Swimtime UK Reviews 49

Really fun and educational swimming lessons, where lots of progress is made. Really nice staff, who are all friendly.

After the third consecutive week of instructor no shows we are cancelling. We weren’t even informed tonight would be cancelled so another wasted trip to the pool. Can’t get hold of head office. Swimtime has become a total joke.

We paid monthly from September until July and remained in Eel 1 (entry level) with no progress. When I swim with my son casually, he does so without armbands and underwear confidently. He even learned to do forward rolls on holiday. The teachers kept changing in the 10 months we were there where he would just be put back into floats because they didn’t know his progress. I brought this up with the teacher who blamed his listening skills. I know my son could listen more attentively but he is 6 years old and attends after school! I refuse to believe all the swimmers not using arm bands are all “listeners”.

You pay a deposit of around £50 when you start. It’s a monthly fee of £40-£50 pro rata, so you’ll continue to pay over the summer holidays when you don’t attend. And you have to pay £30 (if I remember correctly) if you leave within 90 days of enrolling to pay for a tea towel, string bag and some goggles. We didn’t need or use any of these items. 5 of our lessons were cancelled while we were there.

Parents at other swim schools are pretty surprised when I tell them our experience. What kept me there for so long is I had a perfect view of the pool at The Village so I could watch him swim. I know there’s restricted views in all my local pools but I can’t possibly pay for this any further.

Both our children have attended swimtime since January 2023.
Our son progressed quickly, making it to eel3 by Easter 2023. Our daughter progressed to Eel 2 by July 2023.

However since then there has been very little in progress, We feel that having spent over £1000 in lessons that there has not been much in the way of progression. when we went away over Easter our son was swimming with just 1 arm. 15 months of lessons and swimming with 1 arm is not good enough.
Other swimming lesson providers also offer incentives and badges. Swimtime did used to hand out certificates pool side at Easter, August and Christmas but now you can download and print yourself. A child thrives on praise and recognition and me printing off a certificate does not give the same sense of achievement as a teacher presenting something to a child.

Also the amount of cancelled lessons is shocking! Yes they get credited back but simply not good enough.

It very much feels that swimtime is profit first.

My daughter had Chris at the village hotel for 3 years and shes now so confident swimmer . I couldn't fault Chris at all he was so supportive towards my daughter with sen needs and wish we could of carried on sadly she wanted to do something else . I highly recommend him

I am currently learning to swim with Dianne and she is amazing! A lot is fit in to one lesson and she is constantly checking to see if I’m okay when something new is introduced to the lesson. I’m really happy with my swimming journey and have learnt a lot! 😊

Highly recommended! My instructor - Zoe, was a very patient teacher and was always close by, ready with constructive feedback on how to improve my swimming skills. She was always early to the slot and was well prepared with equipment. The 1:1 lessons ran for 30 minutes and she was always there to support and encourage. Zoe, thank you for being so awesome and I hope to see you again in September :)

We have lessons with Molly in Cheshire and she’s in amazing, so far no cancellations, something we were worried about when reading other reviews! But Molly is a credit to the organisation and a fabulous teacher

In the last three months my daughters swimming lesson has been cancelled 6 times out of 12 lessons. While we have received a credit for each occasion the point of booking swimming lessons is to be able to attend and learn to swim. Poor service and will be reviewing her membership.

My daughter has been attending these swimming lessons for about 18 months and is still at the first level of the first stage. The class is mixed ability which in my opinion slows down progression. Her older sibling attended Swimstars and the children there seemed to progress much faster and were not in mixed ability classes, so the short amount of time spent in the pool was not wasted and the session challenged them more.

Lovely instructor and my daughter really enjoys her lessons. But recently the venue have banished the class to the shallow end due to “guest complaints”. Every time I ask swimtime for an update they tell me a meeting is being/has been arranged, but this never seems to happen. The level my daughter is now at cannot possibly be taught in the shallow end, but quite frankly swimtime don’t seem to care!

Amazing teacher and amazing staff. My children have made so much progress since moving to Swimtime. Their teacher is amazing, explains everything really clearly and helps them to improve their swim strokes all the while making the lessons such fun. Can not recommend them enough. Even though both my.xhildren are competent swimmers, they want to carry on attending lessons because they enjoy them so much!

If I could give zero stars I would.

An absolute shambles of a company, it is no wonder they have such a high turn over of staff and swimmers. We’ve been with Swimtime since Sept 21. We’ve seen 4 teachers start and leave and there isn’t one student in either of my 2 children’s classes that were there when they started. I often wondered why but after the treatment I’ve received this past month I now understand.

Communication is absolutely diabolical.
Have no issues taking payments from your account but are unable to respond to an email without numerous chase ups.

