We are a family of five with 13, 10 and 6-year-old children who were looking for a last minute family vacay. I’m talking really last minute as in “Where are we going this weekend?” last minute. On the Tuesday of Spring Break we booked a hotel in Houston and off we went on the Thursday. It was a great weekend that I thought that many Austin (or Dallas/Waco/San Antonio) families might also enjoy with their own tweaks to suit their family.
The Drive.
It’s about a three-hour easy drive from Austin. This drive is easier if you:
- Practice patience. Holy cow I forgot how much traffic Houston has compared to Austin. That brings me to . . .
- Remember that you can use the HOV lane when your family is in tow.
- Keep your favorite map app locked, loaded and ready. Love me some Waze.
Where to Stay.
With a family of five, hotel stays can be tricky as family rooms can be hard to find. Fortunately, there were plenty of hotel suite options within the museum/medical district (even at the last minute on Spring Break plus Rodeo weekend). This proved to be an ideal location. This area felt safe, clean and had easy to access the amazing Hermann Park along with many of the museums and the zoo. Our hotel offered a free shuttle within 3 miles, which included the museums. We used the shuttle once, but walked the rest of the time. My kids became used to the 25 minute walks to/from the hotel and museums pretty quickly. (Top tip: If you pass the outdoor amphitheater, Steel City Pops has a stand that offers up unique flavors that magically make the walk shorter.)
Where to Eat.
I did not see a convenience store or grocery store nearby, and the only “restaurant” near our hotel was Burger King. If I were to do it again I would have packed at least breakfast options. I’m sure that there are more organized readers out there that would also bring food to pack a picnic or have a dinner in the suite. We are a bit more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-pants crew and used our TripAdvisor app to land at a couple of cool, casual, kid-friendly, pescatarian-friendly restaurants. I’ll mention them below.
What to do.
Houston has A LOT to offer. After doing a little research, I realized that the majority of sites that we wanted to see was covered in the City Pass. For $4 more than the cost of going to NASA Space Center Houston and the Houston Science Museum combined, we also had access to three other sites (Houston Aquarium, Houston Zoo & Houston Children’s Museum). We used all of the passes in the weekend and the City Pass proved to indeed be the 48% savings as they claim. Plus, we were able to skip lines at a couple of the sites.
Thursday.
We left for Houston around 10am and were able to check into our hotel and head to a museum. Many of the museums have free entry on Thursdays so it was crazy busy in museum-ville. We were meeting friends for dinner so we chose to go to one of the smaller museums, The Health Museum. That worked out well because The Health Museum was not included on the City Pass so we were able to hop in there for a couple of hours for free. If you have a child (or partner) who gets over-stimulated easily, you might want to just spend Thursday playing in the park. It was an interesting hands-on museum, but VERY busy and all on one floor. From the traffic we had gto getthere on the shuttle, I’m guessing that Free Thursdays in the Museum District leads to busy museums across the board. Or, it might just be that way on Spring Break. Not sure.
That evening we met friends who live in Katy for dinner at Bellagreen in the City Centre. This was a kid-friendly relaxed atmosphere with great food including vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free and gluten-free options. There is an open space where the kids had a great game of freeze tag going followed up by obligatory cupcakes. If you have friends living in the Houston ‘burbs that you want to catch up with, I would highly recommend this meet-up location.
Great Day #1 Done.
Friday.
Hubs and I worked out before we set out on our family adventures for the day. (Joggers: Hermann Park has enjoyable tree-tunnels trails with soft, crushed stone paths so pack your running kit.) We then made our way to NASA Space Center Houston.
If this is your first site on the City Pass, go inside the building to a customer service desk to the right where they give you your City Pass booklets. After that, you get to blast right in. (See how I did that?)
This inspiring place takes a good portion of the day. Walking on a Space Shuttle replica is one highlight as is seeing Mission Control. By the time we got there at midday, the line for the train that takes you inside Mission Control was 2 hours long. Since this was our second visit to NASA Space Center, we opted to do the 20 minute line for the train that took us around the same sites minus going inside Mission Control.
In short, there is A LOT to see, and the drive out to NASA Space Center is definitely worth it. If you don’t want to experience long lines but see all the sites, I suggest that you arrive early.
You also have the option to go to nearby Kemah Boardwalk if you want to take in Gulf Coast air, walk along the boardwalk, play some games and have dinner. The City Pass provides you with the option of using one of your passes for either an all-day Kemah rides pass or the Children’s Museum. We opted to use our pass for The Children’s Museum on another day (as described below) and headed back to visit the Downtown Aquarium.
