction
After lunch, take the lift up to the free Scottish Design Galleries on Level 2, about 300 objects from fashion and furniture to video game design, with Charles Rennie Mackintosh's Oak Room rebuilt inside. The bigger exhibitions are ticketed. V&A Dundee is free and open every day from 10am to 5pm. The building is step-free, with an unattended buggy park on the ground floor, baby changing on Levels 0 and 2, and breastfeeding welcome anywhere. One lift is being repaired, and while it is, Level 1 and its Changing Places toilet can only be reached by stairs. Only assistance dogs are allowed. The car is about eight minutes' walk back at the Science Centre.
If it rains
All of it is indoors except the eight-minute walk between the two.
Photograph by Tim Ngwena via Google