Bellevue Aquatic Center — Restaurant in Bellevue

This review is specifically related to childrens' / infants' swimming lessons at the Bellevue Aquatic Center. We have participated in both parent / tot and preschool 1 lessons. We were extremely happy with the preschool 1 lessons, but the parent / tot was a little disappointing. There were a large number of babies in our class and it wasn't really suitable for smaller babies (ours was 9 months). There are long periods of doing nothing while a song is sung to each baby in turn and so we took it upon ourselves to make up our own activities during these lulls. We had previously attended very good baby swimming classes when our elder child was a baby, so we had some experience of what we could do.

Overall we were happy with the experience, but here's the rub. If you don't live in Bellevue, I strongly advise you not to sign up for these lessons at all. Why? Each group of lessons is only one month long, so you have to re-register every month. Bellevue residents have a 10-day head start to sign up and there is no preference given to people already attending lessons, and in fact no notice given to attendees that the time for renewal is approaching. That means it is a complete lottery whether or not you will get a spot for the second or any subsequent month, let alone get the same spot / same teacher. If you have 2 children to coordinate and are among the many working parent families limited to weekends - seriously, forget it. (Oh, and in order to boost your chances you have to stay up until midnight to register online the second lessons are released to non-residents; with a 10-month old, I can barely keep my eyes open past 11.)

If you genuinely want to teach your infant / toddler / child to swim, or at least to be safe in the water, then you need consistency. You need to go every week for months and, particularly with preschoolers, you need the same trusted face to be in the water with your child. Perhaps I will change my earlier recommendation. Perhaps you should sign up once to see how it's done, and then take over teaching your children yourself when your month is up.

We'll be going to open sessions...

Since last year I have been swimming here every other day. I can say that the pool is big and warm enough, the water quality is good, the indoor area is bright, and the staff are friendly. But I also found it very difficult to do lap swim in the ‘lap swim’ section of their pool schedule!!!! Every time I came here, wishing to swim without disrupting, I just failed. There are always children dancing, standing in the middle of the ‘lap swim lanes’, laughing so loud like there is nobody else is doing lap swim in the same lane. Although they might be willing to swim for 2 yards, they then stop right at the middle again, and being yelled by their frustrated parents who’d rather standing on the edge, shouting/pointing at their children than simply swimming along with them. Can’t believe while adults are obeying the rules and schedules, the others just don’t. Also, I can’t remember how many times that people are hitting me accidentally when they are just trying to avoid these unpredictable actions from the children. I hope the life guards could do something other than ignoring these issues, but I guess since this center might be majorly profiting from the children and parents stuff, there’s no necessary to risk for losing them against the minority lap swimmers. Besides, I wonder if there is any one actually dare to stand for the rules and restrictions against ‘children’s natural behavior’…..would the parents be reasonable enough to understand that? Welcome, children, and goodbye, lap swimmers.

P.S. Being a male kid can take advantage here for those reasons: 1. Don’t worry about the pool is suddenly closed 2-3 times without any notice every month that could break a girl’s swimming plan since girls have only up to 3 weeks per month to swim; 2. Even if a boy is 5 ft tall he can hang in the women’s room and watch naked people there for free; 3. Being a kid means having privilege to do anything in the pool including jumping dancing in lap swim lanes, play balls and hit swimmers, and poop/ vomit in the pool (the reason why the pool has to close every month)while paying...

TL;DR: Don’t recommend this pool, especially the warm lagoon open swim. Entitled third party therapists/instructors running classes there ruin it for everyone.

The pool is dated as others have mentioned, but decent. Staff here is great. However, if you’re looking to swim in the warm lagoon during open swim - go anywhere else. There’s many 3rd party water therapy/instructors running sessions during open swim and they feel very entitled to the entire pool. Over the last several months, I’ve seen them bark and yell at parents with young children who even remotely get close to them, or their stuff piled by the side of the pool. They make no effort to share the space and snap if you swim near them. They also will make sure no families use the ADA shower/changing rooms (there are at least 3, maybe 4. The 2 in the main hallway and 1 in the women’s room. I assume the men’s room has one too) even if the rooms are all empty.

I’ve only seen parents and kids being polite and trying to avoid the therapists/private swim lesson people. But there’s so many of them, it’s impossible to give as much space as these entitled third parties demand, despite the fact that we all paid to be there. It’s a horrible open swim experience.

BAC could help by reducing the number of classes they allow during open swim, or posting signs that families can use the private shower rooms when not in use - still giving priority to the differently abled.

I won’t go back though. Too many horrible experiences - not worth the...