Monett Area YMCA — Local services in Monett

Our first and last time going here.

As others have said, the female lifeguards are rude. Blew the whistle at my kids for using the foam exercise weights (which they literally exercise with) but didn't follow up to say what she blew for.

They play inappropriate songs for having children in the room. I have no problem with cuss words, but they were playing ones that were about sex. A song came on that was LITERALLY a whole song about sex and I asked for it to be skipped for that reason, and was just ignored.

The sign to measure children's height for the slides is not consistent with what they use to measure once you're up at the slide ( a crooked sharpie line on the railing). I know, for a fact, my youngest is 42 inches, and we doubled checked this on the printed sign, but she was just under the sharpie line, so no slides for us (which was the #1 reason we came here).

The pools are really cold. The laps pool are slightly less cold than the kid pool. I had to cut our time short because I just couldn't stand being in the water anymore, and anyone under age 8 has to be within arms reach of their adult.

The women's locker room is a joke. There are no hooks or benches to set your things in the shower or in the locker area. They have these small stools that don't fit a full size backpack. They have counters by the sinks, which are right in front of the doors. The lockers are rusty and not clean. The floors are gross.

The showers are also a joke. The single stalls are TINY, and there are only 2 wheelchair/family stalls. The shower knobs and heads are super janky and rusty. The water does not get hot, and if someone flushes the toilet, it's just cold for the rest of the shower. The shower head was angled at the wall and wouldn't move to aim straight.

We went to the game room after the shower, and it's also a disappointment. Air hockey didn't work, the horse didn't work, and everything else was for older...

Don't waste your money on a membership here if the pool is your main purpose of using the YMCA. FOUR times in the last 30 days we have not been able to swim when we wanted with varying excuses each time. Each of these times we called ahead to make SURE we would be able to swim, because getting 5 kids ready for the pool isn't exactly easy. On one of those occasions a family member drove 2 hours just to have a day at the pool with us, only be told they were closing early because there weren't enough people there. Which we were not told was a risk when calling prior. Today we called TEN minutes before going, and when we got there they had closed the outdoor pool for some potential rain coming in, and let the outdoor pool occupants swim inside, and turned away anyone new coming in. WHY pay 70 dollars a month to just have to turn around and go home every single time you want to swim? Ridiculous. TERRIBLE customer service, zero accountability. Absolutely done with the...

Family un-friendly!

DO NOT bring your kids here to swim! The rules are absurd. Kids can only swim if they are either 1) within arms reach of a parent, even with a puddle jumper; or 2) pass a “swim test,” which consists of swimming the length of the pool without goggles and then floating on your back for 10 seconds. When my 10 year old (who has been swimming independently for 3 years) finished the swim test, they said she failed because she was “struggling” (she kept popping up to wipe her eyes, because who swims without goggles??). They also only allow 2 non-swimmers with an adult at a time, so good luck if you have more than 2 kids who can’t pass the swim test! Good grief. They also had the indoor water slide and diving board closed with no explanation, which had been one of the big reasons we came there in the first place. We left after 5 minutes and went to the Carthage YMCA pool instead, where they just let kids jump in and swim. Revolutionary...