Excellent Leisure Centre easily accessible off the North Circular. Great pool and a wave pool too…read more Very adequate workout area. Sauna too.

Not the coolest of cool places to hang out on a saturday night, but the Vue cinema has loads of…read morescreens so is always showing what you want to see, and there is a good selection of restaurants (Nando's, Ask etc) in the complex as well so that you can satisfy your belly before going into the cinema (and stuffing yourself more with popcorn and sweets)

I live a good swim. And here at the Kentish Town Pool I get to have a good swim in a beautiful…read moreenvironment. The main pool here is one of the Victorian-era swimming pools and it's really quite magnificent to swim in it...especially when at certain times of the day the sun hits the water just right. I use the Better Health App to sign up for a swim. I avoid the busy times - early mornings and evenings - and so most of the times I share the lane only with a few other folks.

A fabulous new gym at a price to…read more suit everyones pocket : love it!

A great family day out…read more The Leisure centre offers several swimming pools; a family pool ( with wave machine), an olympic size pool and one with high diving boards. The centre also has a childrens activity area away from the pools and offer crafts and play time while parents wait. The Leisure centre is within Mote park which has a variety of playground equipment to keep the little ones entertained.

Maidstone Leisure Centre is just located outside the town centre in Mote Park, which is about 5…read moreminutes away. The Centre offers several swimming pools, a great family pool with a wave machine and log flume, a brilliant olympic size swimming pool and another with driving boards. If you don't fancy swimming, and have small children, then polar adventure is a great place to take the kids to play, with a large soft play area and ice hill slides. Its also a great place for kiddies birthday parties. The leisure centre also has a large multipupose sports hall a great gym facilities, and a health suite with sauna and spa. Great place for a family day out!

Can you keep a secret guys?? Not many people seem to have noticed it yet, but a year and a half…read moreafter the Olympics there's some exciting stuff going on in Stratford again... Yep living near the Park is paying off nicely at the moment - my new local council swimming pool is none other than the Aquatics Centre! It's been open to the public for the last few weeks and I have to say it's a pretty special venue - I still get tingles every time I walk in. It's £4.50 per swim session for an adult and there's an easy peasy online system to book in advance. There are 2 full size pools inside - the Competition Pool for the hardcore swimmers and the Training Pool where they separate the lengths into two 25m sections. Personally I found a 50m pool to be ridiculously long in real life (my superwoman stamina is a err work in progress) so I tend to do laps in the 25m lanes. You choose a pool and a start time online but it's pretty lax once you're in, and you can stay as long as you like. The water is a nice slightly warm temperature and it's usually a uniform 1.2m depth all the way along (though somehow they can change the depth of different sections - the mind boggles!). It's not all lanes - there are also sections of the pool roped off for 'fun' as well as swimming lessons. Also saw signs for a total wipeout stylee 'Splash Time' for kiddies at weekends that sounded like great fun if anyone wants to lend me a child?! The reason it misses a 5th star is that the changing rooms and shower facilities are just not that great. It's spacious yes and there are plenty of cubicles, hairdryers and lockers, but the layout is a little confusing (quite a wander from the lockers to the female showers), they seem to have too many staff/cleaners milling around not doing much, and the showers themselves seem temperamental and need you to wave a hand past every 3 seconds. Is this how Michael Phelps showered?! (*pauses to enjoy the mental picture*) Ahem. Yeah I expected better. So remember to bring your own towel+toiletries, a plastic bag for your wet cozzie (I haven't spotted a drying machine yet) and a £1 coin for the lockers. And please only tell your special friends - the nicest thing at the moment is that it isn't too busy on weeknights! See you there :)

The swimming pool itself is great, most of the time quiet, you can choose your line depending on…read morehow fast you want to swim so that you don't get disturb by other people while swimming. The changing space however is really poor for this kind of aquatics centre - you can really tell you're just meant to come, quickly change, swim and leave. There are few showers and they are quite temperamental. The lockers and cubicles are just not that comfortable to use. So it's a very good pool, but come there for exercise only and not hoping for a full spa experience!

