We love Evanston Goldfish! The atmosphere is amazing and the staff are wonderful! They have been so…read moreflexible with her growing family! my husband and I cannot thank them enough for helping teach my kids to swim and love the Water!

My child has had a great experience overall at Goldfish Swim School. The facility is clean, the…read moreinstructors are engaging, and my child looks forward to every lesson. I truly appreciate the structure and the progress my little one has made in a short time. However, I'm giving 2 stars because I had a very valid concern regarding my child's privacy, and it was completely dismissed. During class, other parents were taking photos and videos that included my child. When I respectfully brought this up, the manager told me it "shouldn't be a problem" and offered no support or solution. Actually made me feel bad about brining it up. and i was also told that they encourage taking pictures and posting them for marketing. smh As a parent, I feel it's reasonable to expect that my child not be recorded by strangers, especially in a private facility designed for children. I wasn't asking for anything drastic--just basic respect and maybe a gentle reminder to parents to be mindful of others. It's disappointing that my concern wasn't taken seriously at all, and I hope Goldfish Swim School reconsiders how they handle privacy issues moving forward. It would go a long way in making all families feel safe and respected.

This review is not for Big Blue but for a specific teacher. Gloria is a real life magical mermaid…read more She is an incredible teacher, advocate, and role model. I'm truly in awe of her ability to maintain enthusiasm, warmth, insight, and intention through lesson after lesson. She is working on another level. She packs so much into a 30 minute lesson - challenging her students to build skill, creating a sense of community, encouraging them to support each other. We've had a few teachers at Big Blue, all clearly well trained, and our child demonstrates more growth in one session with Gloria than a month with his other teachers. I've worked in schools and observed educators in various settings for many years. Gloria has the passion and charisma that I recognize from the best teachers I've known. Even when my child was not in her class, Gloria advocated for his learning experience, working with the staff to make sure he was in the right level for both his age and skill. Whatever you are paying her, quadruple it. We are lucky to have Gloria in our community. Generally our experiences with big blue staff have been positive. Staff are always friendly and helpful. Gloria, again, stands head and shoulders above the rest.

As a parent, I am extremely disappointed with our experience at this swim facility. My son, is on…read morethe spectrum, and I expected a level of patience, communication, and professionalism that has consistently been lacking. Communication has been one of the biggest issues. Makeup lessons are frequently changed, rescheduled, or handled differently than what was originally communicated, often with little notice or consistency. It is frustrating to constantly seek clarification instead of receiving reliable information from the facility. Another major concern is the lack of instructional consistency. My son has been switched between multiple instructors during a single 30-minute lesson, which is disruptive and reduces valuable instruction time. Staff also do not appear to consistently review student notes. My son is currently in Bold 2, yet during makeup lessons he is often taught Bold 1 material by instructors unfamiliar with his progress. As a result, he makes little to no progress during those lessons. This is why I request specific instructors when scheduling makeup lessons--not because I expect those requests to be guaranteed, but because I expect instructors to understand where students are in the program before teaching. Additionally, if you need to contact the facility by phone, it is extremely difficult to reach a live person. Calls are rarely answered, and return calls are infrequent, making it even harder to get questions answered or concerns addressed in a timely manner. I also believe management visibility could be improved. Until recently, I was not even aware that each location had a General Manager. I have sent several complaints and concerns to Julian, who has handled them professionally and resolved issues quickly, and I appreciate his efforts. However, I feel these responsibilities should not fall solely on him. Having a General Manager who is more present within the facility, actively engaging with staff and families rather than remaining primarily in the office, could help operations run more smoothly and ensure concerns are addressed more effectively. I spoke directly with the General Manager, Kate, regarding these concerns. Unfortunately, she never asked for my son's name, reviewed his account, or took notes about our experience. While I was told the issues would be discussed with staff, the conversation left me feeling unheard and gave little confidence that meaningful follow-up would occur. The facility itself has additional concerns. The air conditioning system was reportedly expected to be repaired over a month ago, yet it remains unresolved. This is concerning not only for my son, who suffers from severe allergies, but also for employees who spend hours working in the heat and humidity. I do want to recognize Gloria, Julian, and Ozzie for their kindness, patience, and professionalism. They consistently make my son feel welcome/seen and are a major reason we have continued attending. My hope is that management focuses on improving communication, staff training, instructional consistency, facility maintenance, and customer service. Families deserve a supportive environment, and concerns raised by parents should be documented and addressed rather than overlooked. P.S I had to edit this review smaller since there is a 5k character. There was much more and details that needed to be said

Updating my review because I need to give some love to our amazing teacher Crystal!! We took the…read morefall & winter season off from lessons since we would be out of town quite a bit and end up missing classes anyways. We started up with lessons again in the spring and needless to say we regressed quite a bit. Luckily for us, our new teacher has been so supportive and encouraging to our 2 year old. Our first lesson back was pretty rough with lots of tears, but Crystal encouraged us to keep at it and not give up. Over the last four weeks, our son has become so much more comfortable in the water. Crystal has cheered him on the whole time and always moved at a pace he is comfortable with, while slowly encouraging him to try new things. She has been so patient and encouraging, and he has grown to love swim again!! Thanks you Crystal for getting us comfortable in the water again!

