Westside Recreation Centre — Attraction in Calgary

Great facility with piles off different ammenities. It's very clean, well cared for, well staffed. We mostly go there to swim and I'm very thankful to have a fun place to go swim with my kids anytime, without having to work around the complicated public swim schedules of city pools (and I live 5 min away so it's great for me). Even when lessons are running, half the main pool is open for public swim (plus lazy river, hot tub, and water slide, and I think a swim lane or two in the other pool).

I took off one star because it's pricey. Fine for occassional visits but not if you want to go regularly. You have to go more than 1x per week for a membership to pay off. There's no pricing option to fit people who want to visit regularly, but not constantly. I think I speak for many families in the area when I say I wish it was more accessible as a place to go routinely. That said, the place is always quite busy so it's not like they need more business.

The only time I have ever found the place quiet was on days when there are usually are lessons but classes have ended and the next season hasn't started yet. It only happens once per season but if you can time it right, GO. It's awesome.

I also appreciate having a wave pool in the city with reasonable-sized waves. Both Southland and Village Square have massive waves that can be unpleasant more than fun for young kids or mediocre swimmers. I grew up in Calgary, swim very well, and loved the thrill of the waves and slides at Village Square as a teen but seriously, the waves at the older water parks are too much. Even as a teen I'd honestly have had more fun if the waves weren't so aggressive there. At Westside, they're friendly rolling waves like swimming at a lake when a big boat zooms by. If I lived farther from Westside I would make the trip just for that.

There is just the one water slide and again, it is gentler than some of the others in the city. I suppose the place caters more to people who genuinely enjoy playing in water than the thrill seekers and rowdy teens, which makes for a nicer vibe. And safer.

Personally, if the waves were far less frequent I'd be even happier, and my kids too. I think it's a good life skill for kids to know how to handle waves, and enjoy them. When you're already having fun playing in the water though, waves can also just be annoying. Especially for young kids who need to be at just the right depth (feet touch, but deep enough to play). My kids are 4 and 8 and for us, the waves are still an interruption, not a feature. There's no waves during swim lessons so we enjoy...

A bunch of lying thieves this facility is. Even the lifeguards are unprofessional liars who I would t trust watching my kids. Let me explain.

I got my membership last January. I use it for two reasons. The gym and the steam room. I switched over from the ymca, and at first was very impressed with this facility. Though come April and May, the steam room was down a majority of the time, and I was having a hard time getting an answer as to why.

The lifeguards would say it was due to tampering. Or that it was off for the rest evening. Off? Why am I paying money to have a service not available that I paid for? That I travelled to come use and it’s not usable? No note, no warning.

I brought it up with the front desk on a hand full of occasions and was told it would be looked into. It was never looked into. During the summer after another complaint, I was told it would be fixed during the up coming closure of the facility to do upgrades.

It was all good for about two weeks before the same issues arose and the same lies being told by staff as to why it’s not usable. Again no warnings, no signs. Tonight (November 5) was the last time I’ll use this facility. Even after just shelling out another 85$ two days ago.

This is where this place are crooks. I explained my story to front staff and was told there was no way to refund me. Which I’m sure is another lie. Who knows with this place.

The lifeguards tonight said the steam room was working. If it was, they never checked on it the 30 minutes I sat in there hoping it would steam/warm up. What if I had passed out? Oh that’s right, they turned it off and knew they need not check in. This after telling numerous patrons who day in their silly like me, that it was working.

And the reason I say I would trust these lifeguards to watch my kids. First off the facility is short 1 lifeguard regularly. Which means not all areas of the pool are checked regularly. Also the lifeguards here like to chat a lot, even when it is busy busy. And with only three guards on deck a majority of the time, this leaves a lot of times I have watched the pool, hot tub, and steam room watch with intention. I have watched poor habits over and over on this swimming deck, and it’s sad no one else sees it and address’ it on the management end of things.

Completely poor ran company top to bottom. Like I say in all my reviews where I feel my money doesn’t want to be taken and my patronage respected; i will not return and never recommend this...

I went for a school field trip and was very disappointed, when we first went we got ready to go to the pool but we had to do a safety test before going witch was understandable. But what I was mortified by was how it was done, instead of having all the lane ropes open for testing three people had to go in at one lane while testing. After the testing my friends and I wanted to go to the wave pool and the lazy river but It turned out they were still cleaning it. The wave pool and lazy river would not be open until around 3-4 hours to operation hours. The next thing I would like to point out is the hot tub, the hot tub was under maintenance on the day I went but instead of telling us before notice that the hot tub was under maintenance they never told us. Next are the slides, the slides were amazing and fun I would 100% recommend using them but due to the under trained staff there was no-one supervising at the top of the slide, this would create a misunderstanding between my friend and I where he was waiting to go down the slide to go walk with me to go up the slide again; but what the life guard saw was my friend and I went down the slide together. I got kicked from using the slide again. Because the wave pool and lazy river was closed we only had two options the lane pool and steam room, the lane pool was very empty with only around 3 people other than the ones from my school there. But instead of automatically thinking that they should open most of the swimming lane to us they only opened one lane for us to swim, I want anyone reading to picture this 40+ students in a 25m swimming lane that usually only fits two people swimming. And finally is the steam room, because the wave pool and lazy river was closed and the swimming lane was too chaotic to swim in and the fact that I was kicked off the water slide I had one option left the steam room, but there is just so much you cand do in the steam room I could not occupy hours in there. In the end I did nothing there and had a...