Port Bruce (Almighty)!
Free Family Fun at the Perfect Beach Playground!
Free family fun at an amazing little beach playground. Perfect! The kids can have a blast on the equipment or at the pebble beach. We can enjoy the beauty of our surroundings and get a little mental health reset. We can take in the lake smell in the air, and all for budget-friendly cost of absolutely nothing. Port Bruce really is Port Bruce almighty!
(Watch our YouTube video recap at the bottom!)
What is Port Bruce? #HiddenGem!
Port Bruce is a small Provincial Park beach area just on the top of Lake Erie. There are a small number of houses there, as well as a seasonal trailer campground. There are public bathrooms as well as a restaurant and a couple small food shacks. Whenever you go to Port Bruce, you will likely see fisherman trying for the catch of the day just off the dock too. Across the road from the dock is a children’s playground and a pavilion. A little down the road at the sandy beach, you will also find a basketball court.
Where is Port Bruce? Port Bruce is in between Port Stanley and Port Burwell, at N5H 2R2. Coming in from Aylmer, you will go through Copenhagen and down the slope to the Welcome to Port Bruce sign. You can take a ‘Waterfront Trail’ between all three of the Ports. (Although we might have misunderstood what waterfront trail meant, as when we drove it there was no water at the front, back, or sides!)
How Much Did Port Bruce Cost? $0! #FreeFamilyFun
You can visit the Port Bruce playground and beaches completely free of charge! At the time we went, there was no paid parking! (Hooray!) We did purchase ice creams at “M & D’s Taco Shack” though, but since we love Shaw’s Ice Cream, it was $ well spent!
What Did We LOVE?
1. Good for Mom and Dad’s Mental Health!
Drive all the way to the end to stop sign. Turn right and there it is. The parent’s perfect ‘mental health’ playground. (Cue the choir of angels singing!)
Our kids have a small play structure with swings and slides in our back yard… But there is only so long that we can stare at the same scene before inevitably starting a list of things that need weeding, repairing, or replacing. Even at the local playground, it doesn’t take long to get bored of looking at the same tree while pushing the boys on a swing.
The playground at Port Bruce has a cliffside to the left to look at, which reminds British Dad of the white cliffs of Dover in the UK (so he now calls these the beige cliffs of Port Bruce). There’s a fishing pier with a tiny lighthouse at its end. You have the sound of the lapping waves, and the fresh breeze coming in off the lake (which almost tricks the senses into smelling a salty sea air, despite Lake Erie being freshwater).
Port Bruce is a much needed break in the routine, and the perfect way for us to reset.
2. The Playground Was Made for Our Toddlers!
Our young boys loved the playground! 5 slides in total, a see saw, and a chair that spins around made for some very happy toddlers. With two kids aged 1 and 3, sometimes slides are a little bit too high, or structures have open areas from a height that can make you nervous to let them walk around. This playground felt like it had been made exactly for my two and their age group, so it was a perfect spot for them.
They wanted to stay and enjoy the playground, and we were in no rush to leave with the views surrounding us. Combined, the parent anxiety level is very low at the Port Bruce playground.
3. Pebble Beach > Sandy Beach for Our Crew!
There is a sandy beach just before you come all the way down to where the playground is. But for those you who have kids that love to rock (literally), then the pebble beach area is a must.
When the boys eventually agreed to temporarily leave the playground, they then set up camp on the pebble beach and enjoyed their favourite game of throwing rocks in water. We were here forever!
One of the best toys that we ever bought our kids were collapsible strainers. They can toss in rocks, sift out the sand, and collect and carry as many as they wanted. A set of 2 only cost us $15. If your kids like collecting anything at all while they are out on activity days, I highly recommend these as the kids will have great fun with them, and they are easy to store in the car as they collapse down. We have a link to them below. Even though we do make money from people purchasing through the link, we would still promote this item even if we didn’t, because our two boys love them.
Things To Consider
When we went (May 2025) the parking was completely free, but recently other places in the area have began charging for parking. (So there may be a charge at some point in the not-too-distant future.) Port Burwell has begun charging at $4 per hour to a maximum of $14, and Port Stanley charges $4 per hour to a maximum of $20. Usually these fees are from May to August, so be aware that we can’t guarantee free parking will remain.
For those who watched our video, you can see that when we parked up there were not many people there. However, in peak times this parking lot gets filled quickly, so you may want to consider getting there early during the Summer, or maybe even going a bit later on in the season instead.
The bathrooms are not open 24 hours (but there was a Porta Potty outside that we used). If they are closed, you may need a Plan B on where to change your little ones. For us, our son got a space shuttle tent for his birthday that we take everywhere. It’s easy to snap up and the kids want to be in it because it looks like a space ship. For us, if we needed to change one of the boys we would throw the tent up, or even just go back to the car and change them in the trunk. So our suggestion is just to plan ahead with a changing station of your own.
Overall Experience?
Adding This Beach Playground To Our List to Visit Regularly!
The kids loved it, we loved it, and we came away mentally much happier and recharged from the beautiful scenery surrounding us.
This is going to be a spot we visit very regularly. Even better for us is that we are very close proximity to Port Bruce, so we can go as often as we like. So whenever we need a break from that one tree in the home playground, then a trip to the beach playground will definitely be called on!
Watch Our YouTube Video Recap:
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