What a great 25m pool, and gym if you want to use for £6.50 per day single entry…read more Friendly staff, really clean facility. No restrictions on using fins or snorkel for lap swimming. Swimmers are super friendly, and considerate. Helped me get comfortable when one lane was too slow for me, and the other a little fast. Food in snack bar is delicious, vegan options, and super friendly staff. Water is perfect temperature for me. I like warm water, this is not too warm, or too cold. You can get in without shivering, but it's not bath water. I'm going to spend a lot of time here! If you have kids there's a play room. Basketball, five a side football, tennis, huge work out rooms. Go see for yourself when in London. It's a 15 min taxi ride from Camden Market. Stephen

This is a new pool. It is generally well run and kept clean, the water is not chlorinaed and it's…read moreall quite warm. Its overlooked by a good but expensive cafe. There are good changing facilities and a whole sports centre and library in the complex. The pool is also overlooked by the gym. This makes it more interesting swimming around as you can look at the various people in the cafe and gym. If you're a Camden Resident you have to take out club membership or you can have a one off swim for the usual price, something over £3. I get concessionary swim rates so it's free for me in the mornings. ou cannot dive as it's only 2 metres deep at the deep end, shallow end is quite deep too at about 1 metre, so not suitable for little kids. They do allow kids with floats in most times, and sometimes it's crowded if you are trying just to do laps. Showers are warm (I am talking about the ladies here but I believe its the same in the gents) and staff are polite. This is a big improvement on the pool there used to be, but unfortunately its' smaller There's a smaller pool which they can vary the depth of - this is usually used for little kids and classes like water aerobics. Very small kids like to play outside in the big water feature which is very shallow and just right for toddlers and tots. There is also a soft play on the site, in my opinoin pretty expensive at about 8 pounds

Excellent swimming activity and tuition center for children and adults…read more If you want your children to learn to swim this is the place to bring them.

Forgot I was allergic to water. The water burned. Not a pleasent experience. Accidentally swallowed…read moresome water. Am now patronised from ankle down.

Park Lane Leisure Centre is set between Muswell Hill and Crouch End Broadway, and offers a wide…read morerange of leisure facilities. They have a gym, and hold fitness classes of all types, I have a few friends that take the classes here, but have never taken any myself. My friends have been going for quite a while so they must be quite good. I do however go to park lane for other reasons. In London, you do not get many out door pools, probably due to our great climate. There are a couple that I know of, one being in Hampstead Heath, and the other at the Park Road Leisure Centre. On the weekends, especially during the summer holidays as a teenager, I was here all the time. It is a great place for youngsters to meet and socialize and get some exercise. On those sunny days it was great and was the highlight of my week. The outdoor pool is only open from may to September, and if it is raining during those months, they also have an indoor pool, so no need to worry.

I am leaving David Lloyd Finchley after 18 months of membership. The classes have been excellent,…read moreand the Ygym has helped build a set of wonderful, in balance muscles. I am fitter than I have been for years. The reason for my departure is the recent transformation of a previously unisex, tranquil, shared area of the gym (a place of stretching, warm up and cool downs, yoga poses etc.) into a shadow boxing club for young men. This transformation has been led by one enthusiastic, ebullient gym-member and is spreading to his cronies. I spoke to the management about this user led reassignment of space. The management told me that there was no policy to prevent gym members from using an area of the gym for an activity that it was not designed for. Out of a total of 8 mats for stretching etc., 3 are now highly compromised. Clearly, the ebullient gym member has no understanding of boundaries and David Lloyd has no way of helping him understand about how to share space fairly. If you want your boundaries tresspassed upon, and to have that trespass legitimised by controlling authorities, join this flagship David Lloyd.

