Fun & Inexpensive Things to Do with Kids in St. Louis {Our Vacation}

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Hey Friends!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! If you follow along on Facebook, then you know that I started working on the boys’ playroom this weekend! I’m super excited about this room & finally having a place to store & hopefully organize all the toys in this house! I hope to finish up with the painting this week & if all goes as planned, I will share some details with you all next week!

If you watched my “Stop & Smell The Roses” vlog a couple weeks back, you know that we recently took the boys to St. Louis for a little impromptu family vacation. The hubby & I had plans to go on an “adult only” vacation to Boston, MA, but unfortunately our trip was cancelled very last minute! 🙁 Even though we were pretty bummed about the situation, we decided to press forward & take advantage of the time we had scheduled off of work. We hadn’t taken any vacations this summer & since we still had a couple weeks before school was starting, we decided to take the boys & make the short drive to St. Louis, MO for a few days & take advantage of the fun things the city has to offer! I thought I would recap our trip today & share some fun & inexpensive things you can do in St. Louis should you ever vacation there with your family!

Fun & Inexpensive Things to do with Kids in St. Louis, MO

This trip was super spontaneous for us, which was a little out of my comfort zone, but kind of fun too. And when I say “spontaneous” I mean…we didn’t even know we were going to St. Louis when we woke up the morning of our trip!  It was just something that we decided to do while drinking our morning coffee. We had already booked a hotel room through Priceline because we were supposed to be flying out of the St. Louis airport (for our Boston trip) and because we had used Priceline, we had already paid for the room. We really didn’t want to let it go to waste, so we decided why not just go up for the night and do something fun in the city the next day. We packed some extra clothes in case we decided to stay longer.

So, we made the drive to the city & checked into our hotel room. It was around 5:00pm when we got there & most of the places we had talked about visiting were already closed for the day so we decided to just grab some dinner & then took the boys to see “Despicable Me 2.”   After the movie, we went back to the hotel, the boys crashed for the night & the hubby & I started researching things we could do with the boys the next day.

The first place we went was the St. Louis Science Center.  

St. Louis Vacation 17

Admission to the Science Center is completely free. The only thing you have to pay for is parking. There are lots of things to do & see within the Science Center. The boys had fun exploring & checking out all of the exhibits. The dinosaur exhibit was by far their favorite! Inside the Science Center, there is also an Omnimax Theater. If you want to spend a little extra money, you can check out some really cool shows! You can also search online for ticket discounts and/or coupons. I think you can even find coupons to cut down on the parking costs.

 

The next place we hit up was The City Museum. This place was absolutely AWESOME!!

City Museum

The City Museum is basically an indoor/outdoor, gigantic, suped up McDonald’s playland! Seriously, if your kiddos like playing in the playland at McDonald’s, this place will be their dream come true! The museum is housed in the 600, 000 square foot former International Shoe Company. All of the mazes, tunnels, & playground equipment are made out of unique, found items from the city. There are two old airplanes, an old fire truck, salvaged bridges, construction cranes, & old chimney woven into the magnificent playland. The place is really a work of art!

Just a few things you need to know…. 

1.) This place is crawling with kiddos! We went on a weekday & it was totally packed! You can lose a child in a second! They will give your child an armband. Be sure to put your contact information on the arm band if you get separated from your child!

2.) Because it is so easy to lose a kiddo, you are probably gonna want to keep them within your site at all times. Therefore, you are gonna be climbing ladders, crawling through tunnels, etc. Be sure to dress comfortably & wear tennis shoes!

Admission to The City Museum is $12.00 per person. Griffin was free admission because at that time he was still 2 years old. Even though admission is a little pricey, you can make an entire day out of The City Museum & in my opinion the experience was worth every single penny! We will definitely be going back!

 

The hotel we stayed in the second night of our stay was in downtown St. Louis. We were able to get our room for just $55/night thanks to  some “end of summer” deals that Priceline had going on. The only problem with our hotel was that they didn’t have a pool and we may or may not have been telling Parker all day that he could go swimming when we got back to the hotel that night. Whoops! Luckily, we were able to find a splash pad downtown at the City Garden.

