Mountlake Terrace Recreation Pavilion — Local services in Mountlake Terrace

After signing our daughter up for a week of camp, she arrived with her grandma today, only to be told that they'd canceled the entire week! The staff had multiple opportunities and means to contact us, including email and cell phones. How about "We're so sorry that we had to cancel. Please write or call back to confirm you got this message." That would be helpful! And if they canceled it because of low enrollment, then it's not that many people to reach out to.

Additionally, I called yesterday morning to tell them we'd be keeping our daughter home for the eclipse. The person who answered the phone and the camps person to whom she promised to relay our message could have thought, "Uh oh, sounds like that family didn't get the message. We should call them!" Nope. And last, I looked on the website this past weekend to see what I needed to pack for my daughter for the week, and did it say "Aqua Kids camp is cancelled for the weeks of..." Again, nope.

And what did they tell the grandmother who'd nervously driven to a neighborhood she's unfamiliar with this morning? "We refunded the money on August 8." Really? Was that our notification? And when refunds take several days to process, if we had noticed this and realized that it indicated a cancellation, we would've had about a week to find an alternate solution.

Summer camps are tough to run, I am sure. (I wouldn't want the job!) But the patchwork system parents have to piece together throughout a summer, calling on help of friends and relatives, rearranging work schedules, and managing various registration dates and waiting lists is ridiculous. And then this. We're lucky we were able to get a helpful grandparent in town who can roll with the change, but if I had work meetings built around this, I'd be in a heck of a bind right now.

And the kicker? There was a camp we actually would have preferred to send our daughter to and was closer to home! But we were on the wait list, and when they contacted us a couple weeks ago that they had an opening, we declined because of our enrollment at the MLT camp.

What an awful...

I went here for lessons as a child, I now have a daughter and wanted to provide her a similar experience to what I had. My daughters 2 and we've been registered in classes for more than the last year. Typically the week prior to the proceeding registration date the swim instructor makes an announcement or two advising to come early to register the next week for the following session. 50% of the time, in addition to the verbal reminder, a sign or two is put out in front of the locker room exists as a secondary reminder. Today I went in and was notified I'd missed registration the prior week, that it would be no problem and that the parent tot lessons don't fill up. I asked why no reminders had been made and the front desk lady condescendingly told me I'd missed registration and she could help. Moments later she said all parent tot classes on the weekends were full but assumed I was wanting week day parent tot lessons...not sure why she assumed that as its a Saturday and our file would show we've only attended weekend classes. I realize the front desk lady had nothing to do with any of this but her attitude combo'd with my daughters disappointment was not settling. I pointed out we'd been coming since my daughter could get in pool and wanted to continue coming here and was told with a scowl that we are 7th in the wait list and she'd call if there was enough cancellations. Overall I've always liked this pool although they cut corners on cleanliness and clearly on customer service, but I'm taking this as a sign to find another pool. I've heard great things about Lynnwood and that their wait list is worth it...so that's where we'll be going moving forward. You'd think a business would care about their customer service reputation and potential life log customers, but instead you get a "minimum wage" attitude from a front desk lady who should be...

Ok, so I have a few positive/negative pieces of feedback and pointers for anyone looking to rent out space for private functions. First, the pool itself and the staff are nice (in my opinion). It's not the BEST, but it works well for my family and our 1 year old. It's clean and the pool layout is pretty neat with a shallow "wading" pool for the little ones and a deep end for the more experienced "fishies" in us. Also, the shallow side has waterfall & shower/rainfall shower head structure with lots of pool toys for the kids. Now... we rented out the whole pool for a birthday party this past weekend & wasn't completely satisfied with our experience. Yes, the pricing was significantly less than other pools I had looked at, but I see why. I rented the full pool for 1 hour with the party room to follow for the 2nd portion of the party. The party room was great! Spacious, opened up to the pool so you vang watch your kids swimming and doors to the outdoor playground. The downfall(s):

1. They wouldn't allow any setup time in the room BEFORE my prepaid hour even though the only patrons in the establishment were from MY party. We sat in the humid/hot waiting room (next to the workout room & front desk) with all of our food getting cold/hot along with the a birthday cake, 1st b-day smash cake & ice cream melting away. Apparently the freezers/fridges they had there weren't for outside use. Despite these things, everyone had a great time and thats what matters. Tip: Plan ahead and rent the room for 2 hours. During the swim...