I knew this park was being completely redone, and so the short one and I came by at the beginning of September but were juuuuuust a bit too early. A couple of weeks later, and it was done!
So on a recent trip to La Ronde, we OVER-estimated how much traffic there would be, and were at the amusement park with an hour to spare before they opened.
“Any parks around here you want to see?” my husband asked.
“Do you want to see my list? HAHAHA. But YES! There’s a brand new one that’s just a few weeks old we MUST VISIT.”
Which is how we came to be the only ones at parc des Royaux on an overcast October day. I’d been pretty disappointed the previous time we came, because beyond the construction fence I could see how amazing it looked. Getting to run around the whole place on our own was fantastic.
The entire park has undergone a renovation; from all new park furnishings, to a new basketball court, and brand new fencing around the entire playground and splash pad.
Wait, a splash pad? That’s right! While the water features are the same as previously, there’s an all new cheerfully painted concrete base, benches and picnic tables surrounding the water area.
Follow the colourful path and directly beside is the toddler section, with the play area for older kids steps away. It’s a great park if you have kids of varying ages, like me! The entire area is fenced AND gated.
The main play structures are on a poured-in-place rubber base, with the swings on wood chips.
We’ve seen almost all of the Kompan products before, but they’re some of our favourites, so it was great to be able to enjoy them again, and all in the same park.
I asked my husband what he liked about this playground (which was like pulling teeth), and he said “It’s nice. It’s wide open…and it’s tall.”
“What’s tall?”
“The climbing thingy.”
“You mean The Glacier?”
“Uh, ya. Sure.”
“Amateur.”
What I’ll assume he was referring to was the tall Kompan Glacier climber The part of this structure we liked best, and that allowed the little one to play on it (a bit), are the big, wide, and safe steps all the way up to the slide. I did follow him up as it’s rather high, and while he did fine, this is definitely geared towards older children. There are also challenging handholds and bars to climb, as well as the adorable little “hammock” underneath. From the top platform there’s a great view of the whole playground.
Nearby are six adult swings, and heading towards the toddler area is one of our all-time favourite playground products: the Expression Swing by GameTime. I get giddy whenever we see this swing, because it’s just a brilliant design, and crazy fun. I hoisted up the almost-four-year-old, and we swung together while chit-chatting and sneaking kisses. Bliss.
Skip across the painted hopscotch game, and onto the rubber base to the adorable unicorn(!) and motorcycle spring riders, the giant seesaw, and the great Home/Rescue climber. With ledges at ground level, easy to access platforms, wheels to crawl through, and a slanted wall to climb; there are multiple ways to use your imagination here.
Just beside is a toddler-sized picnic table and two baby swings.
We were all really thrilled with the renovated playground and both little and big boys (including my husband!) had a blast. It’s nice to see a colourful, fluid, well-thought out design.
The rest of the park has a TON of picnic tables and benches, there’s a huge fenced dog park, and an impressive skate park where we admired some fairly famous street art by Mono Sourcil.
This park and surrounding land has some crazy interesting history as home to the Montreal Royals baseball team, and the site of Delorimier Stadium which was built in 1928. At the corner of Ontario and Delorimier streets you can find a stone memorial honouring Jackie Robinson and his accomplishments.
Things to note:
-The whole playground/splash pad area is fenced and gated.
-The splash pad hours are from 8am-8pm everyday. See HERE for more information.
