Frankfurt with Kids in the Rain: Pools, Play & Indoor Fun

The sky over Frankfurt hangs grey and low, raindrops are running down the window, and the children are already circling the hotel room in a grumble? I know the feeling — and I can reassure you: a rainy day is not a lost day in this city. Frankfurt is remarkably well set up for wet weather with children, and by that I mean far more than its museums. I’m deliberately saving the famous houses on the Museumsufer for a piece of their own; here I want to talk about the other kind of programme, the one children usually actually want when it’s raining: water, movement, romping about and animals in the dry. In other words, all the places where the little ones can properly let off steam without anyone shushing them.

Into the warm: Frankfurt’s leisure pools

If everything’s wet outside anyway, why not get thoroughly wet under a roof at a water temperature of 30 degrees? A leisure pool is my first instinct the moment the rain makes the children restless. They wear themselves out, come away tired and content, and the parents even snatch a few minutes’ peace in the whirlpool.

My first suggestion is the Titus Thermen in the Nordwestzentrum (Walter-Möller-Platz 2, 60439 Frankfurt). The baths combine a 25-metre sports pool with an adventure pool complete with a current channel, massage jets and a water organ, plus a slide roughly 50 metres long with a waterfall. For the smallest visitors there is the “Bambini-Welt”, a shallow paddling pool at a comfortable 32 degrees dotted with animal figures. It’s open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. and from 10 a.m. at weekends — a pool that still works even when half the day is gone. Adults pay €5.50 to swim (1.5 hours) or €7.00 (3 hours) on weekdays, a little more at weekends; children up to and including 14 swim free, and the family ticket starts at €13.00 (as of 2026). Very handy for families without a car: the U-Bahn (U1 or U9) takes you straight to Nordwestzentrum station, and the pool is in the same complex as the shopping centre.

Brand new, and therefore still something of an insider tip, is the Main Bad Bornheim (Am Bornheimer Hang 2, 60386 Frankfurt), which opened in 2025 and replaces the ageing Panoramabad. Its centrepiece is a 25-metre pool with a movable floor that changes the water depth as needed, plus a diving area with a 1-metre board and a 3-metre platform. Far more exciting for children, though, are the two slides — including a tube slide around 74 metres long — and the water playground with spray nozzles, a “water tree” and a tipping bucket that empties itself at irregular intervals with a loud whoosh over shrieking children. Admission follows the same tariff as the Titus Thermen, and here too children up to 14 swim free of charge.

One note that will spare you a disappointed afternoon: the Rebstockbad, with its legendary wave pool and long tube slides that many Frankfurters remember from their own childhood, is currently closed for a complete rebuild. As things stand it isn’t due to reopen until 2027. So if you read about it in an older guidebook, don’t plan around it for now — head for the Titus Thermen or the Main Bad instead.

Romping under a roof: the indoor playground

Some children don’t want the water; they simply want to climb, jump and run until the batteries are flat. For them there’s Frankfurt’s largest indoor playground, Tolliwood Kinder-Abenteuerland (Victor-Slotosch-Straße 18, 60388 Frankfurt) in the east of the city. Across some 2,500 square metres you’ll find climbing frames, a big trampoline, bouncy castles, slides and a separate area for the very youngest, so crawlers aren’t lost among the bigger ones. Admission is charged per child and graded by age; accompanying adults pay a small supplement. A tip from experience: don’t forget non-slip grip socks — almost every German indoor play hall requires them, and otherwise you’ll end up buying a pair on the spot at a premium. For a washed-out morning, or as a plan for a birthday party, a hall like this is worth its weight in gold: the children are in constant motion, and there’s coffee and a seat with a view of the mayhem for the grown-ups.