You pay a “badge fee” MONTHLY to receive no badges

I have no certificates, as mentioned above we have been with them since 2021 and have completed 6 levels with one child and 4 with the other… we have only received our first certificate in July 2023 and that was again after asking and emailing for months and months. To a child this is really important for their confidence and motivation it’s awful that we have to ask and are promised week after week we will get them soon.

Teachers often late and the pool isn’t set up for lessons, teacher is rude, laughed at my child when they told them they were leaving and made a snide comment when wishing them ‘luck’

Lessons often cancelled with no explanation

Private lessons merged into normal lessons as they don’t have enough staff.

Parents have all commented on all of the above issues and from the conversations I had this last week of classes I struggle to believe any swimmers will be continuing

I gave our 30 days notice after the teacher has changed again this was ignored.

I’ve then had 3 payments taken from my account, totalling nearly £200. When I have asked for a breakdown on these payments I am ignored, I have emailed, and messaged on their Facebook account. I have now been blocked. If they believe these are correct then EXPLAIN that to me. I can’t understand from pure IGNORANCE.

Please take this as a warning to stay away from this company. They are expensive for what they offer and you don’t get anything more than if you attended at a public pool. It is clearly a money making scheme who have no care for the happiness for their students and their families.

I feel sorry I’ve had to write this review but I’m left with no choice from the pure ignorance I’ve received.

Shady franchisee - South East. Asked to pay upfront for 6 lessons. There was a misunderstanding on the start date and they were not available by phone or email to discuss. They insisted on charging. Sent no terms or conditions and insist cancellations / postponements etc not possible. Normally you can resolve these things but good luck getting in touch with them. Only interested in money! This is a marketplace connecting keen parents with swim teachers and they are not ones for integrity. Rude and abrupt. Ripped me off by over £50. Keri, hope you really needed that because it’s called theft

Avoid at all costs!!! 1 star is far more than they deserve.
Booked lessons for my 7 and 9 year old as our old swim school closed.
Since we started in June till the time I cancelled in September, 55% of our lessons were cancelled on the day. Swimtime say this was out of their control. The instructor was in a regular show so hardly surprising that he wasn’t able to teach the lesson, and yet every Friday, we would receive a text saying the lesson was cancelled.
Swim time refusing to waive the cancellation fee, I’m afraid I was desperate not to lose more money and my children don’t want to go back to an instructor they don’t know and won’t carry on with so now we are paying for lessons they aren’t using- the response from swim time is that we knew what we were signing up for. The irony when they have so badly failed to deliver what we paid for.
An absolute disgrace of a company. And now, despite the fact that I am still technically a customer of theirs, they have disabled my account!!!

My daughter started 2 years ago and has made no progression. There is absolutely no feed back as to what they are working on at each level and after taking her to a private lesson it appears she has very basic skills no breathing techniques and is way behind for her age. I regret even taking her to swimtime as I feel I have wasted hundreds of pounds for absolutely nothing. When explaining this in email I got a reply of we have noted your comments. Its a disgrace!

Communication from swimtime is diabolical.
My son’s lessons have been cancelled approximately 6 times in a matter of months. We were not alerted to this before arriving for the lessons and we often received no direct communication from swim time alerting us to the cancellation until the time of class had passed!
They have now taken the monthly payment when they knew the classes were being discontinued in glasgow. I am deeply dissatisfied by their service and would not recommend them for swimming lessons.

My daughter has been moved down to Eel 3 after attending at least 10 sessions in the pufferfish group! On top of that, the swimming instructor keeps changing, and they don't teach the group all at the same time. This means my daughter and the other children have to wait for their turn, resulting in only about 5 minutes of actual swimming time. It's absolutely unacceptable.

Furthermore, the lack of direct communication with one person is extremely frustrating. Every time I need to make an inquiry or discuss an issue, I have to go through the SwimTime account online, which is a cumbersome process.

My daughter's swim lesson was cancelled no one informed me about this and that was a second time in row. Also I did not receive any refund or any information about that, the phone number which is provided no one answer.
I waste another day waiting at swimming pool in swim costium with my daughter.
This is the worst service I ever received.

My son was with Swimtime for a couple of years, I left when the price was increased again.

It’s only now I’ve gone elsewhere that I realise how bad the lessons were and I’m so disappointed that I wasted so much money there. The lessons were over crowded, I hardly saw any improvement and the progression was so slow. I paid for some 121 which are really expensive but that was the only way for him to be moved up a level.

I moved to the local leisure centre, it’s a fraction of the price, the only time they close is Christmas and progression is monitored through an app so you see what they need to practice etc. He’s come on so much in such a short space of time.

If your child isn’t improving I’d recommend trying somewhere else, don’t think as I did that you’re paying more for a better quality lesson because you’re not.