L’Aquaciel Splash Pad/Water Park

Lasalle – L’Aquaciel from StrollerMom on Vimeo.

OMG.

Really.

I almost cried tears of joy.

This place is beautiful and amazing. The newly built water park with products by Quebec-based Aquajeux is huge, has separate areas for bigger kids, a quieter area for the smaller guys, AND two playgrounds within the enclosure.
There are three “magic” buttons to turn on different sections of the water equipment. There’s a beautiful misty rainbow to run through, buckets that fill and splash, jets coming out of the ground, water cascading down ‘flowers’, bouquets of flowers, and off to the side are the moveable water guns where all the kids soaked my husband. Ha!
The area for the smaller ones has a ‘mushroom’ of water, the L’Oursin beach ball that sprays gentle mist, and some not-too-scary fountains from the ground. If you’re just hot (and fully dressed) you can stand near the palm branches and have a super gentle mist float by on the breeze.
On one side of the water games is a rope-climbing/spinning/teetering paradise (with rubber flooring) for older kids; on the other side, also on rubber base, is one of the most imaginative toddler play structures we’ve seen. From the designers at Playworld comes this brightly coloured, creative, things to climb on/in/over/under, and best of all (for both playground areas) is that there’s NO SAND and everything is totally wet-kid friendly. So they can run through the water, go down a slide, and back through the water. Just perfect! The stairs to the slides are wide and easy to climb and not slippery for wet feet.  There are also some stand-alone little platforms and a tiny climbing ladder. My little guy LOVED IT ALL. Only thing here is the purple and blue rubber flooring gets quite hot in the sun so you might want some water shoes or Crocs for little feet. Also great is that most of the equipment, and of course the water area, is accessible. There are activities at ground level, and everything is on an easy to navigate base without any levels or restrictions. 

The only thing that isn’t great, and may only have been because we were there on a holiday, is that there is nowhere to change and there are no bathrooms. Sadly we had to leave rather quickly because there were no good bushes to pee in either ;)*****

Just outside of the fenced and gated water area, is a little grove of picnic tables, and then just over the small hill (on Rue Salley) is Parent Park which has shade, play structures and picnic tables. 
There are shaded mini picnic tables, perfect for snacks or lunch; benches around the edges, and plastic lounge chairs, also under the big fabric shades. Some people also brought their own folding chairs as there are not a ton of benches on the sides of the water play section. Other than the two shaded areas the rest of the water area and the two playground areas are in FULL SUN. The whole area is fenced and gated (they want you to enter by the gate right off the parking lot, which is tricky because you’re basically walking right through the water sprays right away.)
Oh, and there’s a water fountain just outside the other entrance close to the picnic tables. And while the sign of rules has a symbol for “no eating” there were people with full on picnics (complete with picnic blankets on the ground), and food spread all over the tables. 
You could really spend a whole afternoon or morning here; splash pad, climbers, lunch and then visiting the other park or running through the greenspace. I’m looking forward to exploring more Lasalle parks because from our first experience, they’re AWE-some.

****Thanks to reader Kathryn who let me know that as of summer 2015 there are now porta-potties in the parking lot. BUT, when we visited in early September they were padlocked. 

From the Borough of Lasalle webpage:
Play fountains:
NEW: Discover the splash pads at L’Aquaciel‘s playground located near Centre sportif Dollard-St-Laurent. There are 14 parks with play fountains where children can cool off and play in the water: Lawrence, Père-Marquette, Ouellette, Leroux, Hayward, Riverside, Jeannotte, Ménard, Dalmany, J.O.R.-Leduc, Lefebvre, Boivin, J.D.-Ducharme and Cavelier-de-LaSalle.
Schedule of Play fountains : 8 a.m. – 8 p.m.
L’Aquaciel : 8 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Admission is free.