SafeSplash Swim School - Laurel

"All the instructors are super kind and patient with the children. However, there is one instructor who exceeds all expectations (Portia). The selfish side of me nearly left her name out, so that we wouldn’t have to share her, but she definitely deserves much recognition for her undeniable great method, hard work, patience and In my opinion attention to detail. Forget teaching your child basic swim skills, she’ll have them on a swim team! Thank you to the entire staff and most certainly a special thanks to Portia!"

"My son has been going here for a couple of months. I have had 2 issues come up with this place in 2 days that is making me seriously raise my eyebrows. 1. I am unavailable to take my son to class next week so i spoke to the lady at the front desk about rescheduling. She asked me if i had used my makeup token, i said the only token i used was for the canceled class due to the tornado warning last week. I was told the class was actually not cancelled. They seriously expected parents to bring their kids to swim during a storm with trees falling, high winds, thunder and lightning? Imagine my shock hearing this. The federal government shut down at 3pm because of the tornado but kids are expected to swim during it. The total disregard for kids and employee safety is alarming. 2. I called to reschedule said makeup class 2 days in advance and less than 24 hours after i booked it. I was told i couldn't reschedule a make up class and once i picked a date i was stuck with it even though other days and times were available. At this point, I'm just questioning the business practices."

"Not the best fit for adult learners, unless you have no other options | I enrolled for adult classes since there was limited availability in the local gyms and community centers. The first two months went well and the staff is very attentive. However, I wouldn't recommend the school for adult learners - there are very limited classes timeslots (I was only able to find one 30 min slot once a week during the summer), and the instruction time is very limited. Between roll call (you're not allowed to enter pool areas until you're called in from an attendance list), waiting for trainers, and actually getting into lessons - you're only being actively instructed for about 20 minutes max. There were some sessions were it was one instructor for 2-3 folks, but for the sessions that had more students you're looking at maybe 5-7 mins of personal instruction and the rest is independent practice in a section (1/4) of the pool. I would give a higher rating but the only portal, used to enroll for class sessions and track makeup sessions, is not very accessible. Makeup sessions don't always show up, and if classes are cancelled after you've scheduled a makeup session there's not much they can do about (since the makeup token won't show up on their end). Once I was unable to make the class sessions during the week, it became very difficult to be able to schedule makeup sessions. In the end, it was a good experience as far as learning some basics (floating, kicking) but would recommend looking for a program that has more capacity for adult learners to make better use of your money."