Woolwich Waves

“Went with my son in the pool it’s very good he enjoyed it and the slides were amazing but someone got injured and they had to close the slides down for awhile but the lifeguard did their job very well done I’m amazed and this is very kid friendly place to go to with a sauna and steam room too! And in the image here shows how big it really is with amazing facilities! Would recommend coming here but you have to be careful on the slides.”

“We visited for the first time yesterday 25/1 to go swimming. We thought we’d leave it a few weeks for the hype to die down. Honestly I wish I’d waited longer. The facilities themselves are really nice, new and modern. The concept is great but the reality just doesn’t work. I left feeling extremely overwhelmed with a lot of whys and really quite disappointed. Firstly when you arrive, there’s one generic queue for everyone regardless if you’ve pre booked or not, you end up eating into your booked time because the people in front might have a lengthy query and there’s only 2 desks. Then the changing rooms…. Well they’re a no show zone. So now everyone is bottle necked at the door trying to either cover their shoes with shoe covers (mainly used already just in a large box) or trying to remove their shoes. The changing room floors are extremely slippery which makes it really hard trying to navigate the chaos especially with kids. The changing rooms also were not that clean, there was wristband rubbish on the floor, discarded or broken pool toys on the floor and hair around the drain areas in the changing rooms and around the lockers. The lockers are £1 refundable which is much easier than trying to scramble for 20ps. There are minimal family changing rooms ( so be prepared to wait) however there is a top lock on the door which is an absolute god send if you have small escape artists so hands down to who ever put that idea forward, this should be something in every leisure centre as standard. Unfortunately thats as far as the good ideas go. There’s only one hook in the changing room on the back of the door (where do I hang my families clothes?) there’s also no family showers or top lock on the shower door. And there’s no toddler seat in any changing rooms or showers thay I saw ( there is in other centres) realistically there family facilities should be separate to the main change area. The pool area - the shallow baby pool was great for my 16m old with a little slide that she loved, however it was right in the way of the artic breeze coming from the changing room so not ideal. The splash park was also great, lots a bits to explore and fun to be had, not slippery with bare feet either. This area was definitely aimed at younger children though (id say up to 4 /5) my 3.5yo looked just about right. Basically my son was too big for the baby pool and my daughter too small for the splash park. The swimming pool itself is very small, there was a lot of people in there (we went at 4pm to try and avoid this) it was practically standing room only. My son wanted to swim but we found older children were just jumping on us wherever we went, it wasn’t safe for younger children at all!! So where are the children between 4-8yo meant to swim? If the baby pool is too small and the leisure pool isn’t safe for them? The slides were really good, my son loved the fact that you could chose the lights and music he loved the racing one. But again it was very busy, a lot of people pushing as there was two queues (one for each slide) on the same set of stairs. We booked on the Better App and when booking our session it said there were 233 bookable spaces, which seeing how busy it was is really quite worrying. I think we were truly spoilt with the space and features the waterfront had and it’s a shame the money spent couldn’t have been used to upgrade rather than replace. Another thing I noticed was that there were so many fully clothed adults within the pool area sitting around the edges presumably (hopefully) only watching their children, this struck me as odd. Why would they be allowed in that area fully clothed with shoe coverings? I could understand a swimming lesson but not family fun swim. Overall I don’t think we will be returning to swim anytime soon. I’d rather my children be able to have a safe shared swimming experience in a pool with not much than be separated and unsafe. Overall just really didn’t feel safe and not very well thought out. Accident waiting to happen. Image from google”

“UPDATE: Downgrading my rating to 3 stars.. you now have to buy tokens to use the lockers in the changing village for the pools.. I thought Better was a charity organisation, not a criminal one? Absolute robbery! Early days, but a very welcome addition to Woolwich! Better.org need to do better and not charge £99 to include the sauna and steam room facilities in your membership. Additionally, the adult/jacuzzi pool in the leisure area is luke warm, and there needs to be a clock with the time by the lane pools. I have been very invested in following the development of Woolwich Waves, but I'll likely cancel my Better membership and just pay as I go when I simply want to go swimming.”

“My daughter really enjoyed going to the soft play. Everything was very nice and well set up. The only thing I would suggest is a little more attention to cleanliness. Overall, it was a great experience”