Inside the Aquarium was plenty of – you guessed it – marine life. The Aquarium was well-done and doable in about 1.5 – 2 hours. (Top Tip: Just outside of the Aquarium is a Fun Zone with games, a few rides and a splash pad. So, pack a towel and a change of clothes, if this is your kids’ jam.)
After the Aquarium visit Trip Advisor led us to a fantastic pizza-by-the-slice type place called Franks. This was an easy 8-minute walk from the Aquarium. There are a lot of restaurants in that area, but I would go back to Franks again and again for an easy dinner. They also had salads, pasta and grilled cheese. If you decide to eat here, look up to the left to see a pool overhanging from the top floor of a big condo building. My daughter said that she’d seen it before on a Best Pools in the World list!
Day 2 was another success. BAM!
Saturday.
Thanks to a school math project, my 13-year-old had been looking at colleges that specialize in a profession of her interest. This led us to morning walk through Rice University filled with plenty of pics by the amazing azaleas lining the campus (family pic at bottom).
We then meandered our way from Rice to The Houston Museum of Natural Science. At the Museum, we also purchased the top ups for the Planetarium and The Butterfly Center. If you are going to choose just one top up, the Plantetarium is pretty cool, but The Butterfly Center was a better value and bigger hit with the family. We were in there for about an hour and the kids loved it. My teenager enjoyed “getting artsy” with her camera, while my 10 year old tried to find all the butterflies on the list and my 6 year old just took it all in with a big smile and giggle.
The museum itself had everything that you expect out of a science museum presented in an impressive manner: T-rex, fossils, animals of Texas, shells, bugs, plants, space, energy, as well as a few exhibits that my kids were too hungry to muscle through. While my husband and I found the mummy exhibit interesting, my kids found it a bit spooky and said that they would never want to do night duty there. Ha!
Afterwards, we took a 15-minute walk through Hermann Park to get to the Houston Zoo. Because it was around 5pm, we were able to buzz into the Zoo with relative ease, minimal crowds and at a comfortable temperature. I can imagine that it can be one hot, crowded place so this arrival time felt like a huge bonus. (FYI: Last entry is at 6pm, closes at 7pm).
I’m not a huge lover of seeing animals in cages so that was plenty of time in the zoo for me. However, I have to say that it was one of the nicest zoos that I have been to, they are adding even more exhibits, and the elephants were particularly impressive.
As I’ve mentioned, there aren’t a load of restaurants in this area so we used Trip Advisor again, which led us to Bodegas Tacos. We were pretty darn hungry, but I’m confident that this was good food and quick service helped avoid family hangry issues.
And, to close the night, we strolled back to the hotel via Hermann Park once again. The sound of a jazz band playing in the outdoor amphitheater and the kids’ temptation to roll down the huge hill with luscious grass lured us over to a later than usual close to the night. I believe that the memory was worth it and a lovely way to finish yet another day.
Sunday.
To close out the trip and see one last sight before returning to Austin, we headed to The Children’s Museum. (Top tip: The parking along the side of the street is free on Sundays.) Since the museum opened at noon on Sunday, we parked the car and walked back into Hermann Park, which at this point had become our happy place.
One thing that the kids wanted to do was ride the red train that seemed to be taunting them the entire trip as they trudged along on foot while others rode and waved. As luck would have it, when we entered the park there was a stop right in front of us and here came the train. Choo choo! We rode all around the park and got out at our intended destination, Pinewood Cafe by the Zoo. There we had a delicious breakfast overlooking the pond watching a few early risers pedal boating. We then strolled through the beautiful Japanese Gardens on the way back to The Children’s Museum, which was opening just as we arrived.
All three of my kids LOVED The Children’s Museum. It is ranked one of the best in the nation for good reason. They have a water zone, indoor climbing frames, a harnessed climbing course (BIG HIT), hamster balls, build-your-own craft center, and lots of hands-on science, math and computer lessons. (Top tip: Ask your children to wear closed-toed shoes because they won’t let your 5-15 year old on the climbing course with open-toed shoes.)
In my 13 years of touring various children’s museums in the US and abroad, this was one of the favorites and proved to be a truly a great way to wrap up our long weekend in Houston.
So that was our quick getaway to Houston that my family of five did with minimal planning and preparation and plenty of fun (and inspirational educational opportunities). With a little more planning, you can probably see the giraffes get fed, meet an astronaut and so on. Maybe in my next life I’ll be a bit more organized, but in this one, I just get really happy when the little red train arrives as we walk up to the stop, and I get a big laugh when the tapir poops in the water right in front of us. (He needed more fiber, and my kids still talk about “tapir the tooter.”)
Happy Adventures!
