Swimtime UK Reviews 

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'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.

Instructor Grace Jordan's 1-2-1 class is very encouraging and effective. She knows how to engage with kids and motivate them. My 5-year old son really enjoys her class and just in two 1-2-1 classes, he has already started swimming on his back and gaining great confidence.

My 2 year old started his swimming lessons with swim time 4 weeks ago. He absolutely loves it and cannot wait for the next swimming lessons . James is absolutely amazing and great with the little one.

Absolutely pi*s poor performance my daughter has been here 12 months now and still learning the basics with no progression she can do more than the people I her class we go away 9 times a year and have no issues with her in the pool at all yet swimtime seem to think it's appropriate to not progress her to the next level my thoughts are it's all about the money

while the first month was good, now we are locked in the service is very poor. My sons last leson consisted of 4 laps that was it. I raised this with the company only for them to cancel the next swimming lesson. my Son then attended the following lesson where he did 4 laps again and the one after this was cancelled with 1 hours notice. the section of the pool is very small and the changing rooms are used by the meatheads in the gym so there is always lots of bad language.

when trying to contact swimtime its very rare they answer the phone.

Lessons very variable in quality and very nuch dependent on the instructor. Caution if changing from block to monthly payments as this will be considered a change in plan even if your child has been in the same lessons for months. This will result in very low cost 'starter pack' and a charge of £30 if you then leave within 90days.

As an ex swimming teacher I wouldn't touch with a barge pole due to poor quality and excessive fees

I booked lessons with Swimtime for my 2 children just before the summer holidays. The first lesson went well, but the second was cancelled on the day, which was quite annoying. During the 3rd lesson, my daughter fell off one of the floats she was using, and went underwater, which caused her great distress. We were not there to observe this and were only told about this afterwards by my son and daughter - it was not mentioned by the instructor. We wanted to discuss this with the instructor at the next lesson but my daughter is now refusing to go back, so I looked to cancel.

Due to the way in which the pricing is structured (monthly payments during school holidays) I found that I have paid out a total of nearly £250 for lessons, of which there have been 3 which they could have attended. So basically £250 for an hour and a half of lessons. Upon cancelling, I learnt that the 'welcome pack', which consists of a cheap towel, drinks bottle and goggles, will cost me £34.99 (x 2) because I'm cancelling within 90 days. In total my account is in credit by £3.50 - I fail to see how this can be justified.

I feel like the main purpose of Swimtime is to extort as much money out of customers as possible, making it extremely difficult and financially detrimental to cancel. I am also disappointed that despite raising concerns about the incident involving my daughter, I have yet to be contacted about this. I understand that such an incident can occur, however I would expect the instructor to have discussed this with me. I would also expect that given the circumstances I should be entitled to a refund of more than £3.50, given that I have paid upfront for almost £180 worth of lessons that my children will never get to have.

Be aware when using this company.

Swimtime West Midlands have been amazing and I would highly recommend them. It sounds like other people have had some really bad experiences, but I guess as it's a franchise business it depends on what your local team is like. My 3 year old son has been having lessons with Swimtime since he was a few months old and we love it. The office are super helpful with any issues and the teachers are amazing. Really supportive, gentle and encouraging. If you're in the West Midlands please don't be put off by the other reviews because this team are amazing.

The swimming pool near my residence has closed and the nearest one is around 10 miles away which isn’t feasible for us to go for swimming lessons for my child. They’ve unused balance on my account which I’ve been asking for a refund on but they’ve been flatly refusing.

I was on the waiting list for 5 months, which is fine. Everyone is wanting their kids to learn! I then get a text to say they have spaces on Thursdays and if I’d like my child to join. I called them back as it said they will only keep the space open for 24 hours. I told the man on the phone that we’d love to have the lessons, and he said great, I then said ‘but can it start from the following week. I have a hospital appointment this week’ and he was blunt and sounded annoyed and went ‘well I’ve already booked it now and took the money from your account’ (as you have to put your card details on when you first originally sign up). And he wouldn’t correct this or offer to change it. So I had to cancel my hospital appointment. That was the first rubbish part.
Then I get there for my child’s first lesson. I’m not greeted by anyone. I’m not told at all that it’s a one way system and get shouted at. Then I go up to a man (Justin) to tell him my child is new and it’s their first lesson, and he didn’t even speak to me. Just pointed at the lady working there instead (Ros). I go to her and she doesn’t say hi, just asks if my child can swim. I said no…which the office knew. And she went ‘great. They’ve done it again. They did this to me already today’ and I tried to tell her my child is scared of water, but she walked off and just ignored me and got on with the lesson. Which I thought ‘she only has half an hour. That’s fine’. She then was quite rough with the kids. Yanking their arms around and pulling them hard. I didn’t like this. She also told one kid to shut up, who was crying! I wanted to speak to her after but as soon as the kids were out, she immediately was then talking to the next class. So I emailed the office. Who were very abrupt saying this is how the kids learn. No apology at all.
Then I take my child to the next session, and she has a go at me in front of other parents and the kids. Saying I went moaning to the office. She then said if you don’t like how I teach, just leave. I said it’s fine, just don’t be so firm. As I don’t like this. She then made a point of saying she won’t touch my child then. Which I said she could. And she then made sure whenever he reached out for her hand, she would say to him ‘no, I’m not touching you’ and left him out a bit. At one point he was sat on the steps and he was the only child to not be chosen to swim towards her. He even said ‘mummy she’s not choosing me’ I sat there and cried. I understand her being annoyed towards me if she didn’t like that I had spoken to the office, but to take it out on him! The whole thing was unprofessional and the atmosphere was utterly awful. I wouldn’t recommend to anyone!
One positive, I did get a full refund. Which I appreciate. But the staff at the pool get easily defensive and are so rude! Just awful