I like to thank the David Lloyd Finchley branch management for their brilliant work in resolving…read morethe problems with the car parking difficulties in the disabled and family area of the carpark. My thanks go to Gopal Gautama and Joe Welch (GM and deputy GM) for their strategic thinking and introducing the costly valet parking combined with the carpark control; as well as taking other crucial steps such as challenging the offenders and issuing penalty tickets by an outside contractor. I also like to thank the operational managers Livia Blanaru, Alex Huber-Gurry, Glenn Burdett, Harriet Drury and the members of staff at the reception Chloe Fearon and Tina Sinai for enforcing the policy. I have been a member since 2002 and seen many attempts fail in the past to resolve the persisting parking issue at our branch and in that context the management's policy has been incredibly successful. Well done. Dr Hassan Sobati

Did you know London has ponds? Yeah, me either. The ponds (which are more like large lakes) are in…read moreLondon's North West Neighborhood, Hampstead. It's a bit away from the touristy parts of central London and that's the point! Swimming at the Hampstead Heath Ponds is one of the best things to do in London. I understand how cool it is to go to a famous city and see its top attractions. But what happens next? The best experiences I've had in a new city is doing normal things that locals do and that's exactly what Hampstead Heath's Ponds is like for a tourist - an insider's look into what Londoners do on a hot summer day. I know it's a hot girl summer (word to Meg) but in London, it's more like a wet girl summer, winter, fall, and spring. On the rare sunny days all the outdoor spaces, parks, rooftops, and pools are filled with Londoners desperately trying to enjoy every ounce of sun. If you're in London on a day like this, don't skip the ponds. Here's everything you need to know about visiting the Hampstead Heath Ponds: Get There Early The ponds open around sunrise but you won't need to be that early. On a hot day, it's best to arrive just before the afternoon. If you come later than 12 PM, you might not get in. The ponds themselves are large but the grassy area where you'll find sunbathers and beach bags are not. So to keep the area from being too crowded the lifeguards stop letting people in at a certain point. I recommend arriving between 10 - 11:30 AM. It's So Cheap The entry fee to get into the ponds is only 2 pounds. If you're a student, it's 1 pound. My friend and I couldn't believe how inexpensive it was. Visiting the ponds won't hurt your pockets. There are Three Different Ponds There's a men's, women's and a mixed pond. Don't ask me why - I really don't know but I feel like it's some old, outdated thing that has stuck around until the present day. If you identify as transgender, you can use whichever pond you'd like! We went to the mixed pond--mostly because it's the closest to the entrance and we're lazy. Pick your poison. Bring A Picnic I probably don't need to tell you this but pack snacks! There aren't any food stalls at the ponds to purchase snacks or drinks. You'll see that most people come with food and have some sort of picnic. It's a good idea to bring a blanket or beach towels too as the lounging area here is mostly grass. We opted for some fresh fruit and water but I whole picnic spread could be lovely by the water. Full blog review here: https://youmelunch.com/blog-native/2019/8/20/tips-you-need-to-know-before-visiting-hampstead-heath-ponds Keep up with my travel adventures: https://www.instagram.com/briyoumetravel/

This bathing pond is easily one of the nicest places you could possibly find yourself on a hot day…read morein London! The water was a little chilly when you first jump in (I think it was around 20 °C on Saturday) but my friend said this is warmer than the swimming in the serpentine in Hyde park. The surroundings are simply beautiful with gorgeous green trees, and plenty of room to swim no matter how many people decide to come for a dip. I should warn you that it gets EXTREMELY busy on hot days in the summer. We saved a space in the dappled light under the trees with a towel while we swam...and returned to find more people around us, right up to the edge of the towel space!! It makes London fields look spacious! BUT the people all around seem happy, friendly and chatty. Plus if you do need more space, you can relax outside in the park, and just drop into the pond area when you want to swim. Swimming here while chatting to my friend I honestly just felt happy to be alive and living in such a gorgeous city. This pond, is good for your heat levels...and excellent for your soul. Useful extra information: - It costs £2 - There was a sign to say no under 18s, but there were a few children there (maybe they sneaked in) - No Alcohol allowed (although plenty of people had sneaked in with a tipple in their bag.)