Equipment by GameTime
Surfaces: rubber, wood chips, sand
If you scan this part of the city on a map, Glen Cedar Park will not be the Park that catches your eye. That distinction goes to Cedarvale, a huge curving green space that snakes its way diagonally across the grid, mimicking the path of the subway tunnel buried beneath it.
While Cedarvale is a great park with almost everything you could ask for – ravines, hills, and spots for tennis, baseball, and cricket – Glen Cedar, just a few blocks north, boasts the superior playground.
In general, I’m not a big fan of GameTime’s play equipment; I find it less interesting than old-school Henderson wooden structures, and less creative than climbers by Earthscape or LSI. But the equipment at Glen Cedar is pretty good. There are no fewer than seven slides of just about every variety, and challenging climbing options for small-to-middle-sized monkeys. There’s not a whole lot here for under-5s, but the swings and large sandbox can keep a tiny one entertained just fine.
There’s a dinosaur theme too: along with a ride-on dino supported by springs, there’s a huge green dinosaur (who looks vaguely like Yoshi from Super Mario) overseeing the whole thing. My kids were also excited to discover, hiding under a molded plastic climbing element, a faux dinosaur fossil.
For me, what made this place such a gem was the setting: tucked into a quiet neighbourhood, sheltered by evergreen trees, and with small landscaped hills dividing the park from the school grounds just to the north…it had the same kind of cozy feeling to it that you might get from a puffy duvet cover or an over-sized bean bag chair.
Not the easiest to get to if you don’t have a car, but if you can get there, this one is worth checking out.