So, I guess this business system works for a lot of people, which is great, it's great the service Sea Otter Swim provides to the community, but let me tell you all the reasons why it didn't work out for our family.
1) they don't answer the phone. They only call back when messages are left. I didn't know this and after more than a few attempts over the course of a few weeks when I preferred to just speak to someone in Person, I finally left a message, which then led to them calling ME back and leaving a message, which then led to me calling and having to leave another message and next thing you know it's nearly a month of trying to schedule lessons, which were then booked to start almost a month later due to scheduling. And this was with having 7 days a week of availability on our end.
2) we arrive for our first session for our younger two. Since it's our first time we check in with the front office to find out what the procedure is and thank god we arrived 20 minutes early because it took all 20 minutes to check us in. It was almost like the woman had 50 different windows open on the computer with another 20 different ways she needed to input our names and who knows what else she kept having to click. My kids were restless. In reflection, no one told me to check in and Im not sure we even had to check in. The swim instructors simply call out the names and I suppose we could have just walked in and waited for them to call our name. But no one told us this.
3) the pool fence is so obnoxious it almost hurts my eyes. You can't see your kid swim cause the fence postings are so thick so you have to walk right up to it and peer thru it to actually see your kid if you want to watch or record or take a picture. Which also brings me to #4
4) this fence is the business. I don't consider myself a helicopter mom but there was more than a few instances where the instructor turned her back to my wobbly 3 year old to help the other student and I started to wonder how I'd save my kid if he slipped down into the water with her not watching him. I can't hop a 6 ft fence, and there is a locked code to get in.
5) we signed up for semi-private lessons. I thought I signed both kids up for lessons at the same time, which would have been a nice reprieve but about 20 minutes in, the instructor brought my 6 year old out. What? What's this? Does she have to go to the bathroom? No. Surprise! Turns out the other kid didn't show up, so my daughters lesson gets cut in half. It wasn't all that fun explaining to my 6 year old that she wasn't in trouble, that she couldn't keep swimming and why her 3 year old brother is getting to have longer fun. Fairness is a big deal when you are 6 and she felt cheated. I kind of did too.
6) These lessons are Use it or lose it. No make ups, no rescheduling. Which kind of sucked for us because we were redeeming a gift certificate of only 5 lessons so to "lose" 1/5 is a bigger deal and I'm already on the fence of if I want to continue this and it's kind of leaning towards no.
7. So now I've called because the lessons we had a time scheduled for just are not going to work with all the summer events we as a family are obligated to. I ask to reschedule them for a different day and after 20 minutes of me being thoroughly confused as to what I am signing Up for and what I am paying for it, it looks like the final three Private lessons won't get to continue until a month from now. I guess there truly is no difference between private and semi-private because not only were we signed up for semi-private yet by default getting private (but paying for Semi private) but now we are signed up for private and will have money left over and at this rate, I'd give them the left over money just to never deal with this ever again. I mean, what in the holy heck is a 20 minute lesson anyway? It's a rip off, that's what it is. I've never been to a swim school where the lesson was a short 20 minutes.
8. so, we had our 5 lessons now that I write this and I can confirm that for all 5 lessons we had 5 different instructors and with each lesson the instructor kindly told me it was "just an assessment." My issue isn't with the instructors but with the entire messed up system that Sea Otter Swim is for anyone with more than one kid wanting to have swim lessons at the same time. That seemed to be the biggest issue, the concept that I wanted to show up and have both my kids have a lesson and not be spending my days going back and forth for a 20 minute dip in the pool. This was by far the worst money spent, we absolutely did not get the value of our gift certificate at all. read more