Ashley Okland Star Playground, Des Moines IA

Big and plenty of stuff for kids to play with, but the honeycombs are always filled with water, the gnats are TERRIBLE though. There’s some good spots for photographers, barbecues, and other activities.

Nice playground! Man I wish we had these when I was growing up. There are bathrooms and a drinking fountain there as well as a nice shelter with picnic tables. Plenty of space and trails with frisbee golf and a dog park not far!

Clean with unique playground equipment and plenty of seating for parents around the park. We didn't have the chance to use the bathroom facilities though so not sure what those are like.

Super neat park! Lots of equipment to keep kids entertained and very busy, I can only imagine it gets even more crowded during the spring/summer months

Good playground but quite crowded. The playground is great and newish, which means summer camps cycle through all day. Thus it is swarming with children who are moderately supervised at all times.

I actually came here for a photograph of Boston which ultimately came out stellar. It's a relatively well known spot for photographer's looking to get an image of Boston and it doesn't disappoint. It's a great park, well worth a walk around. If you park in the lot and you plan on getting a sunset photo, be careful, they do lock the gates after dark.

The kidlettes love this park. It is highly maintained and the traffic (child count) stays relatively low. It is the perfect park for kids of the younger sizes 2-5 and for bigger kids too 6-9ish. Bathroom facilities, swings, acres of manicured fields, local biking trails in/near the nearby woods, and disc golf adjacent the property. There is a smaller secondary park across the highway (geared toward 4+) that is a great overflow playground, field, parking, etc.

In the early mornings the park is usually very clean. The ground crew mow early and frequently and are usually done by about 9am or so. Occasionally a raccoon or two will get in the garbage, but very very rare. Not a ton of seating, so bring a chair or blanket. Also, if anyone reading this happens to have a spare plastic steering wheel, the park is missing two child's play steering wheels.

Oh hey, almost forgot; on one occasion, someone dumped a truck load of used tires in the nearby creek adjacent the pedestrian bridge. Not an issue that is too alarming for the Southside of DSM, but I here is the kicker; on a separate occasion (unrelated), open alcohol containers and an alarming number of crushed pills and residue were left on the green table under the walkway. So that's a thing.
Mosquitoes too.

Lastly, make sure to assess the stacked hexigons as they accumulate water after rainfall. Just FYI.

99% of the time this park is great. Give it a shot.