Oak Bay Recreation Centre — Attraction in Oak Bay

I've been to pretty much all the Recreation Centers with a pool in Victoria, Esquimalt, Saanich, Juan De Fuca. You maybe saw my review on the Crystal pool: old but the staff does what it can white what they have. Anyway, my daughter, (8) wants somewhere different for swimming. So we chose the Oak Bay Pool. Change rooms are big and roomy which was a nice change. I decided to use the bathroom before putting on my bathing suit. Sadly, in this case, my eight year old went ahead of me in to the pool- as I enter on to the bathroom stall my bladder decided that I REALLY needed to pee! I know TMI but it needs to be said. Anyway I lost a lot of my dignity that afternoon as I tried turning around to close the stall door... I realized I was stuck! Well thankfully a lady saw my struggle so she offered to close it for me... not happening! The wheelchair stuck out too much! She offered to hold it closed, (about a foot from closing) I said thank you but she had two small children who were eager to get in the pool. So she reluctantly left. The door was partially open while I finished up as children went by asking parents "what is she doing, why is the door open" and so on. Now, because of my medical issues with my little body I've been in the hospital more time than I care to count and have had even more operations than even that. We all know how we lose a lot of dignity when we become patients. So I didn't feel I had much dignity left to lose. I called the front desk and told them I was stuck in the stall and on the toilet as it was very low and my wheelchair was right up against it. I didn't tell them that last part as I wanted to keep that one hair of dignity. :) I tugged and tugged and managed to get up off the toilet. A girl from the front came and took a look at me, rolled her eyes and shoved the door open more so it got scraped off the back off my chair and let me out. As she walked out she said, "sorry about that, but this place is pretty told." Talk about customer about customer service. For a person with mobility issues I don't recommend it as the stairs for all the pools are too steep and there is no ramp or anything to help get you in or out! The majority of the life guards look bored and not very attentive where the swimmers are concerned. We've done skating lessons there and it was quite disappointing the people running it were less than helpful. The people teaching looked like they would prefer to be anywhere but there. The fellow in charge was great but of course he wasn't the one teaching. I discovered almost at the end that I didn't have to pay to use their skates if my daughter was in a class. It was just not organized at all. Perhaps because it's Oak Bay I expected a lot better. But I've been all around and I have to say that next to the Y it's been my worst experience as far as a...

First time visiting the pool facility with my 6 year old. My impression is that the change room tile floors, walls, shower areas are never deep cleaned, not even lightly cleaned every day, and it's visibly grubby, stained and gritty everywhere you turn, leaving me wondering if I will get athlete's foot from the floor. The tile flooring in the pool area looks stained too, and the wall above the hot tub has black spots all over it that I hope to God are not from black mould, but could be.

The place needs a renovation, it's showing its age, but in meantime more attention needs to be given to cleaning before I come back. There are tools that they should already know about which clean tiles and grout effectively. This all has come to a surprise to me in this post-covid era, that there appears to be no regular process to clean tiles and grout. I mean, I spray diluted bleach on my shower tile grout at home, and 20 minutes later it comes up clean, can they not do that here? I just felt icky everywhere I walked, and I also worried for my daughter. I'm no neat freak at home, but the the dirty floors and surfaces of this shared space with a lot of other humans packed in, walking over it, has grossed me out. Sorry Oak Bay Rec, I want to come back, but I don't want myself and my child to get sick from your grubby floors, the moist and warm surfaces in a pool facility are a prime breeding ground for disease. Please tell me you clean them...

They have great tennis lessons here. BUT HERE’S THE THING THERE IS A REALLY USELESS TEACHER THERE THAT WORKS THERE ON SATURDAY AND HE HAS THIS USELESS ASSISTANT THAT CANT EVEN HIT A TENNIS BALL! (What the heck!) He wasted my money and they play Abba music during the tennis lessons WHICH makes me wonder why do they even get paid lots for making themselves at home and not even TEACHING LESSONS PROPERLY!! They even take so long to explain how the game works and it doesn’t even make any sense when you play it so it seems the guy only cares about the money and they also don’t know how to stop people from talking and I literally wasted 30 minutes of my tennis lessons with that useless dude talking to another person. Another incident was when they advertised FREE TENNIS LESSONS ON NEW YEAR BUT THERE WAS NOBODY NOT A SINGLE PERSON ON THE TENNIS COURTS. There wasn’t any staff at all which was pretty disappointing. Otherwise if you have the right teachers you can actually...