SwimRVA — Local services in Bon Air

I never learned how to swim growing up in NYC but I was thankful for the opportunities offered to allow the kids in local schools to participate in their program. My son attends one of the elementary schools nearby and the children meet once a week' They go through stages based on their ability or experience swimming. My son is a beginner and he was stuck in the 1st stage of blowing bubbles in the water for a while. The 1st session he came home upset stating the instructors were yelling at the kids. I am not the type of parent who jumps to defend my child's behavior, so I simply told him "swimming can be dangerous, so if they were yelling its probably because you guys were not following directions". Weeks went by and he stated " I just couldn't get to the next stage because they keep saying I'm not doing it right so I'm still at the first station". Once again I didn't want him feeling discouraged I advised him "next time just let the instructor know that you are trying but you don't understand". He came home a little less discouraged this time because they showed him a different way but he was discouraged, he still wasn't at the next station with some of his other classmates. Last week my son came home completely upset advising that the people instructing are mean and they are always yelling. I told him he only had a few more sessions to go and he should make the most of it but he was adament that he did not wish to return or continue learning how to swim so I obliged and told him he didn't have to go anymore. I have not bothered to contact the school or SwimRVA about my son's experience, but I hope that if the staff are instructing several children they are patient enough with the children. I see very few poor reviews for SwimRVA so its safe to assume they have good staff, but I definitely don't think my son would fabricate adults raising their voices or being mean. I know working with large groups of children can be frustrating at times, especially when they are not following directions; however; raising your voice or speaking in a demanding tone is not the only way to de-escalate or get children to listen. Although, SwimRVA is near my home, I will pay for swimming lessons for my children elsewhere this summer because my son does not want to...

The only reason I used the facility was the 50 meter pool. But for some reason they don't take as much advantage of this for some reason. The 50 meter is open mostly on weekends and some limited hours on weekdays. But the weekends are mostly closed for competition. The pool is set up predominantly as a 25m format. I don't feel like I got my money's worth paying every month only to have the facility closed when I am most available to swim. The 50m pool water temperature is too cold for my liking. The smaller activity pool is warm, but I try to stay away from the yucky water. It is often dirty and cloudy. It doesn't seem to get cleaned very often.

As far as their payment options, they should not be able to advertise that there is NO contract, but essentially there is. The only reason why I signed up for the monthly automated payment is for convenience. So if you sign up for the monthly payment option, you are signing up for membership where they can charge you indefinitely. This would imply that this is a form of contract. They require you to contact them if you want them to stop charging your credit card. Well, my credit card account had expired and they kept billing me and sending me invoices even though I had not used the facility in the months they had billed me for. I had called and complained about the charges and the lady there was not very helpful and deferred me to her manager. When the manager finally called back and left a message two weeks later, it was a game of phone tag. And then a week later, I got another continued bill for the following month. This was after contacting them disputing the charges. After finally getting the manager on the phone, he did not feel that NO contract was a deceptive advertisement and threatened that my account would be sent to a collection agency if I did not pay the bills. This was a very frustrating and irritating experience for me. I will never set foot in that facility or participate in any of their sponsored event. It was a shame that my experience had to come to an end due to shady billing issues and false...

I was looking for swimming lessons for my four years old daughter. I found this program well design and professional. My daughter took six months to realy start to swim properly.

She is still learning and always will be. As a swimmer, I was awared that my kid will not learn how to swim in one try.

So, I would like to show her how is a place that could teaches future Olimpic swimmers looks like.

The most important thing when you are learning how to swim is to have fun. And I could see the coaches' hi fives giving smiles and encouragement to my kid. It is a way to make her happy and keep swimming.

There are few concerns that I would like to mention. First, during some swim lessons it happened to be five kids for one coach. In my opinion, there were a lot of kids for too little time to share swimming between them. In that way, I presume any of the kids would learn properly with such short time left for each one. Second, the family's restrooms are busy at the end of the pre-school swim lessons, which makes a waiting line for vacancy. It gives my husband a hard time explaining to our kid to wait her turn. And who has kids know they don't want to wait specially when they are wet and hungry. Third, the women's restroom is busy, loud and messy at the locker's area after the end of the pre-school swim lessons. Well, it is because there is another swim class ending at the same time, I guess.

At the end, it is a great place to learn how to swim if you a looking for a professional approach...