I'm visiting the cape in late October and am a little worried that everything mightbe shut down at this time of year!? I'll be travelling with my husband and two young children (3 and 5) so would appreciate advice on where to stay and what do at the very end of October.

Welcome to Fodors. You've posted this in the European forum, you'll get more responses if you re-post correctly under United States.

For what it's worth my one and only visit to Cape Cod was in the 3rd week of October and many tourist places were indeed closed or just about to - I seem to remember the inn we stayed at was closing the very same morning we checked out. Personally I found Cape Cod to be a real anti-climax.

That's what I feared we were due to take this trip in May but due to illness have had to postpone to October. Is there any other location reasonably close by that would be better? We are due to visit New York and Boston so we were going to fit A few days in Cape Cod in between but are adaptable on this 'middle' location if anyone has any other suggestions?

It is hard with children that age because most of the things meant to appeal to them are closed and it will be too cold to go to the beach for anything other than a walk or a tidal pool.

Do repost on the US forum.

Yep, it's on the us forum too.

You could try Mystic Seaport. There's also an aquarium in Mystic.

http://www.mysticseaport.org/

You might want to consider Maine instead. York, Ogunquit, Kennebunkport and Portland are all within 125 miles of Boston. Late October might be a little past the leaf peeping season but most places should be open.

Thank you! I'll look into all these options.