Aqua-Tots Swim Schools Bellevue

"I love Aqua-Tots! They are very friendly and knowledgeable. They are extremely flexible scheduling lessons and assigning makeup lessons. My kids have learned so much!"

"This is most poorly ran establishment I have ever seen. It is insane to waste time and money here. The turnover rate is through the roof!! There is little to no consistency with instructors, there were often times we would have a different teacher each week because they can not keep staff. The staff is all very very young and some treat it like a social hang out and do not focus on the kids. We have been a customer for one year with promise of change and there is none. My child has not progressed and has started to hate going to swim class. The material never changes so he gets board, wouldn't you after a year of doing the same thing every time for a year with no change and no progression because there is no communication because there is no management and an insane turnover rate. The manager is almost never at the location (doesn't even reside in the same timezone as the location of the establishment he is supposed to be managing), therefore the staff is under managed and it shows. I have tried to address my concerns to the manager and he takes the feedback and does call me directly to talk about it, but nothing changes. There is a particular employee who continues to dress inappropriately, I have brought it up to management several times and they have "reminded the team of the dress code"... clearly its not helpful if your staffs butt cheeks are on display for young children."

"Less than great experience so far. We started at aqua-tots in March of 2021 when my daughter was 17 months. I live in Bellevue but made the commute to the Fort street location with promises that the Bellevue location would be open in May and we could transfer there. The open date was pushed back so many times I lost count, months after the promised May date it finally opened. Since opening, they have lacked an ability to keep consistent class instructors. Don't get me wrong, the instructors are all friendly and my daughter loves them but she can't ever seem to keep the same one for more than a few months. The inconsistency with instructors severely affects her progression due to the different teaching styles and routines. While in the parent and tot class I would have instructors give me feedback and correction on something that not one single instructor had told me or brought up before and at that point we'd been going for months. Several instructors were letting class out 5-10 minutes early instead of using extra class time to work on more skills. I also recently enrolled my son at 6 months and have experienced the same issues with him. It also extremely hard to get my son scheduled for lessons, there is an extremely low availability for the level 1 class. He was enrolled in a class that was the same class time as his sisters and they cancelled it due to low enrollment without telling me. This really disrupted our entire schedule and then I was stuck trying to get him into a different class time which also meant trying to reschedule my daughter so they could be at the same time. I continue to stay, and enrolled an additional child because water safety is extremely important to me and this school is less than 10 minutes from my house. However, the lack of consistency and value for the money I pay is starting to outweigh the convenience of location. They have both gained some great confidence in the water and the lessons they've learned are invaluable. I really hope to see some changes soon because I think it's a great resource for our kids in the Bellevue community and I want to see it succeed."

"My daughter went from not being able to be in the water without a lifejacket,and not going where she couldn't touch without hanging to the side of the pool,to jumping off the high dive into 9 feet of water. She has gained confidence, and has put my mind at ease after an incident when she was 3 and almost drowned. It is fun to watch all of the kids learn and grow."

"Despite having staff that are very young, the coaches really seem to care about the kids and try to push them to do their best. We went through a period where we had a new coach every other week due to high turnover and there was no consistency. Once we started with Coach Caitlyn, she seemed pretty timid and unsure of herself the first few weeks, but since she got her bearings, she has really grown and I love how excited she gets when my son progresses every week (almost as excited as I do!). It's also nice that she has stuck around so many months so my toddler is used to her and she remembers his abilities without us feeling like we are constantly stuck starting over with a new coach all the time."