The quick answer: Palma works extremely well for families with children. Palma Aquarium is the headline activity – genuinely impressive for most ages from 3 upwards. The Old Town’s medieval streets, the Cathedral, and the Arab Baths hold children’s attention better than most expect. Can Pere Antoni Beach is 15 minutes on foot from the Old Town centre. The Drach Caves make an excellent day trip for children old enough to appreciate the underground lake concert (roughly 7 and up). This guide covers all the best options by category – indoors, outdoors, beaches, day trips, and practical notes for visiting with young children.
🌿 Insider Tip: The Old Town’s streets are almost entirely paved with old stone – beautiful to look at, genuinely uneven underfoot, and not ideal for lightweight pushchairs. If you’re travelling with a baby or toddler, bring a structured pram or baby carrier rather than a folding stroller. The Parc de la Mar, below the Cathedral wall, has smooth paths and good shade – the best spot in the city centre for a pushchair-friendly rest stop.
Palma de Mallorca has a quiet reputation as a family destination that the beach resorts further up the coast have somehow stolen. This is the island’s most interesting, most walkable, most historically layered city – and most of what makes it good for adults translates directly to children, with a little planning. The streets are safe and mostly car-free within the Old Town. The beaches are close. The food is good. And there is a world-class aquarium 15 minutes away by taxi.
The families who get the most out of Palma are the ones who treat it as a city break first and a beach holiday second – using the mornings for the cultural and active parts of the agenda, and the afternoons for the sea. The full range of things to do in Palma works well for adults; this guide focuses specifically on what works with children in tow.
Palma Aquarium
The single strongest family activity in Palma, and one of the few places in the city that earns genuine enthusiasm from children of all ages. Palma Aquarium holds one of Europe’s deepest shark tanks – a 2.5-million-litre tank, seven metres deep, with a transparent tunnel running through the base. Sharks drift overhead at intervals that produce reliable, delighted terror in children between about 5 and 14. The effect on adults is roughly the same.
Beyond the shark tank, the aquarium has touch pools where children can handle sea creatures, open ray tanks, a Mediterranean rockpool section, tropical and coral reef zones, and outdoor garden areas where rehabilitating sea turtles are kept in viewing tanks. Pram and pushchair access is good throughout. Level access and lifts between floors.
The aquarium is in s’Arenal, about 12 kilometres east of Old Town – a 15-20 minute taxi or a 30-minute bus ride on EMT line 25 from Plaça Espanya. Adult admission is approximately €24.50; children aged 5-12 pay around €16.50; under 4s are free. Allow 2-3 hours. Book tickets online in advance for summer visits to avoid queuing at the entrance.
Staying in Palma with your family?
Casa Roca has suites and residences that work well for families – including 1 and 2-bedroom residences with separate lounges and kitchenettes. The team is experienced with young families and can arrange everything from extra beds to high chairs. Located in the Old Town, 15 minutes from the aquarium and 15 minutes walk from the beach.
Old Town Exploration – What Kids Actually Enjoy
Palma’s Old Town (Casco Histórico) is more engaging for children than most medieval European city centres, for a specific reason: it doesn’t feel like a museum. The streets are used by real people, the squares have good gelato, and the buildings are genuinely strange and interesting rather than simply old.
Specific highlights for children:
La Seu Cathedral
One of the largest Gothic cathedrals in Europe, built over 350 years on the edge of the sea. Children who are interested in scale, construction, or history find it genuinely impressive – the interior is enormous and the Gaudí-designed baldachin above the altar is otherworldly in the right light. Buy tickets in advance online. Allow 60 minutes.
Arab Baths
A 10th-century hammam on Carrer de Can Serra – one of the best-preserved examples of Moorish bathing architecture in Spain. The main hall, with its 12 columns supporting a vaulted ceiling with star-shaped skylights, is quiet, cool, and feels like a genuine discovery. Children who’ve been trailing through standard tourist sights tend to pay attention here in a different way. Admission is minimal; the garden is a peaceful stop.
Plaça Major and the Tunnels
The main square of the Old Town is a large, pedestrian-friendly space surrounded by arcaded buildings. Children can run freely here. Below the square, a series of tunnels and underground passages (formerly used for storage) connect to the streets below – the access points are easy to miss, and discovering them tends to produce the kind of small adventure that children remember. Ask at any nearby café which entrance is currently open.
Beaches Within Reach of Old Town
Palma is not a beach resort – but the beaches it has are good, and they’re closer to the Old Town than most visitors realise.
Can Pere Antoni Beach is the most accessible: a 15-minute walk from the Old Town along the seafront, a long sandy beach with calm water (no surf) that’s ideal for young children. The water is warm from June through September. There are showers, sunloungers to hire, and a good beach bar at the eastern end. On peak July and August days it’s busy but not overwhelmed – arrive by 10am for a good spot.
