Waterfront Leisure Centre — Attraction in London

I absolutely don't know where to start. My review is solely based on the service not the facilities. If I could give no star I would.

Firstly, my daughter has been doing swimming lessons here for almost 2 years. Her first swimming course the instructor was great. Half way through without no warning she left. She was replaced with a very grumpy woman who does not know how to interact with toddles/kids period. My daughter would always cry and cover her eyes at the sight of this woman's face. I continued to take her as the lessons were paid for in full. After the course finished I went to book another course with another instructor. The staff were very rude and incompetent, I was told that my daughter is not on their system (having finished a 14 week course). I was asked if I was on benefits maybe why she couldn't find my daughter in the system. Which I found very presumptuous and rude as to say, I wasn't able to pay for my daughter lessons with assistance from the government.

On Saturday April 23rd, my husband and I decided to do swimming lessons together and paid £225. The whole thing as a DISAPOINTMENT. We have tried to book lessons together before but was always told it was full. We went for our first lesson at 17:40, the whole pool area had nobody apart from a group of instructors congregated together and chatting and giggling. As soon as we entered we were told by a young girl "the pool is closed". I then said we have a lesson and that was it. We asked the person cleaning where our lesson would be and it turned out that the girl who told us the pool is closed was our instructor. She then said we weren't on her list to be in her class. So we went into the pool, the water was EXTREMELEY COLD. Her whole approach towards us not knowing how to swim was OFF. She seemed to have an attitude and would rather stand around and chat to her colleagues. The first thing she did was give us a noodle, didn't explain how the course would be structured, what we would be doing in the lesson or what to expect. Or even just reassure us that we would feel warmer once we started moving. I had to ask her "what do we do with the noodle", as she thought we know what we were doing. We decided to speak to the manager and find out why the pool was so cold. I've taken my daughter to the mother and daughter swimming course, so I know the water shouldn't be that cold. I think it's because there weren't a lot of people paying to use the pool they are trying minimise cost by not heating the pool. So we went to the manager, who did NOTHING to resolve or help the situation whatsoever. While he was checking the system (I don't know for what) we told him we would get changed and come back. We came back to the reception, the girl at the desk wasn't aware that the manager had just disappeared. The manager didn't think it was important to see the matter through and make sure that the customer is satisfied. The assistant manager could not resolve the situation either so he told us "to come back tomorrow". We went back the next day and was told by the manager who disappeared the day before, that because we paid so much money WE COULD ONLY GET A REFUND through a CHEQUE. Plus we have to wait up to 6 WEEKS to get this cheque. There is no insentive for the staff at this leisure centre to make sure that customers are happy. We were planning to enroll our daughter in gymnastics while she still does her swimming and my son to start swimming also. Because of this we WILL NOT be doing any activity at the leisure centre. We would rather go private if we have to...

Enough is Enough

Up until now we've turned a blind eye to the shabby outdated building, the ever present mould, the rusty decrepit fittings, the freezing cold water and the disinterested, distracted staff, but yesterday The Waterfront Leisure Centre in Woolwich hit a new low.

We checked the website in the morning (you have to with this pool because they're a law unto themselves when it comes to opening times) and saw that the pool was open for family swimming from 12pm until 3pm. We arrived with our two excited little boys (8 & 4) at just after 12pm and, after queueing for a short while, paid £16.55 and went through to the changing rooms - time stamped on the receipt as 12:13pm.

As usual the floor of the changing rooms was filthy but so what? We were going to have a good couple of hours of swimming, splashing and sliding with our two little fellas on a reasonably sunny May Bank Holiday Monday!

Or so we thought.

After changing, we got into the pool at around 12:30pm. At 12:59pm the life(less) guards suddenly sprang into action, positioning 'Pool Closed' signs all over the place and telling everyone to get out. When we asked why, we were told it was so they could have their lunch and clean, same as they did at the weekends. [NB. This is the only pool I've ever come across that kicks out paying customers in the middle of the day so its staff can eat their lunch! The concept of staggered lunches obviously hasn't made it to the Woolwich management yet.]

Of course kicking everyone out at the same time meant that a queue quickly developed for the changing rooms, so we were left standing shivering for a good 10 mins before we could get into a cubicle.

When we were changed we went to reception and asked the lady who'd taken our money why she hadn't mentioned that the pool would be closing at 1pm. She said she "must've forgot" and "what do you want, a refund?". I said under the circumstances that would be nice, so she shouted across to somebody to "go and fetch a Duty Manager".

The Duty Manager was completely disinterested in our situation and just kept repeating that we "should've checked the website", even after we'd explained that we had and there was no mention of the one hour closure anywhere.

And that was that. We left with 2 very confused and unhappy children, and £16.55 worse off for a 30min swim.

There are so many better equipped, better maintained and better run pools that I'm not sure why anyone would choose to go to the Waterfront Leisure Centre. It's unfriendly, unclean and unhelpful, and it needs to be put out of its misery as soon as possible - on health and safety grounds if nothing else, because sooner or later, something bad is going to happen there.

Save yourself the hassle (or possibly something worse) and...

Visited pool for first time with kids, 5th April 2022. We nearly didn’t go based on some of the reviews here, but we did. It’s important to know that there is no on-site parking, but you can park very close at Powis Street car park. 3hrs for £2.70. The entrance was clean and tidy, i was able to scan my barcode from the online booking receipt directly at the gate and go through. You can enter via family changing, but the lockers are between male/female changing. There were 5-6 working poolside showers that were hot, not cold. It was not particularly busy on a wet Easter holiday Monday morning at 10am. The pool water was a bit cold, but after a little while it was no problem at all being active. The air temperature was completely fine and warm. The overall place has a fair amount going on, a main leisure pool with wave machine, an adjoining shallow (0.9M) pool, and also a kids play pool with little kid toys and fountains. There is a large single water flume/slide in the middle and also a bank of 6(?) slides in the far corner. They appear to run one slide at a time after awhile the slide closes and later on the other slide opens. All the pools were open however a pool closed sign was visible where you first enter the pool area this is actually sitting on a small spa pool which was a little green and looked like it hadn’t been active in a while. Far over to one side there is a large functional swimming pool which seem to be disconnected from everything else. It had around five or six lines and looked pristine but I didn’t visit it as I was with small kids.

Regarding other reviews of the pool I found the changing rooms were clean and tidy there was no evidence of slimy floors anywhere that I could see and overall the kids very much enjoyed the visit, and we will return. I will say that in some areas the place looks a tiny bit tired and a little dated but as a comparison centre parks in Elveden forest is similarly tired and dated and it makes little difference to how much enjoyment you have.

Lastly, The poolside guards were vigilant and quick to intervene but also helpful. It’s worth noting that there are float lines where non swimmers should not pass. This is the same at Eltham Pool.

What could be improved? Perhaps some signage explaining when slides are open i.e. not all the time, or some other indicators of when the wave machine is or isn’t on, and perhaps change that ‘pool closed’ sign for a ‘spa pool...