New Eldon Leisure is underway!…read more The gym has gotten a huge update. It's about 4 times the size and growing. A massive free weights room. A functional training rack with battle ropes and boxing! Many more machines and cardio equipment. Really a great gym in the city centre. They also have 10 pin bowling! About 8 lanes and a full stocked and licensed bar with food! I personally think it's a good deal price wise. About £5 to bowl £3 a beer. They have a coffee breakfast combo. I M yet to eat here. There is also a new rock climbing and kids soft play. I have never used either. I did however use the old bouldering gym and for a novice like me I found it really good! Worth checking out!

From the owner: At the heart of the city, Eldon Leisure in Eldon Square, Newcastle is a hidden treasure. With a…read morehuge new (2015) fitness gym and a great choice of classes, squash, badminton and climbing, there's plenty to keep you fit and active. There's also a fantastic 8-lane tenpin bowling area with fully licenced restaurant, superb soft play for under 8s and Vertigo Adventure Climbing for all the family.

Prudhoe Waterworld is well located on the main road through Prudhoe. It has plenty of free parking…read moreand is also located right next to a bus stop which most of the buses through Prudhoe will stop at. Outside they have a play area with the usual, swings, slides, roundabouts and the children seem to enjoy playing here. They are also in the process of building an outdoor wildlife walk (?). Inside they have a large swimming pool with a good timetable of lane swimming, women only, late night and adults only swimming. They also run regular aqua fit classes. The pool is sometimes closed for school lessons although at other times only part of the pool is closed. There is a beach area for young children with a small slide and a few fountain type effects. During fun times each hour is split into sessions including waves, balls and floats and sometimes they have inflatables although they do not have these at the moment. The changing area is communal on the side of the pool, which is especially good for families. There is a separate family area where you can leave buggies and that also has gates on the changing and pool sides to stop little ones escaping into the pool without you! In addition to the pool there is also a jacuzzi which overflows into the shallow beach area in a waterfall and this is good fun for babies and toddlers as the water is very warm in this area. They have a gym with good quality and fairly new equipment in addition to a good mix of classes run by qualified instructors. Classes include, spinning, bootcamp, pilates, tai chi, dancing, weights and gravity using pilates type machines. At the main entrance they sell a range of swimming products including swimming costumes, goggles, hats and towels as well as swimming nappes, floats and toys for children.In the middle of the centre is a small cafe which does a variety of food and drink although my husband has experienced a pretty average salad. I wouldn't recommend it for lunch but for a quick snack after exercise or a coffee it is fine. There is a soft play area next to the cafe for children based around the theme of the human body so i suppose this is quite educational as well as fun. If you want your child looked after while you exercise then there is also a creche facility although this needs to be prebooked to ensure that there are enough staff for the 1:1 care. I haven't experienced the creche facilities myself although have heard mixed reviews. I would say if you're staying for an hour or so then there isn't much that can go wrong as if your child is upset then staff will come and find you if they can't settle the children it is a really good centre that has everything that you could ask for in a family friendly leisure centre

This leisure centre is really overpriced. The facilities arent up to much and for the price its…read morejust ridiculous. An hour on the football court is £36 - I dont know how they can warrant a charge like that or the hire of some floorboards and literally no service. Plus there is no air conditioning and the place is like an oven. I was gonna start swimming regurlarly but found out its over £3 a swim, now I cant understand why that price is so high either? to swim every day works out at around £60 a month which you could get membership to a really good gym for that! All in all I do use the place just because I need to but if there was an alternative nearby I would go for it!

It is the most vile and horrific place I have ever been. The staff are nothing short of rude and…read moreobnoxious, especially the reception staff! All of which have a bad attitude! I have been taking my girls swimming for about a year now because of convenience and it never gets any better. The place is filthy. The changing rooms are disgusting, they are never regularly checked and I have not seen them cleaned once. On my latest visit (25.8.17) I had a member of reception be totally rude, a fitness team member scream like a banshee at me across the room because I walked through the barrier instead of the turnstile (a disgusting way to speak to anyone let alone a customer) there was wet swim nappies on the floor when I first went in the changing rooms. I took my girl to the toilet (also filthy) wet toilet roll on the floor in each cubicle and the entire floor soaked. When going back into the changing room to get dry I pulled the baby change down to dry my 1year old and 3 wet urine soaked nappies on the tray. Bins are totally sticky with hairs stuck on and full to the top. I was there at 9.30am. Clearly hadn't been emptied from the day before. I would urge anyone not to use this leisure centre and go elsewhere if possible.

The staff are really helpful on the phone and on the front desk. They have a wide range of…read moreactivities here and classes, quite reasonable prices. The car park outside is big and it is free which is great! The place itself could do with a bit of updating as it looks quite old and tired. It is not a big deal but it could benefit from this. You can take booklets on activities home or look on the website for times and prices. Very handy. I found the staff to be not only helpful but friendly and chatty as well. They seem to go out of their way to help you. Their computer systems were playing up recently but I got a call back as promised to make a booking.

Kaskada Bowling Alley was commonly referred to as 'the bowling alley' and used to be the ultimate…read morehot-spot for college students such as myself. I only actually bowled there a handful of times, but I frequented the place several times a week for many a year. My friends and I would meet there, although looking back, there was little to do. There was twenty lanes for bowling - these are the same as they are everywhere, around £5 a game per player, and up to 4 players playing on one lane. You bowl ten rounds after inputting your name into the computer, and the computer takes great delight in laughing at you when you fail to knock down any pins, or when you manage to aim the bowling ball directly into the centre of the pins, but only knocking down a single one from the back row. It also cheers on the odd occasion you get a strike or a half-strike. The bowling alley is rarely very busy, with maybe 4 lanes being used at any one time, unless it's around the Christmas period where work parties take over the entire row of lanes. In front of the actual bowling lanes there's a games area with shuttle hockey and pool tables, fruit machines and a few ride-on motorbike racing machines. I have frequent memories of the 'Day-ton-ah' tune from a few of the machines from hanging around there so much. Also towards the front of the lanes, against the back wall, there's a small burger bar, and a shop for the purchase of bowling balls, shoes and other little souvenirs. At one end of the bowling alley there's a bar with some comfy leather chairs and the kind of dark-wood decoration popular in many bars today. There's also a terrace in this area. I often wonder what made this place so popular with the teenagers - we weren't allowed in the bar or near the bowling lanes (unless bowling) so were left to hang around the games area, playing pool when we could afford it. I guess it was because it was warm inside - there was nowhere else in Durham city like it.