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    Arena Leisure Centre

    4.5 (2 reviews)

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    Aquatics Centre - Paralympic swimming!

    Aquatics Centre

    4.5(10 reviews)
    34.8 miStratford, Olympic Village

    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!

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    Aquatics Centre
    Aquatics Centre
    Aquatics Centre

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    Oasis Leisure Centre - Oasis Leisure Centre

    Oasis Leisure Centre

    3.9(18 reviews)
    47.5 mi

    So this is where it all started...the beginning of a rather bizarre love with swimming pools as a…read moreplace for fun - the memories of youth - I remember the excitement when this leisure pool originally opened in 1976 - it wasn't a rectangle it was round! What was this madness? Half the pool was too shallow to actually swim in and it had waves. This was the very first time I had encountered a "leisure" pool - oh trend setting, thoroughly modern Swindon you have so much to answer for - (along with the famed "magic roundabout"). I still return here with the kids every time we jump on a train to visit my wife's family. It is a great pool but looking distinctly tatty round the edges now. The domed roof desperately needs renewing - it looked spectacular 30 years ago but putting that aside its still super fun. The pool itself is beach style with a separate small kids pool. Good kids pool with 3 slides plus pirate ship.... The main pool has a steep three lane multislide and a new long slide circles inside the building (77m long). But really it is the flumes here that count and these are top. The Domebusters have a had a refurb this year and one of them has been replaced. All are approx 100m in length.So first off The Sidewinder A fairly gentle, spiralling flume aimed at younger children and parents. You can sit or go head first. The Great White My favourite - heads first ONLY never seen that on any other slide! Normally feet first everywhere.... A fast ride with two small vertical drops and several twists and turns. The Storm The new this year straight fast flume - small circumference with a striped lighting effect and sounds.. Didn't get to try this out this time - but will be back to do so....busy with an under 5... The session time was only an hour - which is really not long enough and it is fairly expensive considering the stingy hour. There are not many reasons to visit Swindon but this is definitely one if you are a water slide fan or the kids love to swim. . --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Update So I came back to try out the new flume which I hadn't managed to try out last time. Managed to slip away from a family visit for a couple of hours with my teenagers. Interestingly GLL have taken over the management of the leisure centre since we were here in 2012 (they run most of the pools we visit in London). It had been spruced up a bit with the new corporate livery...but still the stingy session times. We took no notice of the session times and made good use of the domebuster slides. So The Storm was the main attraction - small tube, dark, with striped lightning and fast with the descent as a helix. A big thumbs up from the family - a great slide but not in our top 5 slides. The Great White remains the favourite - head first you can pick up some proper speed and fly over the steepest vertical drops... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Oasis is a great place to take the family swimming! They have a huge laguna pool that boasts water…read moreslides, a wave machine, a smaller pool for the children and a big water sprayer. They do a range of different classes such as mother and baby Swimming, OAP Swimming and also offer swimming lessons. They have also just started doing gigs with people such as 'The Sugababes' 'Cascada' and 'Shayne Ward' perfoming there.

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    Oasis Leisure Centre
    Oasis Leisure Centre - Back for the slides...

    Back for the slides...

    Oasis Leisure Centre

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    Arena Leisure Centre - swimmingpools - Updated May 2026

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