The one thing us Arizona mom’s know is that during the fall winter and spring the best place to take your kids to the best parks in the city. And Phoenix has a lot of parks. The city of Tempe recently put out a news that they were remodeling all the cities parks. It’s about time.
Most of the newer cities and towns in Phoenix have built huge city and town parks with huge splash pads. And if you’re visiting Arizona those are the best ones to go to.
During the summer months it can get pretty hot here in Phoenix. This past summer we had a record number of hot days, ranging from 110 to 116 degrees F’.
With Covid most of these splash pads are still closed due to the transfer of germs and no control of how many people can be on the splash pad at a time. So this summer kind of sucked without them.
During the normal summers and hopefully next summer once this whole thing is over hopefully the splash pads are the best place to take your little ones, better than a water park because most of our kids at a very young age don’t know how to swim. Or if you’re like my son is afraid of the water and doesn’t want to go in who prefers the comforts of a splash pad.
As a mom I wanted to go to the best splash pads in the city within 15 to 20 minutes driving distance. Mainly because my son and my daughter still napped during the middle of the day and didn’t want to be far away from home when naptime came upon us. Now that my kids are a little bit on the older side. Naptime doesn’t concern them anymore, so going someplace far is OK with me nowadays.
I would very much like to start going back to our favorite places, but I’m hesitant. Only time will tell.
The best splash pads that we have been too are the following.
1. Kiwanis park :
The north side of the park has a small kiddie park and the new giant splash pad that they call the cloud. The cloud itself is so beautiful to look at parents love being underneath it with all the mist and places to sit. The cloud goes from raining down rain storm water and putting off thunder sounds for the kids every kid loves and runs for about a minute, and then it moves on to just the ground level water spouts and entertainment for 15 minutes total.
They just redid the north side part which used to be very old metal to the now beautiful blue plastic and blue metal playground. The southside playground is bigger, way bigger.
It has multiple age play grounds divide it up so that way the younger kids can enjoy the younger size playgrounds and the bigger kids can enjoy this tall structure. It also has a zip line which is always being used. Still even decades later I even love coming to Kiwanis Park with my children just like I did when I was their age.
2. The New Gilbert Regional Park:
Last winter and spring the kids and I discovered the brand new park in Gilbert. The kids loved how big the park was. The little park at the bottom of the hill is mainly for toddlers and babies. The rest of the hill is divided up into three major sections the kids can climb up and go down different types of ways. Slides, climbing posts, rope climbing, and even a huge tower at the top make up this amazing park. Two zip lines and a bunch of swigs , I can’t wait to go back. We never got a chance to use the splash pad, but they were remodeling it when we were there, getting it ready for summer. It will have to wait till next summer.
3. The third Big playground/ splash pad that we love is Mansel Oasis Park;
The complete opposite of Gilbert we used the splash pad more at this playground than the actual playground itself. It was because last summer we were introduced to this brand new beautiful splash pad with his giant playground behind it on the hill but it was too hot to play on the actual structure itself. I plan on taking the kids there during the winter but never got around to it. Selling me
The kids love the miniature pirate ship and all the water features it’s a lot of fun and there’s plenty of places for moms to sit and keep an eye on their little ones.
That was it of the big park / splash pads. There are many other parks, some even have theme parks ( little ones) attached to it with a train ride and small splash pads and popular climbing things and those are……..
1. DESERT BREEZE PARK:
Desert Breeze has been around since the early 2000’s. I should know, I went to school at the middle school across from it. Sitting in the middle of a neighborhood in chandler , DB brings multiple things to one property. However they are giant. It has one playground , small splash pad ( that they recently redid ) and a train park with small rides.
2. Mesa Riverview :
It has a splash pad and a few play grounds. No train park, it it does babe this very popular climbing pyramid. It’s so tall, it even gives me a heights. the splash pad is a giant circle and very open. It is very popular , but the regular park is so close, my kids couldn’t make up their minds to pick the splash pad or the park. So it’s chaotic.
Like I said there’s plenty of other parks some with trains some with other climbing attributes but I won’t list them all. Too many to do.
I even have a favorite childhood park that’s very secretive and not a lot of people know about it anymore except for those who live in the area. I’m gonna post a picture and maybe you can guess which park it is if you know the answer.
No I know this fall and winter if Cove it is still hanging its ugly head are going to be probably crowded with people so will try to avoid a lot of the popular destinations but our little itty-bitty city parks might be the best place to go. We’ll see.
That’s it for parks and splash pads. The final Places we use to go Posts will be coming soon.
In the meantime, if you have a favorite park, comment below.
The TAWL Mom 