They swim only like 5 yards for little kids, don't challenge them…read more They made the biggest progress when I took them for swim myself. Money wasting experience.

It's a good place to learn how to swim for the little ones .! I seen my kid improve a lot, in a…read morelittle time .! A lot of coaches too in this facility.! Great staff . I give 4 stars just because sometimes they spend time fixing googles , it can take them ( 5 minutes by doing that , looking at the time ( clock wise) too I se them a lot .! In every minute count for me .! Instead of checking the clock they should focus more on starting the class.

Not a great place unless you don't have other options. Both Gold Fish and Big Blue are designed to…read morekeep you in the program and paying money by having your kids make very slow improvements, but not really to teach them how to swim as quickly as possible. They get hung up on micro movements and use it as an excuse to stall progression. It's rediculous. Off the two we did like Gold Fish better. This issues is was particularly pronounced when we brought our daughter to swim lessons in another country. The approach was night and day. She learned more in two lessons there than she did in 20 lessons at Gold Fish. The teacher even pointed out that our daughter hadn't made much progress in one year since he had seen her last. Gold Fish is a racket. They will teach your kids to swim.... eventually. But you are much better off putting your kiddo in a different swim school or in another activity they enjoy. Note: we did share this concern directly with management last year. It resulted in our daughter magically being passed to the next level... which her instructors had stated she was ready for weeks prior, but the "tester" refused to pass her. We again spoke with the "tester" this time and expect to hear back from management, but like last time it won't change their business model or practices of keeping you in the program vs. teaching kids to swim efficiently.

Locker room is very dirty . Way past needing a clean coat of paint too. Entrance, waiting area and…read morelocker room look run down and poorly maintained. Student lessons are done at the far opposite end of the pool where there's no way anyone can observe them. Drink vending machine was out of most items, including water, and soda purchased was HOT as if machine was heating contents instead of refrigerating. Staff was clueless. All adds up to poor management oversight.

My children have had a great experience with swim lessons at Superior Training. We had tried a…read morepark district years ago with my first, but we quickly realized how poor the level of interaction was with the instructors and the lack of progress being made.  We switched to Superior and have had a great experience since then (in fact, we just enrolled our third child). The ratio of instructor to child is excellent, allowing swimmers to become comfortable in the water and learn skills at a faster rate. I highly recommend Superior Training!

Gina B. is an excellent swim instructor! She is warm, patient, kind, and made our infant feel…read morecomfortable during her very first swim lessons. She was always punctual and came prepared with toys and equipment that made each lesson engaging and fun. Her sweet personality and calm energy immediately put both baby and parents at ease. You can truly tell she loves working with children, and we're so grateful for such a positive first swimming experience. Highly recommend!

Gina was amazing with the kids. She spoke in their language, made it fun, got them to swim and look…read moreforward to their lessons from day 1! It was awesome to have the kids learn in our pool too as this made it super convenient to have the lessons- 12 lessons, 3 a week over one month and both my kids are safe swimmers now- my 6 yo can do all strokes independently and my 4 yo who was terrified- is now comfortable swimming independently in floaties, floating on her back, putting her face in and blowing bubbles, and practicing it all with little assistance.

My kids tried two other popular swim school establishments before coming here…read more Needless to say, they (ages from 9-13) liked this place the best..the staff is very nice and truly focus on teaching swimming skills. Ive noticed significant improvement in their swimming abilities in 2 months that they've been coming here than in 1 yr they were at the other place.

Ok. I purposely held off for 2 years of my child attending this swim school to rate it. So far, the…read moreonly style my child can do is the backstroke. Yes! That's it! What I've noticed the problem is are the following: parents have zero contact with the instructors. After the lesson they seemingly disappear. There're no way to contact them. Also, the constant a change of instructors - not sure why, but for some reason they can't keep instructors. So just when my child gets comfortable with the style of an instructor and the instructor knows my child's progress, more times than not, in comes a different instructor and only goes by notes left from the previous one and almost starts all over again. Also continual enrollment of new students in the class where I've noticed that the instructor focuses on the new student thereby making the whole class start over. I'm not sure what certifications are required for applicants regarding training, but some appear to have no training at all. I've witnesses a few instructors talking to other instructors while their students are just playing in the pool! My child say that the instructor said that it was " fun time". My child gets fun time at the nearby pool, I'm paying for instruction at this pool. The desk personnel are always nice, and yes, the locker/ changing area is rather cramped. But if you want a place where the focus is more on them playing in a pool and the secondary focus is them learning to swim, then this isn't a bad place. Just be patient, it will take years for them to finally learn to swim.

Coach Anna at Chicago Blue Dolphins is the best. It's a great accomplishment learning to swim in my…read moreseventies. Everyone there makes me feel at home. Please go there to learn to swim or improve your skills.

We started taking private classes with coach Abby few months ago. My 4 year old kid loves it and…read moreshe is so comfortable in the water now. In just 3 months she went from being scared of water to actually swimming !