MacDonald Park Playground - 9/10

Yesterday we had our first visit to MacDonald Park which is officially on Ladysmith Street but for the sake of ease I'll say it's at Simcoe and Oswego in James Bay. It definitely helped that it was sunny and after the long winter people were taking full advantage of the chance to get outdoors, but this park scores on the feel of it's location. As soon as we arrived there was the feeling of community - people were happy, smiling and there was a faint buzz of summer in the air.

As I have mentioned before, A loves ramps. MacDonald Park Playground has this incredibly long wooden climbing structure which is low- probably aimed at the smaller children- and has ramps and a funky wavy ramp. A was all a-twitter with excitement and ran up and down for some time before we could even get him to consider the`rest of the playground. When he did, we found balancing beams that connected the two parts of the wooden structure, the second half of which has steps up to two slides- one metal, one plastic curly, which do not patronize their small users as many small kid slides do.

Between the wooden structure and the colourful metal climbing area for the big kids, there are a row of six big kid swings. The big kid area features a ton of climbing options, a tube thing that can be climbed up or slid down and a high metal slide. There is a climbing wall and the whole thing is on woodchips! There are fences to protect kids from the road.

MacDonald Park is well-kept and has a snack bar on the opposite side to the playground and presumably washrooms too, though I didn't see them. So to sum up, nice location, great climbing structures, swings and slides and lots of grass to run around on. You might ask where it loses the point (9/10)....well, if I am being picky- which is what this blog is about, then it lacks any imaginative features- it's good old climbing frames, swings and slides at their best.