City Garden

After spending the afternoon at City Museum, we went out for dinner & then headed to the City Garden to let the boys finish out the day. It was the perfect way to end our evening. The boys had a blast playing in the water & they even had a small kiddie pool that they were able to play in as well. Griffin hadn’t had a nap & was getting a little tired as you can see in some of these photos. He wasn’t exactly in the perfect mood if ya know what I mean!

I love this picture I snapped of Griffin running through the splash pad at sunset.  Their were tons of kids playing there that night, but somehow I was able to capture this sweet moment of him running by himself. The background with the trees & old buildings, not to mention the gorgeous lighting was just picture perfect.

City Garden

I also snapped this shot of the arch while the boys were playing. The City Garden is really a beautiful place to visit if you are ever in downtown St. Louis. The gardens are lush & well maintained and all of the water activities for the kids are absolutely free!

City Garden

 

On the second day of our trip, we made the trip to Maryland Heights, MO (about 20 minutes outside of the city) and went to a little place called Aquaport.  Being that my kids have spent a ton of time on the lake & at Grandma & Grandpa’s pool this summer, they have turned into total waterbugs! Even though we satisfied Parker’s desire to swim by going to City Garden, he still wanted to swim more the next day. So, we thought a waterpark would be the perfect solution!

Aquaport

Aquaport is a small, but fun waterpark. They have a large swimming pool, lazy river, & lots of water slides! They also have separate area & slides for toddler age kids, like Griffin. The weather was absolutely PERFECT the day that we went & we ALL had a blast! Bobby & I even relived our childhood years & went down all of the water slides with Parker. It was so much fun! I snapped a few pictures while we were there, but didn’t get to use my camera as much as I wanted to for fear that I’d drop it in the water! I did snap a photo of my hair when we got back to the van…It was a curly/wavy mess from being in the water all day, but it was totally worth all the fun I had! Admission to Aquaport is $15 for adults, $10 for kids. Griffin was free, again because he was under 3 years of age.

 

That evening, again we grabbed some dinner & then took a walk down to Laclede’s Landing.

St. Louis Vacation 10

This is a historical street in St. Louis with lots of restaurants and bars. It’s is the prime spot for nightlife, especially for the younger crowd. We were there early enough to where things were pretty calm. I was just wanting to take advantage of the beautiful scenery & use my camera to snap some pictures of the boys. Since we had been at the waterpark all day, they were both pretty tired & not really in the mood for photos. However, I did manage to get a couple good shots of each of them! So handsome! 🙂

 

From Laclede’s Landing, it is just a short walk down to the riverfront. The boys wanted to see the river & I thought it would make for another good photo opportunity so we took advantage. The river was beautiful at sunset!

St. Louis Vacation 11

 

The third day of our trip we made the trip to Grant’s Farm. This was quite possibly my favorite part of our vacation! Neither my husband or I had ever been to Grant’s Farm before & we were so excited to take our kiddos! The property was once owned by Ulysses S. Grant and is now owned by The Busch Family who owned the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Company. The farm is an animal reserve housing over 900 animals and over 100 different species. Admission to Grant’s Farm is free, but  there is a $12 parking fee. Once you arrive on the farm you can take a (free) tram ride tour & see all the different animals.

Grant's Farm

 

The farm is also the home of the iconic Budweiser Clydesdales. We loved getting an up close look at these beautiful horses! The boys even got to pet them!

Grant's Farm-Budweiser Clydesdales

After the tram ride, you can walk around the park & see several more animals. For $5, you can ride the carousel, feed the goats, & eat a snow cone….pretty much the best deal ever if your a kid! 🙂 The goats were absolutely hilarious! Those babies will suck down some milk in a milisecond!  Parker loved every minute of the goats! He managed to feed like 10 goats with his two bottles of milk. We were calling him the goat whisperer! 🙂

Grant's Farm

Maybe he got is skills from his dad…..just sayin’.

