Beware! If you have not yet brought your child to Conrad, you are one of the lucky ones who came to this site to read his reviews and save yourself money, precious time and frustration as well as your child from emotional trauma.
Advertising your services as "Private Lessons" when your child get less than 3.5-4.5 minutes of swim time in a hour long class is false advertising and just the beginning of what you should expect when coming here.
Conrad has way too many kids in a class and no child got more than 10 minutes of time. Meanwhile the others just hang out and get restless so when they are not on the steps being patient and waiting for Conrad to summon them, they get scolded in front of everyone.
Our 3.5 year old son Jax is not afraid of the water. We are lucky to have a pool where he has been playing, jumping from 5 foot platform and diving in since he was 2. Three weeks prior to coming to Conrad, we got rid of his floaties and he was even doing front flips in the pool. I took JAx to Conrad so he can learn proper technique and learn to properly swim rather than have me next to him by his side all the time.
Day 1, Jax was so scared to see the other kids being dunked and coughing he got scared and was crying a lot. I was so mortified to see him like that, only because I know he is not scared of the water. I even took him home that night back in our pool to make sure he was fine.
Day 2 was same thing with Jax screaming every time Conrad called on him. While in the pool, Conrad didn't seem to care at all and you can see he was growing frustrated with Jax. Jax was saying I don't want to come here.
Day 3, I was wanting to say something to Conrad, but I decided I was going to let him do his thing as he claims to be a "whisperer of some sort" but nothing had changed with Jax other than he was scared of Conrad and just didn't trust him.
On day 4, I decided to bring Jax mom with me thinking maybe Jax would be more comfortable if his mom was there as sometimes, he would be screaming for his mom when in Conrad's clutches. At one point, Conrad looked at the other parents and rolled his eyes right in front of me while Jax mother was trying to get Jax to go into the pool. At the end of day 4, his mom said to me, "Did you really pay for this? Conrad didn't even spend 5 minutes with Jax". "Has it been like this all week?"
Conrad didn't say or do anything to try to remedy the issue. He skipped over my son each and every day. I also had my Iphone with me and used my stop watch because I was getting annoyed that his session was so short and the intervals were so long. Less than 90 seconds 3 times in an hour. There was another kid who was a decent swimmer and he not only got more turns, he got a lot more time with Conrad and Conrad was so proud of this kid because he was making Conrad look good. Conrad was even gesturing for applause. That's what Conrad does...he plays favorites. Not only with the kids but also with the parents.
After the 4th day, I emailed Conrad with my concerns. I didn't ask for my money back or make up classes. There was one young girl that was also real scared on Day 2 so Conrad let her ride on his shoulders in the water and she became more comfortable after that. Why not do that with my kid I thought? I asked him about that as well as a few other things and he didn't reply.
I also sent Conrad 2 short video clips I took during the week of Jax jumping off a 5 ft platform and holding his breath all the way to me as well as well as diving off the edge of the pool to me.
Conrad response was no different than his attitude towards me and Jax all week.
"If Jax was as comfortable in the water as you say he is then in my mind there was no excuse for his behavior" Are you clueless Conrad? Maybe he doesn't trust you and maybe you should have done more to try to engage with him. How can he trust you in 90 seconds?
"I found his behavior confusing" Well, then why would you not make ANY effort to find out why or speak to me before or at the end of your work day, in person or in email?
When I mentioned to him I read a lot of his reviews on Yelp and it seemed to be a consistent theme of complaints from lack of pool time, lack of sensitivity to kids, lack of communication and lack of standing behind the service you provide, his response was exactly what I thought it would be, "I can't let a couple of hateful reviews govern my life or how I conduct business" First of all, it's not "couple" of reviews, its 16 out of 90 which is just under 20%. If 2 out of every 10 people in my class were so unhappy to the point they posted a negative Yelp review, I would be concerned and try to identify the issues and address them other than sending this response to me, "it sounds like you didn't need me anyway"
Do yourself a big favor...if you don't want to waste $280 and possibly scar your child from going into the water, find another place to get real swimming lessons. read more