Kihei Aquatic Center — Attraction in Maui

Review is largely for the staff of the pool. Not sure who the pool manager is now that Stacy is gone, but the lifeguards like to play Pool Police more than they actually pay attention to the water. I’m a former certified Aquatic Director for the YMCA and ran a town pool as well for a number of years. The lifeguards pick and choose the rules they want enforce and who they want to enforce them upon. I watched a kid punch his brother in his face and then hold him under water today but that was fine bc the lifeguards were busy talking to a guest much longer than necessary. They told several sets of siblings to keep their hands to themselves when they were playing innocent games of what appeared to be water tag or some other game that was very calm and not dangerous or rough play in 2 feet of water. Hair ties required for some kids but not all??? Why not reprimand the dad that was playing rougher with his 2 older daughters? My kids never want to come back here again after today bc they thought they got in trouble and when in fact it was just 2 lifeguards trying to feel important about themselves enforcing “rules” and when they’re not even centrally sitting in front of the pool so their eyes can assess all swimmers in the pool at all times. Right now there’s 3 lifeguards in one group chatting between the baby pool and trainer pool. One looks like she’s a “floater” guard on rotating shift, one is sort of looking at the trainer pool but barely bc his body is not centrally focused on the trainer pool, but he’s mainly talking story with the other lifeguard on the other side of the gate at the baby pool which has 3 larger kids who can clearly swim. If they were so concerned with safety, the lifeguard responsible for the trainer Pool would be sitting in the back of the pool against the wall giving him full visibility to scan all areas of the trainer pool in a centralized location allowing him to easily respond to any issue in the trainer pool. So much for “safety.” Their perceived authority certainly has gone to their heads.

The swim lesson program is also sub par and has been for years for various reasons.

Other than the staff, the pool facility...

There is this specific woman who looks like she’s in her 50’s that is a lifeguard at the Kihei pool who has been bothering my family along with other families about baby swimmers diapers. I asked once for a swimmers diaper for my baby and she just went on and on about how we need to get our own and that we shouldn’t be asking them for any. The last time we were there she told us if we ever needed one just come to the front office and they’d have them there for anyone to have. She is a constant trouble maker and walked up to my sister and brother who have an eight month old baby and stared at him and said “um you can’t rub in the sunscreen like that, you need to leave it so his skin can absorb it.” Then walked away back to her Lifeguard chair then walked back to my sister 5 minutes later and says “umm your baby is burnt already.” Mind you he was not in the sun at all, he was home with us and this would be his first outing for the day. Seems to me that this woman is racist to local families. She then continued to stare at our family the entire time we were swimming which was about a half an hour and made us feel very uncomfortable and unwelcome. The kihei pool has always been a fun place for our family and we would appreciate it if this woman would just do her job and supervise the swimmers instead of...

Not at all accommodating to disabled in the community. They do not stick to their schedule and decide to close the pool to the public when a meet is there after ensuring that they would be open to the public the day before. For people who need to schedule MEO 24 hours in advance this is impossible to navigate. When MEO drops you off they cannot come back for you until the time you previously set. So because they decide that morning to close the pool to the public, a disabled woman has to sit outside the building for 3 hours until the bus comes back. It’s ridiculous. People try and plan to use these public pools and they just do whatever they want and couldn’t care less how that affects anyone else. Absolutely trash behavior! The staff was also very very rude about the whole thing, especially when she was justifiably upset about them not being open after she had called the day before to ensure that they would be. Do better! This is not the first time this...