It appears there are a few parks around the triangle called Kiwanis Park. Who knew it was such a popular name?! This review is about the Kiwanis Park in Wake Forest that is located next to the Northern Regional Center and the Wake Forest Library. The good thing about this park is that you can have the kids play for a bit before you head over to Creative Play at the Northern Regional Center or Story time at the library!
Kiwanis Park Playground
The park is split into two sections. One part contains the main play structure with slides and monkey bars. One thing I liked about this playground was that it was accessible for adults to go up the stairs if needed, which of course with a one year old I needed to do! My older two enjoyed the unique monkey bars and double bars. There were three different slides to choose from with varying degrees of steepness.
Accessible Swings and interactive features
The other section of the park contained accessible swings, an interactive sensory station, a bicycle movement station for your arms, and what I guess I would call a water table without the water. 🤷
We were actually there right after a big rain storm but the water table still wasn’t full of water. In fact, I think it has a drain in it so I don’t know how you could ever fill it up. Perhaps it used to have sand in it? It did have a lot of mulch in it for some reason, but I tried my best to just keep the kids away from it.
The kids enjoyed the accessible swings, but those aren’t my favorite for toddlers since they don’t really keep them safely in the seat. Also, lifting the front part of the chair to get them in has caused so many issues you’d think I’d be a pro by now. This time, I lifted it all the way up and it fell around the back and bonked my kid in the head. Oops. Mom fail.
The arm bicycle toy was too high for my almost 5 year old to reach, so I guess it’s meant for older kids. The sensory station had a pretty cool concept, but it had seen better days. It was like an hourglass where you could flip it upside down and it had a section for glittery water to trickle down and beads to fall through like rain. The beads were all stuck together and the glittery water was very dirty.
Worth a visit
I kind of sound negative about this park, but the playground structure is super nice and it’s very convenient being right next door to the library. I probably wouldn’t make a special trip out to this park since it’s pretty small and the interactive features and the swings aren’t the nicest. But there’s a nice picnic shelter right next to the park so you can bring a lunch and make a day of it!
Pros
- convenient to the library and Northern Regional Center
- picnic shelter
- playground accessible for adults
- accessible swings if you need them
Cons
- non-functional water table
- broken sensory toy
- no baby swing