Santa Clara Playgrounds

On April 1, 2019, Brandon and Emily toured as many playgrounds around Santa Clara as we could. We had our kids rate the playgrounds and give some feedback. We stayed as long as it was fun for most of the parks. The ranking is 1 to 5 with 5 being the best. Some of the kids rankings a bit suspect and influenced by external circumstances, so I have added an editor's rank.

Park	Family Rank	Editor's Rank	Crowds
Canyon View	★★★★☆ 4	★★★★☆ 4	Low
Archie Gubler	★★★★☆ 4.6	★★★☆☆ 3.5	Low
Firehose	★★☆☆☆ 2.6	★★★☆☆ 3	Low
Tonaquint	★★★★☆ 4	★★★★★ 5	High
Hidden Valley	★★★★☆ 4	★★★★☆ 4	Low
Bloomington	★★★☆☆ 3	★★☆☆☆ 2	Low
Pioneer Park	★★★★★ 5	★★★★★ 5	High
Cottonwood Cove	★★★★★ 5	★★★★★ 5	Medium

Canyon View Park

Family Rank: ★★★★☆ 4
Time Spent: 20 minutes
Notes: The kids really loved all the ropes on this playground. We probably would have stayed longer, but we had a big day planned. This is a good park to give your kids something unique to climb on.

Archie H Gubler

Family Rank: ★★★★☆ 4.6
Time Spent: 38 minutes
Notes: This park is by a school and has a large field and basketball courts. It has a fun rock to climb up to the slide.

Firehouse Park

Family Rank: ★★☆☆☆ 2.6
Time Spent: 15 minutes
Notes: This park has a two-section fenced dog area along this this great playground. Miley got sick on a spinny thing and therefore it got low rankings. It isn't a large park so the walking trail around the boundary is very short.

Tonaquint and Thunder Junction

Family Rank: ★★★★☆ 4
Time Spent: 45 minutes
Notes: Tonaquint is a gigantic place with many trails, sections and courts. There are tennis courts, a large garden, open spaces and Kimbal Junction. Kimbal Junction has a volcano playground, splash pad with waterfall, train ride ($1 per person) and many other misc playground things. I think the kids rated it lower because we didn't let the go swim in their non-swim clothes. This place is so cool that it is also very crowded.

Hidden Valley

Family Rank: ★★★★☆ 4
Time Spent: 25 minutes
Notes: This place is off the beaten path in the Hidden Valley neighborhood. It is a good-sized park with courts and a large fun playground. This is a great place to pretend the ground is lava, play follow the leader or play tag.

Bloomington Park

Family Rank: ★★★☆☆ 3
Time Spent: 35 minutes
Notes: Maybe we were tired, but this place with it's small playground was very underwelming. We used the frisbee we found earlier in the day and tried our hand at disc-golf which redeemed this park a little. This park is close to Bob and Jo-anne's house.

Pioneer Park

Family Rank: ★★★★★ 5
Time Spent: 50 minutes
Notes: This park is on the North end of St. George and is up on top of Dixie Rock. This place has no wood or plastic playground, but instead has a bunch of red rock to climb and play on. There are many picnic tables under shelters for having a nice lunch or dinner. You can walk out above Dixie Rock.

Cottonwood Cove

Family Rank: ★★★★★ 5
Time Spent: 40 minutes
Notes: This is our favorite park. We didn't visit it on this day because we have already been there many times. I'll find some pictures later. This park has a rock climbing wall, a big slide, a rope bridge, a bunch of interesting spinning toys and a very unique double swing.