Riviera International Centre

Negative experience: Staff at Leisure Centre HO seem more focused on procedures than resolving issues. The emphasis on navigating drop-down menus and red tape makes it hard to find practical solutions and to even be heard. Follow-up emails often go unanswered, and I hope the manager will get in touch, assuming they’ve seen my complaint given the communication breakdown.

Positive experience: Lovely coffee & small play area for grandson

Negative experience: Expensive membership for what you get. Swimming pool is pointless for adults as you can only swim across the pool. It is built for children so becomes too shallow too quickly in the other direction. You can probably get five adults swimming widths at any one time. If you are an adult don't even think about using it during school holidays or at the weekend .gym changing rooms are appalling outdated and much too small. Spa is ok "when working" but too small for the membership. Often overcrowded and unusable. Gym is good and modern. during off peak times you will always find a free station, although I do notice a reluctance to fix broken equipment. Cafe is quite nice but certainly not a "brasserie", whatever one of those is, as they call it on their website. I only use the leisure centre because I live around the corner and can easily walk there. Membership is double what it should be for the available, useable facilities.

Fantastic experience: The teacakes was lovely

Positive experience: After seeing so many bad reviews we were very pleased with our visit today, used both the gym & swimming with my 8 & 10 year old. Excellent large spacious gym with new equipment, swimming pool had one slide, wave machine & toddler area. Changing rooms were good, clean with hot showers, only thing I would recommend is larger family changing rooms. We ate in the cafe after, food was very good with a large selection & staff friendly & very helpful. Overall a great experience, we will be going back.

Fantastic experience: Used for vaccination, a well planned and executed process.

Fantastic experience: Went with my 2 boys. 3 year old (autistic ) and 9 year old. 9 year old loved the pool and waves !! And 3 year old loved the slide (50 steps a time ), which was good for getting exercise in ha ha. Changing rooms are clean , only thing I would say is I had an issue with my son running off and jumping into deep end of the pool which is a high drop into the pool. Which he found hilarious and loved but could be slightly dangerous for him. Other than that amazing place, staff friendly and really clean !!

Negative experience: Went to the centre this morning after talking to 119 re Covid Jab, told I could just walk in, not even open, 119 also gave me names of other chemist I could get a Covid jab, Waste of time I was refused at all of them, 119 needs updating all rubbish information given to me, Such a shame , Covid is going up again, Government urgently needs to do something fast,

Negative experience: Facility’s are okay. Think they should have at least some private cubicles in changing rooms or family changing as when it’s very busy and you have your daughter with you in the mens I’d like some privacy tbh. They don’t accept cash. Other than for my children’s swimming lessons I won’t use this place due to it being cashless. Anywhere cashless should be boycotted

Negative experience: Husband and sons clothes and shoes stolen from locker room! Absolutely vile, male attendant said he couldn’t help anymore, however reception staff were useful and handled situation better. Will not be returning

Positive experience: went for the comedy night.nice venue but the queue times for the bar were ridiculous.

Negative experience: Was looking for something to do with a toddler who wakes up early and doesn't want to sit around a hotel room. Thought I was on to a winner as you can book leisure swims from 7am. Called to check the night before that it was ok to pay/book on arrival and no need to pre-book. Made a joke with the receptionist that I don't imagine it will be busy at that time, except for other people with toddlers. When we arrived, paid for parking and had to give over the full details (phone number, DOB etc etc) for everyone in our party to be able to swim as it's members only. The receptionist then said she had to check there was enough lifeguards on as she wasn't sure our little boy would be allowed in. She then confirmed not enough lifeguards so he wouldn't be able to swim so we had to leave. Such poor training of all members of staff we encountered. We left with a very unhappy toddler who was excited for swimming and having paid for 2 hours of parking for nothing. It's fine to have policies regarding lifeguards in place due to health and safety but we could have avoided a trip and a distressed toddler if we had been informed earlier.

Positive experience: Swimming bath definitely recommend have band colour and get an hour more than enougb time. The cafe bit disappointed went get chips told they aren't serving food when we came out of swimming at 3.30 so had go else where . The orange cartons of juice also taste gone off so given you 3 stars

Fantastic experience: First visit to the pool yesterday with my 6 yr old granddaughter after living here for 10 years. We had booked our one hour slot which was more than enough time in the pool for her. Pleasantly surprised by the standard: spacious and light, clean and super professional staff. Not too busy due to the booking system. The cafe is reasonably priced and a high standard of food.Tge soft play in there occupied her whilst we waited for our food. Only bug bear is the high price of the parking.

Fantastic experience: Covid injection day. Very organised

Fantastic experience: Shapemaster suite good for first time.

Positive experience: Great place for family fun! They’ve got a slide which is fast and queue time is very low (2-3 minutes) they have waves and they have water shooting out in the centre of the pool. They’ve got a mini pirate section for little ones, and on the topic of little ones a duck section which you can get prizes from, I had a great mini duck party with my kids . There is also a gym and a cafe which I have not checked out so that is why I am leaving a star out.

Positive experience: Pool was a bit cold today and we had to go as our little one's lips were turning blue.

Negative experience: No family changing area which made getting ready with 2 parents and a child very difficult. No cubicles at all in the men’s changing rooms, and only very small cubicles with flimsy curtains in the lady’s.

