Adventure Playground
Summer schedule will be in effect thru Sunday August 8th, 2021. School Year schedule will begin on Saturday August 14th, 2021.
Adventure Playground will be CLOSED on Saturday September 18th. Join us for Coastal Cleanup Day!
| Hours and General Information |
August 14, 2021 thru June 2022, Adventure Playground will be open: Saturday & Sunday only from 11am-5pm.
Adventure Playground remains free to the public. In an effort to help keep the playground and our community safe, we are limiting the total number of participants. Participants have the option to pre-register online, or walk-in for pre-determined 1 hour sessions.
OPEN:
Saturday & Sunday: 11am-5pm
Time slots are as follows:
- 11:00am - 12:00pm
- 12:15pm - 1:15pm
- 1:30pm - 2:30pm
- 2:45pm - 3:45pm
- 4:00pm - 5:00pm
CLOSED:
Adventure Playground is a wonderfully unique outdoor play space for children and families.
Participants will enjoy playing on the many kid designed and built forts, riding the zip line, or creating with hammers, saws, paint and recycled materials.
Youth under the age of 18 MUST have a supervising adult registered to attend Adventure Playground during their visit. Children may not visit Adventure Playground unattended.
Please register for only one time slot per weekend so that the Adventure Playground can serve as many families as possible.
Please register all members of your household who plan to enter Adventure Playground.
No pets are allowed in the playground, service animals only.
Help keep Adventure Playground safe as we navigate through COVID-19 by observing the following procedures:
- Staff will be controlling the entrance to the park. Only a limited number of participants will be allowed in the park at a time to allow for social distancing.
- At arrival staff will be verifying that participants are registered:
- For online registrants, please be prepared to show proof of registration either with a print out or on your mobile device.
- For walk-in registrants, please complete the waiver upon arrival
- Maximum capacity will be 50 participants for each 1 hour time slot. 25 registrations will be available online in advance and 25 registrations will be available for walk in participants on a first come, first served basis.
- To help prevent crowding at the entrance:
- For online registrants, please arrive no earlier than 10 minutes before your scheduled entry time. Line spaces will be clearly marked for social distancing
- For walk-in registrants, please arrive no earlier than 30 minutes before time slot starts
- All participants must follow rules and directions from staff, or they will be asked to leave.
Online registration will open on each Tuesday at 9:00am for the upcoming weekend, online registration will close on Friday at 4:00pm for Saturday and Sunday.
Maximum capacity will be 50 participants for each 1 hour time slot. 25 registrations will be available online in advance and 25 registrations will be available for walk in participants on a first come, first served basis. Any available online registration slots will become walk-in spots once online registration has closed.
There will be a 15 minute grace period for pre-registrants. After 15 minutes your space will be given to a walk-in participant.
Time slots are as follows:
- 11:00am - 12:00pm
- 12:15pm - 1:15pm
- 1:30pm - 2:30pm
- 2:45pm - 3:45pm
- 4:00pm - 5:00pm
At arrival staff will be verifying that participants are registered:
- For online registrants, please be prepared to show proof of registration either with a print out or on your mobile device.
- For walk-in registrants, please complete the waiver upon arrival.
To help prevent crowding at the entrance:
- For online registrants, please arrive no earlier than 10 minutes before your scheduled entry time. Line spaces will be clearly marked for social distancing.
- For walk-in registrants, please arrive no earlier than 30 minutes before time slot starts. Line spaces will be clearly marked for social distancing.
Questions? Contact: 510-981-6720,
adventureplayground@cityofberkeley.info
At this time:
- We are NOT scheduling any group visits
- We are NOT running our drop-in program. Youth under the age of 18 MUST have a supervising adult registered to attend Adventure Playground during their visit. Children may not visit Adventure Playground unattended
- We are NOT accepting volunteers at the moment
We look forward to expanding our program offerings as we are able to do so, changes to Adventure Playground program offerings will be listed on our web page.
Donations are by appointment only. Please call or email first so we can let you know if we can use the items and make a plan to assist you when you arrive.
We welcome donations of scrap materials that stimulate creative play:
- small or long 2x4 or 4x6's
- Fabric
- sturdy wooden furniture
- 8D or 16D sinker nails (not galvanized, please)
- Washable tempera paint
- 3/4" or 1" thick plywood pieces
- small blocks of wood
We cannot take the following items:
- No pressed wood or particle board
- No pallets
- No materials that could hurt a young child with bare hands - no metal, sharp, splintery wood or house paint.
- No old wood or thin wood please.
- No pressure treated wood
Adventure Playground is 42 years old!
The Adventure Playground at the Berkeley Marina was opened in 1979. It is a wonderfully unique outdoor facility where staff encourage children to play and build creatively. Come climb on the many unusual kid designed and built forts, boats, and towers. Ride the zip line or hammer, saw, and paint. By providing these low risk activities Adventure Playground creates opportunities for children to learn cooperation, meet physical challenges and gain self-confidence. Pictures of a fort building project. The concept for Adventure Playgrounds originated in Europe after World War II, where Lady Marjory Allen, a landscape architect and children’s advocate, studied children playing in the "normal" asphalt and cement playgrounds. She found that they preferred playing with parts that they could move around and manipulate to make their own makeshift structures. The formula for Adventure Playgrounds includes Earth, fire, water, and lots of creative materials.
Listen to the sounds of Adventure Playground on National Public Radio.
Adventure Playground is one of the Marina Experience programs and has been written up as a top 10 playground in National Geographic.
It was voted BEST of San Francisco magazine 2016, Best Creative Play space in Diablo Magazine. YELP has rated us 4.5 out of 5. We have been written about in the Architectural Digest, the Chronicle, the Boston Globe and Newsweek as one of the Top 5 play spaces in the country.
Location: 160 University Ave, Berkeley, CA 94710
Phone: 510-981-6720
Email: adventureplayground@cityofberkeley.info
Employment Opportunities
The City of Berkeley is seeking talented, enthusiastic, motivated, and responsible individuals to facilitate fun and engaging new youth programs that are compliant with current public health guidelines. This summer, we are recruiting employees for many of our summer camps and programs.
For more information and application, please visit our Employment page
Please email completed applications to Recreation@cityofberkeley.info