William R Mason Regional Park

The William R Mason Regional Park located on University Drive between Harvard Avenue and Ridgeline Drive. It is a huge park: 339 acres of land in total, with a 9-acre lake plus 123 acres of wilderness and natural area. Although it's big, I'm only going to talk about the playground facilities since this is a blog that talks about toddler's playground. :)

Mason Regional Park is a regional park after all, so there is a $5 entrance fee. According to the park map, there are three playground areas within the park. Two of them are located at the North-East while the third one is at the South-West. The one I went to is at the South-West corner. Once you past the park entrance, take the right fork and follow the road, the playground is just behind the volleyball court.

Assume everyone love free stuff and not willing to pay $5 for the playground facility, the parking lot next to the playground is virtually empty, so you shouldn't have any difficulty finding a parking spot. Park traffic is moderate, but mostly joggers or just people enjoying the walk in the park.

There is only one play structure for 5-12 years old on this location. The structure consists of four slides: a kiddie double slide, a ripple slide, a regular double slide and a full spinal slide. There are multiple access point on this play structure too, including one staircase, three climb access (a chain net, a half-cylinder steps and a "spring") and a vertical pole. Nearby there is also 4 sets of swing: two toddler swings and two adult swings.

The structure is well maintain, and fairly clean. The playground is sitting on a same sand pool that is connected with the volleyball court. The problem with this is that, the sand surrounding the play structure is very solid, more like a baseball court ground than a kids-friendly sandbox style.

Other than the solid sand area, this is a typical, nice and well maintain play structure that family can enjoy. However, given the fact that there are quite many community parks within Irvine that also have the same level of cleanness and condition, but with no $5 entrance fee, I doubt that I will come back to this one if it is not necessary.

Pro: Large park, clean, well maintain, few traffic, lake nearby

Con: entrance fee, only one play structure, lack of play objects on play structure except the steering wheel.