Gunyama Park Aquatic and Recreation Centre — Attraction in Sydney

I feel terribly dissapointed with the policy that not allowing children under the age of 5 not to swim if the parent/ carer not join them on the water - while there are so many kids around 5 years old with physcially big body and high level of swimming skills.

While it IS understood about the overall development of young child 5 and under but my point would be about HOW the level of skills should be considered whether the parents/carers should join OR just watch steps away. You cannot judge by the age only but instead with their skills & where do they swim (deep pool or just the shallow one).

My kids are the students there for months now. While waiting their lesson time, they normally play at the water play and I'm just standing exactly next to the pool. (Other carers do the same, except those who are 4 and under with their bands on and parents should join the water. This totally matched with "Lifeguards Are Not Babysitters" board).

My child who will turn 6 with swim skills was stopped from swimming by the male lifeguard (black hair, short built, with sunglasses on). He put yellow band on him. The front desk explained it's ONLY 4 yo under who require band on and parents must join in while the 5 and up only require parents to stand metres away. My child's friend, 7, much shorter than my child with even less skills than him, much more active, was allowed to swim alone. Who's at risk here?!

It's been months we all been here and follow all the rules and just now been stopped (It's totally ok tho when I was asked to bring my kids while taking my ordered food thus they need to stop for a while). Many patrons who I've known that their child are 5 were not being stopped and not being put band on. No, I didn't escalate this to the guy as I can see they stick on what the Rules say: their parents were there, watched over them & not playing mobile phone. From here it can be seen the quality of work they (that guy) do & the knowledge they have.

I feel sorry to the other 5 yo kid, the other day, who has mastered his skills was stopped too. One of the parents (who's a swimming athlete) did her job by standing next to the pool and kept assessing his skills. Yes the child was upset. He needed warm up before his lesson begun & only on that day he was stopped while he's been the student there for a very long time.

The quality of Customer Service should be highlighted to all the staffs there, including the supervisors with white shirts. They're seriously NOT more than the guys who work at the cafe who always give smiles to...

I’m really becoming more and more frustrated with the management of the centre. The lap lane availability is rarely accurate. The showers are cold at present, and on multiple occasions over the last week. The bathrooms and pool are dirty, when swimming laps you often see bandaids follow your wake. The bottom of the pool has green algae and mouldy looking sections. There is a huge focus on squads, lessons and group bookings to the detriment of lap swimmers who have to work around these booking and yet management cannot accurately post the lap lane availability. It’s completely wrong and has been ongoing for the last 6 months despite speaking to customer service. I’ve been told on several occasions it would be raised with management but nothing happens. Today I came in early to make sure I could swim my routine with enough time but when I turned up half the 50 metre pool was closed because of a private event. I asked what time the booking ended which was 6:30pm, I confirmed this with the lifeguards who stated this was correct but said it would take 10minutes for them to reset the lane dividers. This then took 35minutes, all the lap lane swimmers were advised the divider would come down, but the process dragged on an on, while one senior lifeguard tried to manage the transition 2 younger lifeguards were too busy talking to each other to help facilitate the reset. Many swimmers got frustrated and left because the lane dividers were so loose they blocked half the lane which made it difficult for swimmers to share a lane. Then at 7:45pm, I was rudely told to get out of the pool by one of the lifeguards because in winter they will need swimmers out of the pool earlier because they need to cover the pool, which wasn’t happening today though. All of these incidents are a direct reflection of how Belgravia Leisure operate, they are profit driven and have poor customer service. We have seen how badly they have managed Annette Kellerman and now they are infecting the rest of the city of Sydney council pools. With multiple 360 outdoor pools closing it’s sad that this one will remain open under this management, forcing members to put up with their...

Venue - nice. Water - a bit cold. Parking - lacking but park further, fine. But the “lifesavers” ??? - 100% spend their time harassing kids - where’s your dad? Em 2 meters away. 2 minutes later same lifesaver where’s your dad? Erm still 2 meters away. “Just checking” she has the gall to say to me!! Then 4 minutes later another lifesaver - where’s your dad?? I snapped.

They say they’re not babysitters but I swear they treat parents as babies. How about you do the life saving and let the parents do the babysitting? By the way it’s not called babysitting when it’s done by a parent. So I was offended by that too.

Also I noticed all the lifesavers wear shoes. How will they save lives with shoes on? Swimmingly? If someone drowns, will they a-jump with shoes on and swim ineffectively or b-run to the shoe rack first and waste precious seconds or c- leave the shoes in the middle of the path around the pool, a potentially deadly hazard? So that’s my theory. They don’t want to jump in the water. (Probably never do it too). Mainly because of the shoes. Who wants wet shoes. Also the whole place is a water gun death trap. Some kid got the duty manager at some point, pleased with that. Bet that happens every day. And the water’s freezing cold plus a couple dozen degrees so.. can’t blame them for not wanting to dive in, in some way. So what do they do - they spend their time annoying people. This way the parents will actually do the lifesaving, there, I said it, you’re not babysitters, you’re parentsitters.

But we are not tamagotchis. We are real living things. Rules occasionally get broken. Kids can’t go down slides with tubes or noodles. Lifesavers or fun police? At one point I wanted to ask for the full set of pool rules, volume 1 thru to 5 please - the waterproof copy so I can review it while monitoring my babies (actually grown children).

I hope you had fun reading this gunyama - but seriously, fix the lifesaver SOP. To the second lifesaver - sorry I...