Overall, far less than impressed. It's a new-ish facility but already showing its wear and built smaller than its current capacities dictate which planners should have realized when it was planned. The dive well has only 1m boards and a 3m could have been included, but wasn't. Locker rooms are absolutely tiny. I've been to an aquatics center in Lewisburg, West Virginia which is a town about the size of Lake City or smaller that pool is better than Cecil and is about the same size. For Jax-area, this needs to be much larger.
Then there is my personal experience. I called ahead to ask if I could practice water polo here and the lady on the phone said, sure, of course. I show up with my polo ball and another girl is like "no, you can't take that ball in the pool". I explained other staff said I could and this was standard practice for water polo. She said "the other person must not have known what water polo was and that it involved balls". Sorry, you should not work at an aquatic center if you don't know what water polo is, period. Train your staff, Cecil. Also, face masks for underwater swimming which cover the nose are not allowed--these are standard training gear for swimmers. The lifeguard didn't know why and agreed the rule is stupid but said that's the rule. I'm a licensed USA Diving coach. I'm also very versed in high school and collegiate swimming and water polo. I also happen to run a youth sports program at another institution and per all this I can validly say the rules here and lack of staff training/knowledge are pathetic and far below national or World Aquatics or even FHSAA standards. Get it together, people.
I gave two instead of one star because the pool itself is alright for lap swimming at the least. read more