Reaching high: climbing and bouldering indoors

For older children and teenagers after a bit more of a challenge, a climbing hall makes a wonderful rainy-day idea — and, incidentally, a proper sport rather than mere entertainment. The DAV Kletterzentrum Frankfurt (Homburger Landstraße 283, 60433 Frankfurt) in the north of the city is one of the region’s big centres. You can climb tall roped routes as well as in the bouldering area, where you climb without a rope at jump-off height over thick mats. It’s open daily, usually from 9.30 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. (Wednesdays only from 1 p.m.). Important for families: complete beginners aren’t thrown in at the deep end — there are taster sessions, children’s courses and birthday parties, and you can hire the kit you need, such as a harness and climbing shoes, on site. For sporty children from about six upwards, it’s a rainy day they’ll still be talking about weeks later.

Onto the ice, whatever the sky is doing

A classic that hardly anyone thinks of when it rains: ice skating. The Eissporthalle Frankfurt (Am Bornheimer Hang 4, 60386 Frankfurt) is a covered rink with an ice surface of more than 9,000 square metres and, unlike the outdoor pools, runs for a large part of the year. The public skating sessions are most reliable in the colder months; because the times for public skating rotate with training and match fixtures, it’s worth checking the current schedule before you set off. You can hire skates if you haven’t brought your own — the usual situation for a family on the road. A nice bonus of the location: the ice rink sits right next to the Main Bad Bornheim, so on a grey weekend you can conveniently combine swimming and skating in one spot.

Animals and the tropics, kept dry

A downpour doesn’t mean the zoo or the botanical garden are off the table — you just need to know where to take shelter.

The Frankfurt Zoo (Bernhard-Grzimek-Allee 1, 60316 Frankfurt) has several large animal houses that come into their own in bad weather. My favourite is the Grzimek-Haus, a house for nocturnal animals with reversed day-and-night lighting: while it’s bright outside, bats and small monkeys flit through the branches in the dimmed light within. In the Exotarium you move from the aquariums on the ground floor up to reptiles and amphibians on the upper floor, and in the Borgori-Wald only a pane of glass separates you, in the tropical warmth, from gorillas and orangutans. One detail many people miss: the animal houses close 30 minutes before the zoo, so on a rainy day don’t leave the indoor houses until the very end. I’ve gathered all the prices, opening hours and further highlights in my full piece on the Frankfurt Zoo.

The Palmengarten (Siesmayerstraße 61, 60323 Frankfurt) works in much the same way: while the rain drums on the paths outside, you stroll through steaming rainforest and dry desert zones in the Palm House and the Tropicarium, and the Subantarctic House holds a cool, misty landscape. For children the shift in climate from room to room is a small adventure, and children and young people under 18 get in free anyway. There’s more on this in my article on the Palmengarten Frankfurt.

And when only distraction will do

If the puff for sport and water has run out, there are quieter fallbacks. Bowling is still a hit with older children and teenagers and a good target for a late, rainy afternoon — you’ll find bowling centres mostly out towards the edges of the city and in leisure complexes. And of course, on a rainy day the museums are the classic choice, especially Frankfurt’s many hands-on houses for children: which ones suit which age, from the Senckenberg with its dinosaurs to the Struwwelpeter Museum, is something I’ve set out in my overview of museums for children in Frankfurt.

How to save the rainy day

A few things have proved themselves for us over the years. Take on just one big destination per day — a leisure pool at leisure beats three fixtures at a gallop, because children fill up on impressions quickly. Travel by U-Bahn or S-Bahn: you gladly skip hunting for parking in the rain, and the train delivers you dry almost to the door. Pack a change of clothes — even the walk from the stop to the entrance is enough to get soaked — and build in fixed breaks with a snack, which in my experience saves the mood. If you plan cleverly, combine swimming and skating at the Bornheimer Hang, or put the pool visit in the morning while it’s still quieter.

And if you’re already planning family outings, you’ll find more ideas for the days when the sun does break through in my piece on family day trips around Frankfurt.

In the end it barely matters in Frankfurt what the weather does: between warm adventure pools, a climbing hall, the ice, tropical animal houses and an indoor playground, there’s something for every child and every mood. Get the children into their rain jackets, settle on one destination — and the grey day may well turn out to be the one your family remembers most fondly.