110 Waterman Dr, South Portland, ME 04106

An easy park to find and get to, as well as easy parking. There is no bathrooms but there is shade and two benches for sitting. It wasn’t busy when we were there but I can see it being busy after school or on a weekend day.

The structure is quite big but can easily be used by a toddler as well as an older kid. There’s many ways up, meaning lots of openings at the top, some ways up are easier than others. There is a swinging horizontal climbing net for the more experienced climbers. My 4y doesn’t like moving things like this so she tried once and didn’t do it again. She preferred the sturdy ways up. There is a three step ladder at the end of the net, so the opening here is for both the net and ladder. Another way of climbing up is a medium size chain link net that is vertical. These three ways up lead to a big curved slide. Skip the slide and go to the wobbly bridge to the right of the three step ladder. A fire pole, a ramp and a set of stairs going higher are the options at the end of the bridge. If you climb these stairs you’ll come to a opening for a flat rock wall and a very steep double slide. My 18m went down this during a split second of me watching my daughter and he flew right off. If your kid chose to use the ramp, they’ll come to some bigger steps that have an opening to some handle bars shaped like U’s on the sides or a singular handlebar for swinging. If you take the handle bars you’ll come the platform that begins at the swinging net. From here you can grab onto a spinning circular bar. Kids must be tall enough to reach this or jump to it or have the parent lift them to it. You can also exit the platform to a balancing beam. Next to the structure is a swing set with some regular swings, one chair swing and a bucket swing.

I was pleasantly surprised by this playground. The background noise of the cars nearby was relaxing as we say under a pine tree in the shade. There is a huge field for running or some ball play if you have a ball. Despite being a tall structure, toddlers can maneuver around it, with or without a parent following behind. I think this would be a good place for an even older child, maybe eight or so because of the numerous challenging things to climb. With that said it also is perfectly fine for a young kid like my daughter whose four. Both of my kids played lawyer and tried to get me to stay here longer than we did, which was about an hour. It’s worth checking out even if you’re not in the area or nearby. From Gray it takes about 30m to get to and it was totally worth that.