This post was last modified: Oct 25, 2019 at 9:53 AM by Fun With Despair.

Quite a while ago now, I wrote one of these reviews for a "Promenade Park", which was probably hideously cringeworthy thanks to my lackluster attempt at narrating it like a bad noir detective movie. Little did I know at the time, that a second park by the name of "Pirate Park" existed right across the lake.

The last pirate-themed playground was pretty good, so I think I'm gonna cap this series of relatively theme-heavy playgrounds off with another one. Let's see if this one is as piratey (or as good) as the last one.

If we're being honest, I'd probably call this more of a "sailor park" or a "ship park" than a "pirate park". It's just not very piratey at all, now is it? I have to say though that compared to most of the themed parks from previous episodes, this one is particularly on-point with it all. We've got some really great stuff here thematically, and it definitely sells the theme it's going for. Bonus points for the (admittedly useless) sail flying above it.

Let's get this out of the way right now, seeing as there's an actual big themed park right in front of me. The swings are fine, I don't really have any complaints or compliments. The rest of the park has a really pervasive theme though, so it's a bit odd to have these rather generic swings off to the side. I mean, I guess the other themed playgrounds have done pretty much the same thing though, so there's not much I can really call this place out for on that front anyway. The seats are comfy, at least.

This part here is sort of the "front" of the ship, although for certain games or pretend adventures I can see it being used as a lifeboat or something instead. Inside is a steering wheel, differentiated from its memey cousin by actually serving a thematic purpose, one of those accursed wasp-holes, and a compass-thing.

Curiously, with the way this playground is aligned, it's extremely likely that this boat compass DOES actually point towards the north, which is a rather impressive and interesting attention to detail. I suppose if you ever get lost forever in the suburbs, you can use this to... figure out which way north is? I imagine in any case a compass is pretty useless for navigation unless you also have a map.

On a more frightening note, as far as I can tell, this communication pipe doesn't actually have another end anywhere, unless it's in a totally different playground elsewhere or something. If not, then I guess it's a one-way portal to the wasp realm.

This is the sail. It does sail-y things. Quite fun.

Or it would be if you could interact with it. It's a bit high up. I suppose it's more for decoration anyway though. Initially I thought it was weird that it was a net and not an actual chunk of solid cloth or something, but it's probably to keep it from breaking in heavy winds.

Past the "front" part of the ship is this area here, with some fake wood, life preservers, and one of those spinning pole things you grab onto. Unlike many of the previous ones, this one doesn't even have a bend in it, or anything to grab onto except the pole itself. This would normally be great, but holy fuck is this one relentless. The one on the Inukshuk Park was pretty whiplash tier scary, but this one manages a different form of intensity. Namely the fact that it's a really smooth ride, but also really fast and hard to hold onto.

Fun, but it probably would have killed me if I was still a young lad.

Off to the side is this wobbly ladder, to be used for ascension. I tend to like these a lot more than the rigid metal ones, so it gets a pass. It's not very tall, but it's also not the only decent thing to climb on here, as we can see later.

Underneath it, we can see that this playground also has a "below deck" area much like the one in the other Pirate Park, a little alcove hidden by the faux-wood paneling outside. There's no bench or anything in this one though, which leaves a bit to be desired.

On the playground, there's one of these telescopes, but unlike the baloney ones at the Spray Park, this one actually works. It probably can't see any stars, but it does let you see sort of far away, which is kind of fun if you're looking to sail the seven seas.

Facing out towards the front of the ship is this... really quite shit meme wheel if we're being honest. It wobbles quite badly, and creaks the entire time. For some reason the audio doesn't work, but feel free to observe how genuinely bad this thing is for yourself in the above video.

Perhaps at one point it would have felt like you were the captain of a ship, steering through the vast oceans, but at this point it's just kind of pathetic. Please replace it, you have a better one literally like 10 feet away.

On the other side of the meme wheel is this funhouse mirror, which just kind of makes you look a bit fat. It's kind of a funny gimmick, admittedly, and something I've never seen in one of these before, but it's also nothing particularly amazing. Just a mirror, y'know?

Immediately next to the mirror is this double slide. It's fast enough, very slippery, and not too short. Overall: pretty okay.

This park does have a couple standard metal ladders, one right behind the double slide, and one on the other side of the panel that the wobbly ladder connects to. I guess it's so you can get on and off in case some jackass is hogging the fun ladder. In general there's a lot of traversal involved here, a lot of different ways to go up and down and around the same singular structure.

At the back of the playground are these two slides, connected by this sort-of-wobbly bridge. It less "wobbles" and more "clunkily shifts beneath your feet", which is honestly even scarier. It could probably qualify as one of the twelve labors of hercules.

Anyway, it's kind of fun, but what's really fucking fun are these SLIDES. They're relatively long, steep, and have a nice slide to it that's not uncomfortably fast while still having a hefty ass-kick of speed behind it. Great slides, god damn.

Also of note, although I forgot to get an actual picture of it, is a climbing wall on the side of this thing, which is legitimately large, steep, and challenging. Really great design on this one, and it's basically the first of its kind. Usually these things are middling to awful in quality, a good one is extremely hard to find.

Directly underneath the bridge of terror is actually some monkeybars, which is a kind of neat implementation. The climbing rings are directly hooked up to the bottom of the bridge, which is some pretty creative layering on the part of this playground designer guy.

There's also this climbing wall there, for some reason. This playground is built in kind of a "box" formation, with this big square of empty space in the middle. I would have liked to see a couple more things in the middle besides this climbing wall, mind you, but it's sort of neat.

Anyway, I guess this concludes this whole thing, doesn't it? Well, before I forget, it's time for...

THE VERDICT: 8/10

Out of all the themed parks, this one is prooobably my favorite. Does it have the best theme? Well, no, not really. You can call it "Pirate Park" all you want, but it's definitely more of a general sailor themed park, and honestly sailors just aren't as cool as pirates. Instead though, it's my favorite just because it feels like it commits a lot more to the theme than a good amount of the ones I've looked at have. Plus, it's got kind of a neat layout.

I just don't think there's anything really BAD about this one, besides that one shit meme wheel. It's not the biggest ever (feature-wise, I mean. It actually is quite tall in scale.) but what's there really works towards the theme.

I apologize for taking so long for these towards the end, but unlike last time, I actually had to travel a bit to get to some of these, which made it kind of tough to fit into my schedule on top of how surprisingly ungodly long some of these take to write. Thanks for sticking with me though, and I hope to see you all again next time I get bored enough to do this shit.

good park tbh

Bruh that parks totally bad ass even if it has a shitty meme wheel. I'd host a real life kg there for sure

The theme on this one's really well done while not compromising on the quality of the park's contents which is cool. Those big dual slides look fantastic, that whole relative area seems where they concentrated all of their best parts. The monkey bars directly under the wobbly bridge kick ass and I do love a good climbing wall. Some other parts of the park are lacking but that portion makes up for it big time.

Thanks for doing these reviews, they've been fun reads (including the past park garrison) and I don't really think about playgrounds often and haven't been physically near one in eons but it's nice to remember what they're like and the picture/description duos you do help in better imagine what it's like to be at the park itself for my own evaluations. Considering you actually went the whole way with your Garrison and the quality of the content I think the extended time used was fine.