The water temperature and the life guards where nice, but the pool was very dirty and it was not…read morewell kept. The water was cloudy and you when I was swimming I felt leaves and more hitting me.I Have have heard that the pool is cleaner later in the year, but I think the pool should be clean all year round.

This is easily our favorite public pool. I actually really like the reservation system bc the pool…read moredoesn't get too crowded & you have a guaranteed time to get in. No waiting in the hot sun for long periods of time! There's lots of shade around the edge of the pool. The grass is nice. I recommend bringing a chair because there are a lot of ants & tiny spiders running around. We all loved the two water slides. The lines don't get very long at all. There's a cute wading pool perfect for babies. It's pretty warm. The lifeguards are very attentive & nice. Overall this is a perfect place to bring the family on a hot summer day. We like to pack a lunch or some snacks whenever we go.

This is probably the cleanest and best-maintained pool facility in Albuquerque. I've used the pool…read moreto swim laps after work, attend a triathlon clinic, and participate in a Splash n' Dash race. Each time the pool, deck, bleachers and locker rooms have been clean (not icky). I was able to swim my laps in a designated section separate from kids playing in the water. There are attentive lifeguards on duty. The pool does have a really nice kids' section with water slides, and one of my friends hosted her young daughter's birthday party here. It's nice to see a well-used and well-kept facility like this on the west side of town!

***West Gate Mini Dog Park***…read more This review is strictly about the mini park, not aquatic center. This gravel/rock mini dog park is located on the back side of West Mesa Aquatic Ample parking Had the dog park to ourselves Clean, 2 trash cans in the mini park, 1 dog disposal bag area Lots of weeds but no goatheads

Affordable prices and lawn chairs available. The area was clean. Decent sized pool. Staff was very…read morefriendly

It's been hot lately. Like, Africa hot. Kids griping about how hot they are, followed by the…read morequintessential "I'm bored" summer complaining loop and "can we please do somethinggggg" *insert whine-y voice* ~ When it's too hot to hit up the park, the zoo or botanical gardens, and you know you'll get through the aquarium too quickly, and you've already done Explora a few times, and don't feel like going to a movie....you know it's time to get WET! Paradise Hills Pool is a great option if you're on the westside. Reasonable admission fees, lifeguards on point paying attention, nice water slide, a few shady trees and covered table areas, it's a great spot to wear the kids out and catch a few rays. You can bring your own coolers, chairs and floatation devices!! They also serve free lunch in the summer lunch program inside the pool facility on the grass area during the week, and were even open 4th of July with a free popcorn and snow cone machine for the crowd. During the week it can get a little packed at times, try to get there by 12:30 or once they hit max capacity, you'll have to wait in line a bit until someone leaves.

Great location, Great facilities and a Great staff. Best in ABQ and on the west side. This club…read moremakes me feel important!

If there was ANY other choice for an outside pool on the west side I would cancel my membership. So…read moremany areas for improvement - Cleanliness, staff attention to members behaving badly (pedicures at the pool, boys in the women's locker room), condition and safety of the pool area, high price, management that doesn't seem to care.... One positive is that the classes and teachers are good. Maybe after this transition to new owners is over things will improve....

Thank you fish factory for giving my kids the gift of swimming…read more I grew up in nm and we are landlocked so not alot of opportunities to practice swimming. My 4 year old has been with you since he was 2 and my 2 year old has been going for the past 6 months. I notice the most how they are not afraid of water and their etiquette when we stay at resorts. Neither of my kids are afraid if water, in fact they embrace it and are so well behaved at the pool. All those swim lessons are well worth it and I owe it to fish factory and their great staff.

I want to share our experience with Fish Factory after having my children enrolled there for the…read morepast four years. Swimming is an incredibly important skill, and for a long time, Fish Factory was an adequate place for my kids to learn. Unfortunately, our experience with the business side of Fish Factory has shown us that their loyalty, flexibility, and compassion only seem to extend as far as your ability to keep up with their unusually high prices. After a difficult year financially, we fell behind on payments. This was not ideal, and I fully understand that businesses need to be paid. However, our balance had always been paid eventually, and for the first three years, we had no payment issues at all. None of that history mattered. Four years of being customers did not matter. The fact that this involved children being removed from a skill-based class they had committed to did not matter. Rather than having a real conversation with us or showing any meaningful willingness to work with a family going through a hard season, Fish Factory dropped both of my children from their classes. They gave the appearance of working with us, but in reality, it felt like they were simply waiting until they reached the date that allowed them to remove my kids without needing to discuss the situation further. That is the part that is most disappointing. This was not a family asking for a free service. This was a long-term customer asking for basic communication and a little compassion during a temporary financial hardship. So, if you are considering supporting this business, I would keep that in mind. If everything is going perfectly and you can afford their high monthly costs without interruption, you may be fine. But if your family ever hits a hard month or two, even after years of loyalty, do not expect that to matter. There was no compassion from management. No meaningful conversation. No care for the children involved. Just a cold business decision. A few additional concerns from our time there: * Lessons were sometimes cut short when it suited them. * Classes we were told would be comped due to illness were never actually comped. * A significant amount of the sickness we dealt with seemed to originate from their facility. * Payment issues were handled unprofessionally, including being approached and embarrassed in front of others during toddler classes. * Instructor turnover was frequent enough that children could become attached to an instructor only for that person to be gone shortly after. Swimming is important. But so is how a business treats families, especially families who have supported them for years. Based on our experience, Fish Factory failed in that area completely.

