33972 Golden Lantern, Dana Point, CA 92629
Hours: Monday-Sunday (6 AM-10 PM)
Restrooms? No
Playground Surface: Rubber
Parking Lot? No. Street parking only and it is often limited
Gated/Fenced? Mostly fenced but main entrance is not gated
Overview
Shipwreck Park is a very small but neat, pirate ship themed playground in Dana Point. This neighborhood park is somewhat new, having been re-dedicated in February of 2022 with its new playground. Although small, kids will have a great time playing on the pirate ship and letting their imaginations run wild. This is a place that kids will enjoy but that parents wont have to worry about them wanting to stay for hours. Many great shops and restaurants are located in the surrounding neighborhoods, as well as great beaches being a very short drive away. The main thing setback to this park, is the lack of a lawn area. However, it is still a really cool park in which kids will love.
Features
Pirate ship themed playground with the pirate ship being the only play structure
- Pirate ship includes floating steps, 1 slide, telescope and cannons
- Small climbing net and arch bridge ladder climber
- 2 bench swings and 1 baby (bucket) swing
Other Amenities
- 2 picnic tables and 3 benches
Drawbacks
- No restrooms
- No lawn area or barbecues
Scout’s Story
My wife and I, along with our daughter, Scout, rather frequently take trips towards San Diego. This weekend would be no different. Our reasoning for visiting this time was to meet up with my daughters grandma and grandpa. One of the biggest things we have come to realize when traveling with a toddler, is that it is always easiest to make stops along the drive to keep them entertained. I mapped out a few places on this day and Shipwreck Park would be our second stop of the day on our way to San Diego.
The park is very small, but visiting it worked out perfectly for us. We didn’t want to take up too much time and being that the playground only offers so much, 30 minutes for Scout to play here worked out perfectly. Scout ran around and enjoyed everything that the small playground had to offer. Finally, Scout settled on swinging for some time before we decided it was time to keep driving.
We grabbed some food and started to make our way towards Tierra Grande park in San Clemente.
May 26, 2023
Scout’s Journey
As I have wrote about on so many occasions, Scout was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, almost one year ago. Exactly a month prior to this day she underwent a 10 hour surgery to remove cancerous tumors from her liver and rectum. After a few weeks of living in the hospital while Scout recovered, we arrived home on May 5. Two days later on May 7th, Scout would turn 2 and on May 8th, we visited the clinic that Scout gets treated at to see the doctors. We were aware that the pathology of her tumors was back and our oncologist would go over the results with us. After a bit of discussing all the ins and outs, Scout’s oncologist informed us that there was no active cancer left in her rectum or liver. Scout’s cancer would be being placed into remission, one day after her second birthday.
This was such a monumental moment for us. There is still a lot of work to do going forward. We will be monitoring the small portion of the tumor that the surgeon had to leave behind which at this time is benign mature teratoma. Our next step is for Scout’s surgeon to remove her central line from her chest in one week. She has been living with this since diagnosis and we are looking forward to her being able to get in the water and get wet again. So many things have happened so fast but we are so excited to be moving in an upwards direction. Our days will continue to be filled with Joy and appreciating every moment that we get to spend with our daughter.
