Greenwood - Ashworth Park — Attraction in Des Moines

Renting the Picnic Shelters

The park setting was the redeeming factor in our experience.

We "rented" a shelter from the park for a pre-wedding picnic party for 30 people. We made arrangements with the park to "meet" a park associate at a specific time and the time came and went with no-one showing up. Finally after 20 minutes I began to panic for lack of a "plan B" so started scrutinizing the building for numbers I might call when I discovered the door unlocked.

Now before you began to give me a hard time for not knowing this, 2 things… A) this wasn't the agreement and B) the door appeared locked with a padlock clicked shut on the door latch.

On opening the door my dismay became even greater discovering the place was a mess. Sticky floors and counters from previous parties, trash all over the floor and even the grounds outside were littered with plastic utensils, papers and balloons. I swept the floors and wiped down the cobwebs that were everywhere and even mopped the floor with a bottle of our own water as there was no water running in the tap outside.

One last complaint: the restroom facility closest to the shelter was awful. Our guests ended up using the large handicapped outhouse up by the Rose Garden Bldg. The one provided by the shelter was nasty, not level and the door didn't lock.

The party was a wonderful hit but not because of Des Moines City Parks. I would be very careful renting this venue in the future and make sure to show up at least 2 hours early and with your own cleaning supplies to make sure it's presentable.

We set up our food indoors but had the picnic outside which we could have done easily without renting this building at all. Greenwood park is a beautiful setting but it's a shame they don't take more pride in their rentable buildings.

Additional comment: I forwarded this review with an email to the person responsible for the rental of the facility and I have yet to hear back from them 2 days later. I expected to get a "thanks for letting us know and I'm sorry your experience has been less then satisfactory…" Apparently the malaise goes deep into the Des Moines Park and Recreation...

Greenwood/Ashworth Park has absolutely everything. On the north side of the park is the Art Center (free admission), and there are surrounding outdoor sculptures. Behind the Art Center is the Clare & Miles Mills Rose Garden, with lots of stone and metal detail that makes a great backdrop for photos or a picnic. As you continue to head south, you'll walk through some forested area, find an outdoor theater, and explore a pond with a boardwalk. If you turn on road east from the pond, you'll find a stunning shelter house called the Jay Spence Shelter. There's also a playground (currently under construction, until summer 2017) and a new splash pad that just opened a couple weeks ago. The splash pad is jaw-dropping and so much fun for kids! There are at least a dozen places where water erupts, and there are lots of "rocks" for kids to climb on. At the southern end of the park is also Ashworth Pool (public), and there are trails that connect this park to other Des Moines Parks, like Water Works and...

We went here for a school picnic with our kids. The play area is good; they have a larger playground for older kids, and a smaller one for younger kids, or those who prefer shorter slides, etc.

The spray area is also nice, and well maintained. The whole thing is concrete and stone, and the pillars make it easy to lose track of a child if you're trying to check on them every so often, but the kids really liked the area.

The only real issue is that the grass area near the playground isn't super well maintained. Much of it is dirt, rather than grassy, and there's a lot of ants, making it difficult to find a good place to sit if there's a lot of people at the park, as there was for the event.

Still, it's a fun place for kids, and I'd recommend people check it out if they're looking for a place with playground and water features for their kids to...