Little Otter Swim School — Attraction in Huntersville

We’ve been attending for over 4 years and I’d have to say this place is run like a well oiled machine! The owners are really sweet and love kids and you can tell the instructors love working there. In 4 years I’ve very rarely ever seen a new instructor (these people want to stay here, and low turnover is a great sign). They do raise their prices frequently, but that’s necessary to keep the best instructors and to keep up with inflation I’m sure. Our favorite instructors have been Miss Jayne and Miss Queen!

I do have to say I wish the class was a bit longer for the 3-5 year olds. When it’s 30 minutes and there’s 3 kids, your kid really is only getting 10 minutes of swim time since they spend the rest of it on the wall. I understand there are concerns about safety, but because these kids have swam well enough to even make it to this level, I feel like there’s a better way to ensure each kid gets enough time (these kids KNOW how to swim, my kid in particular jumps off 10 foot high dives and swims back to the edge of the pool no problem, she doesn’t need to be sitting on a wall for 20 minutes of class).

Important to note, they do offer private classes at a higher price point, but for regular classes I don’t feel as though they progress quickly enough.

My only real gripe is the smell and humidity issue in the locker rooms. I’m not sure if children urinate on the floor or if parents are throwing diapers in the trash and the smell is eminating from that but the entire room always smells like urine and the humidity makes it so much worse. It also makes it VERY difficult to dress your child when they’re soaking wet after class. Everything sticks.

Other than that, this swim school beats out YMCA by a landslide. It’s very structured and they know what they’re doing but if you want to fast track your kid I’d recommend taking private classes and...

Little otters has a very set curriculum, which is great if you start here. However, our boys (age 3) took private lessons over the summer before starting at little otters; during that time, they learned to kick and swim short distances with their head/face in the water. When we signed up for the 3 year old class, our boys were instructed to no longer kick to propel themselves. They were also discouraged from putting their faces in the water when swimming from one place to another. I informed the manager on duty that this was actually hindering what they had learned previously, and she said they would evaluate them. After a month, they were never evaluated and never moved to another class. Complete waste of money compared to the previous lessons (which actually cost less than little otters too). While the staff/instructors are very nice and great with the kids, I believe that this program would be better suited for a child that has had 0 experience with water, or needs a particularly slow start.

TLDR: Slow progression, not...

After 5 months at little otter I took my daughter out after she was in the first level “starfish” and they wouldn’t move her up. I told them she was completely swimming on her own (meaning on top of the water, face in, kicking and using her big ice cream scoop arms). I told them she swam two lap lanes over to the stairs in our pool. They didn’t seem to care at all and told me she was only holding her breath for them for 6 seconds from the platform to the wall and it needed to be 10 seconds in order for her to move up. I said well then the platform needs to be moved back because there’s no where else to go but come up since she’s at the wall. They still suggested we reevaluate things in a couple of weeks. I called the next day and pulled her out. Feel like they definitely do not care about the progress of the child and are just money hungry. Don’t waste your money and find a private...