Vienna With Kids & Family-friendly Museums, Camps, and Carnivals

If you are thinking about visiting Vienna with kids, here are some recommendations to make the experience as pleasurable and at the same time educational for everyone.

Things to Do in Vienna With Kids

Vienna may be usually associated with the opera, waltz, and high-brow cultural entertainment. But the city also offers numerous fun activities for the whole family.

Vienna is an international city that warmly welcomes kids of all ages all year round. Various festivals and attractions are in place around the Austrian capital where families can bring along their kids. 

Vienna with Kids – Creative Activities in Museums

Vienna has museums for children of all ages, and kids will find that exploring museums can be an enjoyable activity after all.

Vienna Museums are available to accommodate small children and offer creative activities for them. 

Some of these museums have kid-friendly attractions where children, regardless of their native language, can learn a lot of things.  

Visit ZOOM Children’s Museum in Vienna with Kids

There’s the ZOOM Kindermuseum at Museumsquartier where kids can enjoy interactive exhibitions on art, science and general lifestyle.

The ZOOM is the only museum in Austria dedicated to children up to 14 years of age. The museum’s objective is to make information on culture and science easily understood by kids through games and play as well as through sensory cognitive processes. 

The ZOOM Ocean gives toddlers and preschoolers a hands-on experience while the Atelier area gives them an opportunity to work with real artists and learn how to use new materials and techniques.

It features an exhibition divided into four segments:

• the main exhibit
• ocean
• studio
• animated film center

Kids who visit the museum are encouraged to ask questions and create things they love. The Animation studio will let them experience working in teams to create animated films and sounds.

It’s a multimedia laboratory where kids and even young adults can take the roles of editors, camera operators, scriptwriters, photographers and sound engineers for a few hours. 

For teenagers, they can make their own animated films or even record their own pop songs. All young visitors can enter the museum free of charge. 

Go see Technical Museum in Vienna with Kids

The Technisches Museum Wien or Technical Museum is a playground for the techies or technology geeks where they can explore gadgets and robots.

At this place, people can experience the different stages of scientific and technological progress from the time it was conceptualized up to its latest development. Permanent exhibits are also among the features of the museum.

They cover:

• the development of the heavy equipment industry
• energy production
• transportation
• communication
• musical instruments
• computers

For children, the Technical Museum has special programs.

For kids these include:

• interactive learning
• holiday games
• birthday parties with their friends

The Space Curl and the Docking Station are some of the interactive sections where kids can use their astronaut skills to test and explore the surface of Mars. 

Go to see Schloss Schonbrunn in Vienna with Kids

At this children’s museum located in the Schonbrunn Palace complex, kids can dress up as a prince or princess at the end of their visit and have their photos taken.

Other attractions here awaiting the young ones are:

• the Magic Flute of Mozart
• Hansel and Gretel
• Aladdin and the Magic Lamp
• Die Fledermaus

The Schloss Schonbrunn has a special guided tour for children as well as a section where kids can actually don royal costumes.

In fact, one exciting activity that kids can experience in the museum is being able to wear costumes of the royalty. Then if you have a daughter who loves to dance, you can let her take part in lessons for quadrille dancing. 

Natural History Museum Vienna

This is where kids can have a chance to be transformed into prehistoric humans particularly at the morphing station.

They can see how they’d look in ancient times and then they can email this to their friends.

Here the family can spend a whole day exploring the vast collection of artifacts and animal fossils such as the world-famous “Dippy.”

Wien Museum

The Vienna Museum offers play and educational activities for kids two to six years old during wintertime.

Other areas where they can explore are the House of Music, the virtual conductor that provides children with an opportunity to lead the Vienna Philharmonic and the waltz dice game.

The Namadeus name game, on the other hand, allows names to be made into original Mozart pieces.

Musical Fun in Vienna With Kids

Vienna is one city where families can enjoy a memorable and culturally-enriching experience. For parents who want to expose their kids to music and other forms of art, there are various activities they can do around the city. 

Volksoper

At Volksoper, children can learn about the musical theater. Here, they will be educated about the different types of performing arts from the opera and operetta to concerts, classical musicals and contemporary dance. 

Volksoper Wien offers children’s workshops that give them an opportunity to interact with the artists themselves. There are also children’s productions and puzzles to be solved and those who succeed get to win a special surprise. 

MuTh

The concert hall of the Vienna Boys’ Choir in the Augarten offers a classical program. The program features world and pop music as well as children’s opera. For every season, the Boys’ Choir performs a third of the MuTh program. 

Vienna Musikverein 

A project series for kids aged between three and 19 is being offered at the Vienna Musikverein. Here, kids are encouraged to sing and dance along and are given the opportunity to interact with leading conductors and soloists. A special program for kids is also available at the Wiener Konzerthaus. Sing-alongs are among those featured.  

