Aquatic Park Path, Berkeley, CA 94710
Hours: Monday-Sunday (7 AM-8 PM)
Restrooms? Yes
Playground Surface: Mulch and rubber
Parking Lot? Yes, there is a small dedicated parking lot directly in front of the playground
Gated/Fenced? Yes, the playground is fenced and gated
Overview
The Dreamland for Kids Playground, located just across the street from Aquatic Park in Berkeley, Ca, is an incredible old school wooden playground. These wooden playgrounds are so fantastic. However, each year more disappear as cities choose to replace them with more modern, longer lasting plastic playgrounds. The Dreamland for Kids Playground was built in 2001 and it sounds like 2025 will be the last year of its existence before the city tears it down to build a new playground. For those that haven’t seen it, I would highly urge you to visit before it is gone. Its name is befitting, as it truly is a Dreamland for Kids. This unique wooden fort style playground will be deeply missed.
Features
Wooden/Fort play structure
- Tunnel slide, wave slide and tunnel crawler
- 4 standard swings and tire swing
- Lookout towers and walking paths
- Boat structure and multiple monkey bars
Scout’s Story
This was our families second day of our four day trip to the Bay Area. As we made our way from Berkeley to San Francisco we decided to make an early morning stop at the Dreamland for Kids Playground to let our 14 month old daughter Scout play on the old wooden playground. Scout had a blast and she seemed to be feeling better on this day. The day before had been tough on here and she uncharacteristically had very little energy. As I’ve written about this trip to the Bay Area, I have told this story mean times, so I will just tell the basics of it here without going into too much detail.
Scout has been showing signs of low energy and discomfort but it has been hard to really know what is going on as she is only 14 months old and doesn’t have words yet. She has just seemed a little out of sorts at times. We did have a better day at the playground on this day and we loved running around all the different structures on the wooden playground.
After arriving back home the following week, and visiting the ER numerous times, we finally figured out what was ailing Scout. On August 18th, 2022 Scout was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and would immediately begin treatment to save her life. I won’t go into too much detail here as I have written this story in so many of the other San Francisco trip posts. Scout is doing well in the early stages of treatment though and her energy levels have perked up as her tumors have decreased in size.
