Swim Fins Swim School Cloverdale West

Very unprofessional company. My daughter is in one of their classes and she told me that her instructor is looking at the clock as if she is running out the session time. I am not going to disclose my name since she still has lessons until april but if I were you...I would not spend the money! Very unprofessional staff as well. They take days to get back to you. I was going to complain about the instructor to the company but I am afraid of getting kicked out of the lessons as the other posts have said. So I will wait again until these lessons are over to officially complain but I wanted to come on here and tell parents to please save their money. My daughter said she hasn't learnt anything from the lessons. The instructor seems like they do not want to be there.

The most unprofessional, shady company/person i have ever dealt with. Do not count on keeping the lesson time you book. They enjoy switching classes, days and the duration of your swim. Then try and charge you an outrageous amount extra because they changed your schedule after you have already paid in full and have been swimming for 2 weeks. The minute you say something about their lack of professionalism, they say its not a right fit and withdraw your child. Beware! Do not sign up with swim clo.

Don't waste your money with this company, the constant last minute cancelations, lack of responses to emails my wife and I have sent them, or the complete no shows to lessons we have booked is a horrible experience of a company. Save your money and try any other swim company than this one

Terrible experience taking my child here. They rip you off by adjusting times for covid protocols and using your paid for swimming time to do this. They also have discussions with parents during your child's swimming times. My child saw zero improvement in their swimming here after three seperate enrollments. It's expensive and not worth it.

We would give ‘0’ stars if possible as there is such a long list of issues families have to deal with for this business. Half of the classes are canceled and you get an email couple of hours before the session. They blame a ‘mechanical issue’ for cancelation all the times. There is no contact to call anyone except for an email address to which they respond 24-48 hrs later. For the amount these lessons cost, you expect at least a courtesy call or a contact person you can talk to. At the time of signing up, sessions are advertised to last 45 minutes. Unfortunately, instructor starts the session 5-15 minutes late. Worse, sessions end early every single time and kids are out of building 5-10 minutes before the sessions’ end. Effectively, kids are in water for half the time you sign up for. When you try to contact the administrator, they blatantly refuse to believe that. Finally, Swimfins has a no cancelation policy. If for some reason you are not able to attend, there are no refunds or makeup classes. What other business does that? Imagine Costco or Apple doing that with zero warranty and zero refunds any any sales. Even for classes canceled by Swimfins, there are no makeup sessions nor any refunds. Apparently, the amount is credited back to your account and available only if you sign up with them again. Who is going to sign up a second time after a harrowing experience the first time? Stay away, sign up for private lessons elsewhere or better, sign up with local recreation centres. They do a far better job! Update: In response to the owner’s comment below - if Swimfins is aware there is instructor shortage, what is stopping you from offering makeup classes or refunds to your customers? Or your only focus is to enroll as many kids as possible and forget about after-care service? Do you think Apples and Costcos wait until they became multi-million dollar corporations before getting serious about customer service? If you are not able to manage your service offering at a much smaller level, what can we hope for the future? As for your comment about time spent in water, a clarification at the time of registration will help that kids will only spend half the time in water and not the full time they are registering for. These are young kids. They learn by practising their skill, not by standing outside listening to instructions as their attention span is probably only a few seconds.

At Swim Fins we teach people to "Learn to Swim in 1/4 of the time." The idea of saving time is great, but the company charges for the time savings as the classes are more expensive than the rec center. The only thing going for them is the fact that they have a lot of availability since classes are not separated into levels -- the coach teaches based on the child's levels. I registered my son (5 yrs old) during summer 2021 for 1 session to try them out, the process was a headache. Website and diagrams showing what and when to register were confusing, they do not have a customer service phone line to call, everything has to be emailed, and replies are slow and many times, they don't answer all the questions. The swim masks (required) and fins also are highly marked up to rake in more profits. The one-time "Open House" for parents to view their child swim was cancelled with no explanation or notice (the coach just happens to tell us), so as a parent I have no clue how my child is doing and what they are learning really. Most importantly, after a few classes, my son became anxious about going to swim class, and soon I realized he was not enjoying his classes. I asked the coach to go easy on him, and after emphasizing a few more times my son told me he was finally enjoying the class, right towards the end of the sessions. I inquired further through email after his session about swim sessions for toddlers but ultimately the hassle and unhelpfulness of the emails drove me away. Fall 2021, I registered my son in the rec center, most classes require parent participation due to COVID so we accepted it. The very first day, my son was again anxious going into the pool (maybe from previous experience at swim fins?), but after a few times, he started enjoying swimming again and I found going with him in a parented course has been absolutely amazing, we work with him under the guidance of the swim instructor, we learn how to guide him and the class becomes almost a 1-1 private lessons. He has become more confident and is enjoying being in the water now. I realize now that as amazing as it would be to have my son fast pace through the levels, I remember that ultimately I want him to enjoy the process and experience. At swim fins, we found the coach to be too strict and not engaging. I think to live up to their claim the coaches are under a lot of pressure to produce results for the company and/or the parent's expectations. I hope our experience can give other parents some considerations when choosing swim schools.

I registered my child in SwimFins for two courses so far and I do not intend to continue. They cancelled 6 classes until now (the Spring course did not end yet) during Winter and Spring courses and their refund policy is SO unfair. They offer credit for classes they cancelled in the first place and we could use the credit to register in future FULL courses (not single classes for the missed ones) and the cycle of cancellation keeps going and the credit refund increases with no use! I do understand that they might be facing some challenges due to coaches’ shortage. Yet, please do not offer classes if you do not have back up plans due to shortage of coaches. It is not the customer responsibility to bear the consequences it is the Bussiness owner responsibility I think!

Review from summer of 2021: Non-existent Customer Service, Too expensive and Non-impactful swimming lesson: My 6 year old started the 8w long weekly swimming lessons at one of the holiday inn express locations! We found the instructor to be not as experienced and knowledgeable, especially when they we’re explaining to us after each class. We barely got few mins of chat with them after the class as they always rush you before and after the class. My biggest pain point was that I couldn’t reach out to the customer service as easily as you expect. Only email support (no phone support) is available and that too is very very slow! I still have $500credit that’s leftover and the do not REFUND you even though my son did not even start the lessons, and I requested the cancellation weeks before the classes were supposed to start. So please don’t waste your money on these expensive and simply useless swimming lessons, which in the end were a big time waste for our kid and us! Hope this helps!