Marionette Theater 

Special performances for the whole family in an imperial setting can be experienced at the Marionette Theater all year round. Located at Schonbrunn Palace, the place marionettes combined with modern technology. Some of the well known performances here are Aladdin, The Children’s Magic Flute and the Children’s Fledermaus.    

House of Music 

Kids eager to have a hands-on experience should visit the House of Music. At this place, young visitors can virtually conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, experiment with music via the computer, use the drums and even record their own CD. 

Summer Camps for Kids in Vienna

Summer means the children are off from school and have a lot of free time to do what they want. But for parents, this means finding ways to keep their kids entertained and immersed in activities that will enhance their talents and skills. For many, summertime is synonymous with sending children to camps that provide an enriching experience. 

Vienna is not new to this. Each year, it offers camps and programs that provide leisure and cultural activities, excursions and language lessons. Some are exclusive for teens while others have specific age brackets for kids. There are also groups that accommodate kids of all ages. These camps are normally supervised by bilingual staff and include meals, insurance, emergency support as well as airport transfer.

Types of Children-friendly Camps In Vienna

Depending on what skill or talent you want your child to focus on, there are varied types of camps that you can choose from. They range from the musical to the arts and sports.

Registration is required to keep track of the number of kids for security purposes.  A certain fee will also be charged considering that the children will stay at the campsite for several days with free meals and accommodation.

German camps 

This type of summer camp enables children to enhance their knowledge of the German language. International students are also involved in giving them the opportunity to make friends with people from other Austria and other parts of Europe as well as from Asia and the Americas. The German camp can also include fun activities 

English camps

This can be incorporated with the German camp and ideal for students wanting to learn more about the English language.

Some organizations provide fun activities to young participants such as mountain biking, sailing, water-skiing, trekking and wind surfing. These activities are possible especially when the camp site is near a lake or beach.

Music lessons 

This is ideal for kids who are eager to learn to play a musical instrument. It can be on playing the violin, piano, the drums, saxophone and many others.

Sports camps

This kind of summer camp is best for kids who love to engage in the sports activities. It can be on swimming, basketball, football, gymnastics, and many others.

What’s important when you send your kid to summer camp is you are assured of their safety and nutrition while they’re away from home. Let them experience this if possible to develop not only their talents but their sense of independence as well.

Animals and Kids’ Carnival

In Vienna, carnivals don’t just involve people. Animals are also part of the Fasching season. They are highlighted in a carnival together with kids at the Schonbrunn Zoo. Visiting carnivals is one of the best things to do in Vienna with kids.

Each year, the popular zoo in Vienna invites kids for its own carnival. The kids enter for free but they have to come in costumes of their favorite animals. Through the years, the zoo director has been greatly satisfied seeing parents becoming very creative in coming up with animal costumes for their children. 

The main event of this carnival is the parade of kids around the zoo and the announcement of the winner for the best costume afterward. The zoo management prepares exciting activities for the kids for this zoo carnival.

Face painting is done at the elephant park and there are also workshops that teach children to create their own animal masks. For their snacks, the zoo serves the Faschingskrapfen, a popular carnival dessert and the kinderpunsch for the drinks.

The Schonbrunn Zoo – The World’s Oldest Zoo

The Schonbrunn Zoo is actually the Vienna Zoo but is often referred to as such because it is located on the grounds of the Schonbrunn Palace. Established in 1752, it is the world’s oldest zoo and is the center for species and general nature conservation.

It is home to some of the giant pandas (Yang Yang, Long Hui, Fu Long, and Fu Hu) and the place where the first elephant in captivity gave birth in 1906. The zoo have its very own gondola on a cable car with an animal theme.

The gondola was provided by the ski resort of Zauberberg on Semmering and transports kids to the Hirschenkogel Mountain in a matter of seven minutes.

Opening Hours The Schonbrunn Zoo

The month of the year	Opening and closing time
January	9 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
February	9 a.m.–5 p.m.
March	9 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
April–September	9 a.m.–6:30 p.m.
October	9 a.m.–5:30 p.m.
November–December	9 a.m.–4:30 p.m.

The Schonbrunn Zoo Tickets

Ticket category	Price
Adults	€ 21,50
Children and adolescents	€ 11
Disabled persons	€ 11
Children under 6 years	free

Source The Schonbrunn Zoo.

More Interesting Places to Visit in Vienna Austria With Kids

Over at Egeskov Castle, there is the Titania’s Palace which is an elaborate doll house constructed over 15 years by skilled craftsmen.

Kids will certainly enjoy the sweet treats that Vienna is famous the world over. For scrumptious cakes and pastries, locals go to Demel’s where children can even watch the master bakers at work.

Zanoni’s, on the other hand, is known for its large selection of delicious ice cream flavors. And the best part is that Vienna is literally dotted with coffeehouses you can just stop at one when you and your kids get a craving for hot chocolate topped with whipped cream.

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