Grant's Farm

Griffin wasn’t as big of a fan, but he did okay. The goats were a little intimidating for him since he was at eye level with them. I think he thought they were gonna hurt him! Poor kid! 🙁

 

After Grant’s farm, we grabbed a quick bite of lunch & headed to the St. Louis Zoo.

St. Louis Zoo

We have been to the zoo several times, but this was Griffin’s first trip.  No matter how many times you go, the zoo never disappoints! The highlights this time around were the penguins, the hippos and the new baby elephant! It was hard to get a good shot of the hippos because they were swimming under the water the whole time. Every time they swam past us I would try to get a shot, but they always turned out blurry because they were moving so fast! The baby elephant wasn’t easy to photograph either because his mom & dad were a little protective of him.

Admission to the zoo is also free. If you park in the designated zoo parking lot, you’ll pay $15.00 for parking. However, if you are willing to walk a little bit, you can park in Forest Park for free.

We finished up at the zoo just as the rain started to come down & headed back to Illinois. Again, we used Priceline to book a hotel  and landed in Fairview Heights, IL. We spent the night there & thankfully, the hotel had a swimming pool! 🙂 The boys swam & we all crashed that night! The next day we made the trip home!

Although this was the most unplanned vacation ever, we still managed to have a ton of fun! We really didn’t even spend that much money when you figure the average cost of a family vacation. We never spent a ton of money on our hotel rooms (thanks to Priceline) & many of the activities we did with the kids were free! Overall, I’d say the trip was a total success!

I hope you enjoy this little recap of our family vacation and I hope that if you ever make the trip to St. Louis that you’ll find this helpful!

Did you take a family vacation this year?

If so, where did you go?

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Comments

  1. I live in SEMO & I’d highly recommend hitting up The Magic House next time you’re in STL. I’m dying to take my kids to City Museum but not sure my nerves can handle it yet. They’re 2 & 3. 🙂

    • Hi Kodi! We were actually gonna do The Magic House, but ran out of time! That is definitely somewhere I’d like to take the boys in the near future!

      The City Museum is tons of fun, but yes, a little stressful! You may want to wait until your kiddos are a little older!

  2. I love St. Louis! I live less than 3 hours away and we love everything you posted. Did you go inside the Arch? That’s always fun for the kids!

  3. I love seeing all of these photos from my town! 🙂 St. Louis does have a lot of great free things to do and Grant’s Farm, the City Museum and the City Garden are all great… I LOVE your photos from the City Garden!

  4. My husband and I adore City Museum! We vacationed in St. Louis a few years ago and it was amazing! Glad you had a good time!

  5. Great ideas Tonya!!! Such sweet pics too!

  6. I grew up close to St. Louis! This brings back memories! I def recommend The Magic House, The Butterfly House, The Brewery (More for adult but it is free!), and Soulard! So many budget friendly things to do in STL! We now live in California and recently went to the San Diego Zoo.. $39 a person (and thats with the military rate), and our hotel was $300 for one night! San Diego Zoo was neat but I must say the STL Zoo is better and FREE! Great list of things to do!

    Emily

  7. Heather says:

    If you park on the planetarium side of the Science Center, parking is free. There’s a walkway with interesting items from the Space Race and then a bridge over the highway with windows dows to look down on the cars and speed cameras.

  8. Hi Tonya, great article, and I can see why so many re-pinned it! I was thinking of trying to do Grant’s Farm and the Zoo in one afternoon, is this feasible? How long did you spend at each? My kids are 3 and 6, and move pretty fast through places like this.

    • Hi Tom!
      The St. Louis Zoo is pretty large. You can definitely make an entire day of it. However, if your kids tend to move at a quicker pace, you could probably do Grant’s Farm in the morning & finish the afternoon/evening at the zoo, still allowing you to get them both done in one day!

      • Thanks Tonya, I think we will probably end up just doing the Zoo this trip, but I will let you know when I get back in a couple weeks…
        Did you know there are only a couple Free Zoo’s in the entire country, and two of them are right there a few hours a part. (The Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago is the other.)

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  1. […] is a pretty good excuse, don’t ya think?!   We haven’t been on a family vacation (besides our small trip to St. Louis last summer) in […]

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