Water Babies
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Very bad experience with Water Babies
My son started his Water Babies lessons when he was two months old; we then stopped when he was 9 months and had to take a break after a very inexperienced WB’s teacher told my husband to perform an underwater swim with my son without preparing him for it - from that moment on my son was terrified and scared to go swimming again! When he turned 1.5 we decided to give it another go and try these lessons again but first we went abroad to visit some family and I took my son to very similar to WBs toddler swimming classes - he absolutely loved them, lover the trainer and it was a hard work trying to get him out of the pool! :) so when we returned I was ready to renew our WBs membership who reassured me my son will be joining a new group with other toddlers who didn’t have much experience and will learn swimming skills from scratch. We went to one class and my son didn’t enjoy it, he was terrified again and the teacher did nothing to help him settle into water OR explain to me how to do it. The next class was cancelled (a very normal and common scenario with Water Babies, their classes get cancelled all the time and they send you a text the last minute (sometimes a couple of hours before the class) when you already planned your day with your baby!!) anyway, after the second class got cancelled we received an email that the WBs are closing for a month (something they forgot to mention when I asked to renew our membership…) A month later, we were finally able to join a swimming lesson but found out that 80% of the class were toddlers who have been attending WBs lessons for ages. The teacher was asking them to perform quite advanced skills (for toddler level), and didn’t bother to demonstrate for us or help me explain them to my son. The class was the worst experience I’ve had and I couldn’t wait for it to finish. The teacher paid no attention to us whatsoever… Another really unpleasant thing about WBs is that water in their pools is always cold and pools themselves are often dirty and hygiene is often missing as they tend to rent space in primary schools over weekends or other areas. To cut long story short, when I contacted WBs and told them I would like to cancel my membership they didn’t care or react to ask about the reasons behind my decision. They sent me an email acknowledging cancellation and then told me they would charge me £76 on the same day for the next month’s lessons due to notice period. When I asked about at least a partial refund and told them about my very poor experience, they refused and told me they would encourage me to continue lessons and, as a gesture, they would offer me a lower fee if I continue into the next two months. I found this approach an example of really poor customer service as they did nothing to correct their mistakes and, instead, tried pushing me to continue to pay for their really bad quality service!! I would never recommend WBs to anyone - there are plenty baby swimming pools out there and many gyms offer group and 1-1 lessons for toddlers. So please choose wisely!