LAWSUIT WAITING TO HAPPEN.
It's unsafe unless you personally supervise everything your kid does. I worked a camp for 3 yrs w lots of climbing, so I'm familiar with climbing safety, especially with kids. Canyons doesn't adequately practice harness safety, anchoring, belaying or communication.
HARNESS SAFETY:
I brought my kid to a class. While I was doing the paperwork they gave me, the staff put a harness on my child and left the leg straps gaping - like I could fit my whole shoulder in the extra space. Then they let her go up the wall, leg straps flapping - she was 25 feet up before I caught it (doing paperwork). When I pointed it out the teenage staffer brushed it off and said the waist strap is what really matters, and if the legs are loose it's fine. Seriously??? Why do you think you have leg straps? I consistently saw them outfit kids for the class without tightening leg straps AT ALL. Parents either aren't educated in climbing safety or weren't present.
BELAYING:
They teach kids as young as 8 to belay. Instruction is about 5 minutes, and then there is very little supervision afterwards. They teach them ZERO climbing communication (there is no, "climbing, climb on, on belay, belay on") and tell them they don't have to anchor-in while belaying unless the person climbing is bigger than them (also unsafe for kids who are poor judges of this and if person falls it can still jerk you forward if you're not anchored to the ground). The kids are poorly trained and I saw kids who were belaying frequently take both hands off the rope. Canyons relies entirely on their auto-locking belay device (which does seem to work well), and keeps their staff requirements low by having kids belay each other.
GENERAL POOR ATTENTION TO SAFETY:
They encourage kids to jump off the top of the bouldering wall instead of climbing back down (which is clearly against the rules that are posted on the wall), don't prevent kids from bouldering directly below each other (dangerous if there is a fall), they don't stop kids walking beneath active climbers, they don't stop kids from kicking the belay devices (which are expensive and can get hairline cracks), don't stop kids from treating the anchored belay ropes as a hammock... you get the idea.
SUMMARY:
If you are just getting a membership and climbing on your own, or helping your kids yourself it might be fine (although their lack of attention to safety does make me question how careful they are setting up equipment). If you take a class, I would watch your kid with an eagle eye, and always make sure you put their harness on yourself. And FYI, the "class" is just a pack of kids being herded around the gym - no real climbing instruction. If they fired all the staff and rehired some folks who actually care, that'd be a step in the right direction, but since all the staff seem equally apathetic about safety, I'm guessing they were never taught proper safety techniques by the management. read more