Antwerp With Kids by Age Group
Antwerp With Kids by Age Group
A trip that works for a two-year-old rarely works for a fourteen-year-old. Antwerp has enough variety to cover both, and several venues change their prices at specific ages, so it helps to plan by how old your children are.
Under 3: slow and mostly free
ZOO Antwerpen costs nothing for under-3s, and its 10 hectares of 19th-century gardens suit pushchairs. The Egyptian Temple of 1856 houses giraffes and elephants, and the Moorish Pavilion has okapis. The zoo is next to Antwerpen-Centraal, so a rainy hour is easy to escape from.
The Sint-Annatunnel is the other toddler winner. Its original 1933 wooden escalators carry you 31 metres down into a 572-metre tiled tunnel under the Scheldt. It is free and open around the clock. On the far side, Linkeroever has riverside lawns and Sint-Annastrand, a sandy play beach.
Ages 3 to 7: animals and a short chocolate trail
From age 3 a zoo ticket costs about €26.50 to €28 (child, 3 to 17) against €32.50 to €34 for adults, and booking online ahead of the day takes €2 off an adult ticket and €1 off a child ticket. See zooantwerpen.be for the day’s price.
Chocolate Nation, across the square from Centraal, runs 60 to 90 minutes and is open daily from 09:30 to 18:30. Children from 4 to 11 pay about €15.50 and adults about €19.90, and the finish is a row of ten chocolate taps. Details at chocolatenation.be .
Ages 8 to 12: sculpture and rooftops
Middelheim Open Air Sculpture Museum is a 30-hectare park south of the centre with some 200 works by Rodin, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder and Ai Weiwei. Entry is free, it is closed on Mondays, and children can run round the large pieces. Check bus connections on delijn.be .
The free MAS rooftop is better for this age than the museum: spiral escalators climb past glass walls to a 360-degree view of the port. It is open Tuesday to Sunday and closed Mondays.
Teenagers: free museums and big views
Under-18s enter KMSKA and the MAS museum for nothing, which turns two expensive museums into easy afternoons. KMSKA still requires a free timed slot. Het Steen, the 800-year-old fortress on the river, has a free rooftop, and the cathedral is free under 18 too.
Getting around with children
De Lijn day tickets are €9 from age 12 and €4.50 for ages 6 to 11, and under-6s travel free. Trams do not cross the Scheldt until about March 2027, so cross on foot through the tunnel or on the free Sint-Anna ferry. Stay alert around Centraal station and De Keyserlei, where pickpockets operate.
Looking for a place to sleep? Compare family hotels on Booking.com . Ticket details for the bigger venues are on the attractions page , a longer plan is in the three-day itinerary , and visit.antwerpen.be lists current events.
Tip: put the tunnel and ferry on the day you visit the zoo, since both start within a short walk of each other on the right bank.