While technically this is called the Ventana Ranch Pool & Community Center, it's really just the…read moreVentana Ranch Pool. The "community center" isn't actually a community center at all. It's only accessible from the pool area, and is really just a small building built big enough to house the locker rooms, hold what little equipment the pool monitors might need, and store pool toys the kids that come here can use while they're swimming. Oh, and it serves as a space to use for the (monthly/quarterly?) homeowners association meetings. The pool itself isn't very large, probably about 3/4 the size of your typical public pool, but since it's only for Ventana Ranch residents, it never gets super busy, and one typically has plenty of room to swim and hang out in. It's clean, and relatively well maintained, but the water is so cold that, from my viewpoint, it's virtually unusable for more than a few minutes at a time, even on the hottest of summer days. Now, given that the average day finds plenty of people (mostly kids) in the pool swimming around, obviously not everyone feels the same way, but consider this my swimmer beware sort of review, and get out of it what you will. :-) I actually find the water temperature to be a bit of a mystery, because while it was super cold like this the few times we came here last summer (2013), there were also a few times we were here earlier this summer (2014), and the water temp was perfect then. There was even a time when we came to swim this year, and the water was (almost) *too* warm. However, of all the times we've been here, the water has been cold far more than it's been warm. The locker rooms are small, and a little stinky, but clean, and more than adequate for the size of the pool and the number of swimmers generally present. I suspect the smell is largely due to the smallness of the space, and the fact that the locker rooms are basically outside. There's a kiddie pool fenced off in a small enclosed area separate from the rest of the pool, and even though the main pool is very big, or busy, it's nice for parents of small children to have a dedicated space they can take their kiddos to if they want to. There are no diving boards, water slides, or any of that other fancy schmancy pool stuff, but there are plenty of chairs, a few tables, and even a nice grassy area with a couple good sized trees providing lots of shade right outside the gate, just in front of the pool. This makes the grass the perfect place for having a picnic lunch with the fam before, after, or even during your swim session. The pool is free to use, but as I mentioned above, it's for VR residents only, and you need a key/swipe card to get in the gate (obtained by going to the office for the the property mgmt co, and showing them an ID, and some sort of other proof of VR residency). Overall, I'd probably give the VR Pool 3.5 stars, but since Yelp won't let me go in .5 star increments, I feel like it deserves rounding up to 4 stars more than it does rounding down to 3. If you live in VR, the pool is a nice (free!) summer perk to have. If you don't live out here, well, maybe you should! :-)

This is one of the cleanest gyms I've been in. This is thanks to George who works tirelessly to…read moreclean and maintain the equipment. It is a testament to George you will rarely find equipment out of order. For such a large facility this is amazing. Whatever they are paying George, they should double it. The trainers are friendly, and have on occasion offered words of support and input. The front desk clerks are a bit clueless. This is partially due to very antiquated software. Yes, you need to fill out a PAPER form to update your credit card info. lol The filth is caused by the members. I truly wish they would post a large sign in the sink area: "Hey Sloppy Boy, Yes, You. RINSE YOUR SINK AFTER SHAVING RINSE YOUR SINK AFTER TEETH BRUSHING PULL YOUR NASTY HAIR BALL OUT OF THE SINK WHEN DONE DO NOT SPIT YOUR GUM IN THE URINALS. PUT A TOWEL DOWN ON THE BENCH BEFORE PLACING YOUR NASTY ASS DOWN. YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL. YOU ARE A DISGUSTING HUMAN. NO ONE IS INTERESTED IN YOUR FILTH." Thank You, The Management

Pool water cloudy/murky/smells. Shower area unkept/dirty/ moldy. Paying $100+ a month. Unable to…read morejustify keeping this membership.