13-27 Stone St, Portland, ME 04101
Another playground that is easy to find if you follow GPS. It’s street parking and I think I got lucky due to the time we arrived. We came here around 930 in the morning so there was plenty of parking. There was a preschool there so I’m not sure how busy it is on a normal day but talking to one of the teachers, it sounds like they come here often. There are no bathrooms but there is plenty of seating and shade! Oh and it’s fenced in which is always a good thing.
There is a main structure and a few stand alone pieces of challenging equipment. The first piece of equipment is a giant rock wall. This thing is HUGE, I’m talking 8-9 feet tall, judging by how tall I was next to it. In the middle of it is an empty space, in which I observed the kids using it as a cave. I didn’t see any of these preschoolers attempt to climb the wall, understandably. Another climbing structure which looked challenging but was used by many was a diagonally place bar on top and a diagonally placed foot steps shaped like squares. Children climb up onto the squares and hold onto the bar above and move forward and up. Connected to this are triangular handle bars. They are a pretty far reach from the previous piece of equipment and fairly high from the ground so if younger kids do want to attempt it they may need some assistance. There is a swingset with two bucket swings and four, maybe six, regular swings. In between the swingset and the main structure is a splash pad. A big one that stays on for about 10m at a time when you push the button. The water switches from different areas in the ground and the flow varies. My kids so badly wanted to play in this but I didn’t plan for that so it took some convincing for them not to go in. Most of seating surrounds the splash pad.
The main structure is a little worn down but it serves its purpose and is not risky at all. As most playground, it has steps up for the younger kids. It also has a rock wall of sorts and each set of rocks is slants upwards a tad until you get to the top. A square ladder is next to the steps, which many kids used including my own 4y and 18m. Opposite the stairs, on the other side of the structure is a tall curved ladder. This was also a hot spot for the kids that were there and my 18m could’ve done it but there were so many older kids using it, I kept him using the stairs for the majority of the time. Using the easy steps up will lead you past all the openings from the the other climbing ways up. At the very end, after climbing a few more steps is a twisty slide. My 18m did this over and over more times than I could count. Next to the curved ladder is a cut out whole with a little shelf, which kids were serving woodchip and worm ice cream.
This playground will become a staple for us next summer. I’m mad at myself for not being able to get there this summer to use the splash pad so I will be manifesting one more really hot day before winter hits, so I can have another excuse to come to this specific playground. I think this playground is suitable for ages 2 and up. With that said if you do have a younger one, they would still enjoy it, especially the little cave and splash pad in the summer. Being fenced in is a huge bonus for me because my son loves to bolt whenever he sees a truck. There was plenty of seating for parents to sit back and watch from as well as plenty of shade. The only real disadvantage, like most playgrounds, is that there is no bathroom. You should definitely check this playground out before snow falls and definitely keep it in mind for a hot day to use the splash pad.
little Movers Maine 