Westwood Gymnastics and Dance

"I knew this day would come eventually, but I guess as parents we are never prepared for it. I have a 4-year autistic son, who is very happy, loving, smile all day, and despite his autism he is very affectionate and loves to be hugged and has no problem being around other kids. Since we found out about his condition, we realized that eventually we would face some sort of prejudice, however, during these 4 years we found nothing but wonderful and very accommodating people and venues…. Until today unfortunately. We were invited to a birthday party at Westwood gymnastics. Their parties are based on a circuit, where they take the kids to different parts of the gym accompanied by a coach. However, being autistic and non-verbal, unfortunately I cannot have a conversation with my son yet. Therefore, he is not able to stay with the group, he finds what he likes to play and just stay there. For this venue it is the mountain with the slides. We’ve been to many parties there before, and my son can keep going up and down on those slides for the entire party. As they have multiple parties at the same time, I did my best to avoid him from going there while they had other parties in the mountain. But when I noticed it was empty I took him there as it was a great opportunity for him to enjoy it, needless to mention, I was there the whole time solely to watch him. That’s when an employee came to me and said that he could not stay there, and that he must stay with the coach assigned to our party. I gently explained to her his condition and that he can’t understand the commands of the coach and he would just try to keep going back to the mountain… but to no avail… I explained that I was there watching him, that I had signed the waiver, and that the only alternative was for me to take him home. Yet she said those are the rules and so I had leave with him, crying on my way home. I cannot avoid comparing this situation to a park I went while I was in Brazil, called “Parque da Mônica”. Once they figured out my son was autistic, they first said they wouldn’t charge me, to which I was pleasantly surprise, but I insisted on paying anyhow, after all it’s a business. But they completely refused to take my payment, AND they gave my wife a special lanyard that identified my son as special need. Some rides/toys that are normally busy have a time limit for each kid, but that lanyard meant that special kids were not restricted by their time limit. I acknowledge that it must be hard for people without special need kids to fully understand the hardship that parents in this situation must go through. My review is not meant to disqualify the place, it’s just a warning for any parents with special need kids or someone that might have guests with special conditions or for people that just care about real inclusion. My daughter has been going on their gym for Gymnastics, dance classes and summer camp for years. I will therefore cancel all her participation on this gym as well change the plan to have her birthday party there. Our friends also seemed very annoyed with the situation, and I wouldn’t doubt they’ll ever throw a party over there again. I acknowledge that no business is obliged to be inclusive, but I finish this letter in tears just realizing that I need to prepare myself as most likely I’ll start facing more saddening encounters like this."

"My son had a good experience here four years ago. And my daughter is taking both gymnastics and ballet class here. The ballet teacher is awesome, gymnastic coach is ok. What drives me crazy is the registration girl is being ridiculous. I made a call on Thursday to change my daughters gymnastics class from Friday to Tuesday and said very clear that this change should start from the next week, so this week, she should still be on Friday class. We missed the Friday class and we should receive a makeup credit, but we didn't. I went to the office and they said the change made immediately and no makeup credit. When a business make a reasonable request unreasonable, means they don't care your business at all. Time to leave. Update: the response from business is even more ridiculous. The so called FREE fifth class is offered to every student and is included in the whole enrollment. They made a mistake messing up my class schedule, and refused to make up because it's free. Seems like they can take back FREE fifth class freely as they want. The way they handle their mistake is very impressive."

"My daughter has been coming here since she was 3 and is almost 6 now. We love Westwood so much. She’s tried most of the classes but has been in tumbling and gymnastics for years now. There are tons of Coaches with different teaching styles and they make it easy to move around coaches/days/class times so you can find who works best for your child. They have the easiest make up policy and tons of special events for holidays, when school is closed or even just extra practice clinics and open gyms. They keep the facility clean and maintain all of their equipment really well. Highly recommend!"

"My daughter started learning tumbling here in May 2022. She really loves it here and I am very happy how much she have learned over the past year. The coaches really have passion in tumbling and helping kids to learn and grow. Highly recommend"

"We had a great birthday party here for my cousin! All 15 of the kids had fun and the staff did a good job interacting with the kids and running the party assisting with everything to the end. It was a good place for a kids party and probably for classes as well."