Portixol is 20 minutes further east – a calmer, slightly more local-feeling beach with a small harbour and good fish restaurants along the front. Better for a slower family lunch afternoon than a day-long beach session. The Palma beach guide covers all options in detail, including the beach clubs to the east that suit families differently depending on children’s ages.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Verified Guest Review
“Traveling with a baby for the first time was a bit daunting, but the team at Casa Roca made it seamless. Gaia and her crew were so kind and proactive, ensuring we had everything we needed without us even asking – highchairs, baby plates and cutlery, a large travel cot and more were waiting for us when we checked in… A truly welcoming, stress-free environment for young families.”
– Florencia S., TripAdvisor, May 2026 | Travelled with family
Boat Trips and Water Activities
Several operators run half-day boat trips from Palma marina that work well for families with children old enough to sit still for a couple of hours. The typical route takes in the rocky coastline south of Palma – sea caves, clear water, and a swimming stop in a cove. Catamaran trips are the steadiest option for children prone to seasickness; the bay is generally calm, but a larger vessel helps.
Kayaking and paddleboarding are available from the Can Pere Antoni Beach area from around age 8 upwards – rentals by the hour, with the option of a guided tour of the small sea caves just east of the beach. Glass-bottom boat tours depart from the Old Town marina and run along the Cathedral seafront, lasting around 45 minutes – good for children who want to see what’s underneath the water without getting in it.
For older children (10+), the Palma marina sailing school offers introductory sessions in summer. Casa Roca’s island adventures programme can also arrange private boat days with skipper for families who want a more tailored experience on the water.
Ice Cream, Cafes and Food Children Love
Palma’s Old Town has a good density of gelato shops, pastry cafés, and family-friendly lunch spots. A few specifics:
Ensaimada – the island’s signature pastry, a spiral of enriched dough dusted with icing sugar, available warm from most Old Town bakeries from around 8am. Children eat it immediately and ask for a second one. The best are from the traditional pastry shops on and around Plaça Major.
Mercat de l’Olivar – the main covered market is excellent for a family lunch that doesn’t require everyone to agree on a single restaurant. Each family member can eat what they actually want from different stalls – fresh fish, market salads, sobrassada sandwiches, empanadas. The market closes around 2pm, so arrive by 1pm for the widest selection.
Plaça Major cafés – the outdoor tables around the main square are reliably good for a mid-morning break or early lunch. The food is tourist-facing and slightly overpriced, but the location is ideal for a rest point with children, and the square itself gives them room to move around without worrying about traffic.
Parks and Open Space
The Old Town is dense, and children need space to decompress. The best options nearby:
Parc de la Mar – the large seafront park directly below the Cathedral walls, with a long reflecting pool, paved paths, and benches in the shade. Not a traditional park with play equipment, but an excellent space for children to run freely while adults rest. The view of the Cathedral from here is also the best in the city.
Parc de la Quarantena – a smaller, quieter park slightly further into the Old Town with a few benches and shade trees. Less visited than Parc de la Mar and correspondingly calmer.
Can Pere Antoni Beach promenade – the seafront path between Old Town and Can Pere Antoni is good for cycling (bike rental near the seafront) or simply walking with children who need more distance than the Old Town lanes allow. Flat, traffic-free, and sea-facing the whole way.
Drach Caves Day Trip
Mallorca’s most-visited attraction and genuinely one of the best day trips from Palma for families with children roughly aged 7 and above. The Drach Caves near Porto Cristo contain four connected underground chambers leading to Lake Martel – one of the world’s largest underground lakes. The tour ends with a classical music concert performed on illuminated boats on the lake, which children find extraordinary and slightly unreal in a way that leaves an impression.
The caves are 62 kilometres from Palma (about an hour’s drive). By car is easiest for families; tours from Palma are also available and handle transport. The caves operate timed entry, with tours departing roughly every hour from 10am. The interior is cool year-round – bring a light layer for children even in summer. Under 4s should consider whether the 45-minute walk through cave chambers (with some low ceilings and uneven paths) is appropriate; it’s manageable but not the simplest experience for very small children.
Casa Roca for Families
Casa Roca’s 1 and 2-bedroom residences are the most practical option for families – each has a separate lounge, giving parents and children different spaces in the evening. The residences are spacious (from 55 square metres) and include kitchenettes for preparing simple meals or snacks, which matters considerably when travelling with young children.
The team can arrange travel cots, highchairs, baby plates, and other equipment before arrival – just let them know in advance what you need. Review 1 above describes exactly this experience. The hotel is centrally located in the Old Town, with everything on this guide within 15-20 minutes on foot or a short taxi.
Capitulo, the ground-floor café-wine bar, serves breakfast from 08:30 and is a comfortable, unhurried place to start a family day without the pressure of a hotel dining room. Children are genuinely welcome here – there is no sense of the place being primarily designed for adults who want to ignore the existence of anyone under 12.
Book a family stay at Casa Roca
The Old Town is where Palma makes sense for families – everything walkable, everything interesting, nothing more than a short taxi from the beach or the aquarium. Casa Roca’s 1 and 2-bedroom residences have the space a family actually needs. Our team looks after children the same way they look after everyone: properly, with attention, and without making a fuss about it.
