Vadalabene Park, Edwardsville

Location: 501 and 599 Voge Av., Edwardsville, IL 62025

Website: https://www.cityofedwardsville.com/475/List-of-Parks-in-Edwardsville

Playground Ground Cover: Wood chips

This is a small enclosed playground next to a ball field. There is a slide, a rock wall, stepping stones, and a cute climbable frog. It's completely enclosed by a fence with a gate so kids can't escape. 

Restroom building and parking lot right next to the playground.

French Village Park, Fairview Heights IL

Location: 1715 Sycamore Dr., Fairview Heights, IL 62208

Website: https://www.cofh.org/Facilities/Facility/Details/French-Village-Park-5

Playground Ground Cover: Wood Chips

This is a quiet residential park. There are woods on one side and houses on the other, with plenty of street parking. There are no restrooms so keep that in mind.

There is one play structure and it has a chain climber, 2 metal slides, and tons of bars and poles for climbing. This is a good playground for older kids. 

Edison's Entertainment Complex, Edwardsville

Location: 2477 S. State Route 157, Edwardsville, IL 62025

Website: https://edisonsfun.com/

From the website: "Edison’s features 12 lanes of boutique bowling, a 4,000 sq. ft. laser tag arena newly re-themed and with a second level added in August 2017, a 65+ game state-of-the-art arcade, 10 party and event spaces, and a full-service bar and restaurant serving inventive pizzas, gourmet burgers, large variety of street tacos, delicious bone-in and boneless wings with homemade sauces, scrumptious salads, and much more."  The hours are 11am to 9pm on Sunday, 11am - 10pm Monday through Wednesday, 11am - 11pm on Thursday, 11am - 1am on Friday, and 10am to 1am on Saturday.

Bowling is expensive here, at $8 to $10 per hour depending on if it's peak time or off peak time. Laser tag is $6 to $7 per game and you can buy game cards for the arcade for different dollar amounts. I didn't eat here so I can't speak to the quality of the food but they have lots of options. I love that they serve alcohol and mixed drinks.

They have lots of events and specials including kids eat free on Wednesday nights, taco Tuesdays, holiday events, bingo night, and little inventor's club. They opened in 2013 and just renovated the laser tag arena in 2018.

I like the lounge area at the bowling alley.

Laser Tag

Prize center

Leon Corlew Park, Edwardsville

Location: 333 S. Main St., Edwardsville, IL 62025

Website: https://www.cityofedwardsville.com/481/Leon-Corlew-Splash-Pad

Playground Ground Cover: Poured Rubber

I consider this a destination playground and splashpad. It's completely amazing.  I'll talk about the playground first. It has 2 play structures, one for littles and one for kids over 5. The small one has a maze board, 2 different slides, a small rock wall, and nearby there are 2 spring cars.

You can see the splashpad next to the playground with the restrooms in between the two.

The larger playground is 3 stories with all kinds of cool things. There are 2 different tube slides, a rock wall, floating steps, a tunnel, a tic tac toe board, monkey bars, and other various bars and poles. It's brand new, clean, and there are several large covered pavilions nearby. They also sell concessions at certain times. They have speakers at the concession area and Disney songs were playing, which everyone seemed to enjoy.

I saved the best for last, the splashpad. This is one of the coolest splash pads I've ever seen. It's like the ones at the pools, but it's at a park and completely free. There are lots of little buckets that fill up and pour out water, plus one really large one. There are things that kids can manipulate and 2 little animals that spray water (a snail and a frog). The flooring is rubber and not concrete which is great, and they have cubbies for your belongings. They have covered benches and pavilions nearby also. Basically everything you could ever want in a park is here!