Negative experience: Just returned from our booked session and must say, I won't be rushing back. Not overly impressed for £24 for a 1 hour swim which by the time they got 2 go's of the slide and 1 go in the waves (due to missing the first as they were queuing for the slide for absolutely ages) it was time to get out. It was so busy, the slide took ages to get a go, the waves aren't as good as we remember and the changing rooms were dirty and smelly. If you are going to do time slots maybe lower the numbers you allow in per session in stead of craming people in to make money. Overpriced in my opinion for what you get.

Negative experience: I'm a local and have visited the ERC from childhood. The reason for the 2 star review is the cleanliness and the cafe is rarely open and if it is its got hardly any food or is closing early so only takeaway

Negative experience: Way too hot in swimming pool why heat the water when the outside air temperature is about 30 degrees such a waste of energy

Fantastic experience: Great location for the brass band contest.

Negative experience: Signs in car park are purposely misleading. Expect a fine if you do what the signs say. Scam.

Positive experience: Thank you for your reply.(Tom ..Manager ) We called in to see our friends from Hampshire.We live in Kingskerswell now.We hope to see them again tonight (14/2) what sort of discounts can we expect?.

Positive experience: Plenty of parking at the centre. Nice big gym with a view of the sea, However dirty windows obscured beautiful view. Some area at the centre needs good clean. The changing rooms downstairs are in not very good conditions as well as the showers in the changing room, that area definitely needs renovating.

Positive experience: Did not go there

Fantastic experience: I must say excellent service from all the staff very well done and the food was very good the venue was very clean and well setup.

Negative experience: Staff are in no rush to serve you and are very blunt when they do so. Feel like I'm speaking to a brick wall.

Fantastic experience: Had our COVID jab here today . Arrived early. Parking easy and free. Straight in and out. Can't fault it.

Fantastic experience: COVID booster. Very efficient Update 24/04/2024 Covid booster again YOU DO NOT NEED TO PAY FOR PARKING IF YOU ADD YOUR CAR REGISTRATION NUMBER AS YOU EXIT AFTER YOUR Jab Update 24.10.24 parking free as above conditions

Fantastic experience: Lovely place for a jab.

Fantastic experience: I attended a conference last night at this facility and the service and food (considering they were catering for 150+) was out of this world. I will be recommending this facility to my network. Top class service

Positive experience: Really clean place, pool is really nice, would be so much better when they modernised it that you could dive. Children have so much fun jumping and diving. The slide is never I operation when I have visited (there maybe issues with it) Quite expensive, however where is not pricey anymore. The cafe serves the best hit chocolate and the chips were delicious.

Negative experience: Very disappointed in the reception customer service very rude to myself and others I think Annmarie could do with being retrained on how to deal with the public

Negative experience: Overall seemingly a good venue for the cafe, gym & pool. Reception staff were lovely & the facilities seem to be in good repair & outside of this visit, it probably is worth going to, however this review is more for the life guards at the pool, The pool it self is quite large & split into 2 sections, one for playing in, a little shallower with space for kids, inflatables etc & one that is just for swimmers, a more adult side. Myself & my 8.6 month pregnant wife came in early in the morning for a relaxing swim in the lanes & to take the pressure off of her belly. The lanes already had a selection of elderly swimmers, happily swimming laps, of which we happily joined & moved in rotation with them. Unfortunately, the kids playing in the “free section” decided to start diving, splashing, jumping & throwing inflatables around in the adult side, this sadly caused the elderly swimmers to have get out of the pool as the kids kept a bumping them & getting in the way, which was disappointed to watch the sadden look on their faces as they had to clearly finish early. We tried to swim around them but after inflatables hit my wife & a child almost landed on her from running & jumping into the pool while she’s slowly trying to swim out of the way, this was enough for us to get up & leave out of concern for our unborn child. The life guards, who’s ages seemed to range from young twenties to early forties, just watched on with bored looks on their faces & simply could not be bothered to ask or direct the children away. Even after watching them come close to causing harm, they simply rolled their eyes (I’m hoping in exasperation at the kids, though did nothing) & carried on letting them cause unfortunate havoc. I do appreciate the kids were just playing & having fun, but the clear lack of care from the lifeguards for the elderly & my wife was shocking.

Fantastic experience: I started coming here back in January 2023 due to being told I needed to be more active for my health and lifestyle, I attend twice a week for shapemaster which is a power assisted gym run by a fantastic motivated bubbley and very professional welcomeing young lady called Romany who is very happy to help me with my journey can't praise her enough. Definitely a credit to the centre. Also I swim twice a week which I'm enjoying the staff are very welcomeing. The centre is a pleasure to attend from the time I walk in the door till the time I leave, very friendly and helpful, best thing I have done this year to help me.

Fantastic experience: Nice friendly place ,easy parking

Fantastic experience: I went for a covid jab ..I got seen on time

Fantastic experience: Great fast service

Fantastic experience: Great place to visit with your grandchildren for a swim.

Fantastic experience: Had my covid jab Great nurse didn't feel a thing

Negative experience: Recently, the gym has really gone downhill. In a short space of time, the monthly membership fee rose from £20 p/m to £35 p/m, and the water damaged ceiling has been left unfixed for months, with the solution appearing to be setting up more buckets to collect the drops. Plus, with a closing time of 9pm on weekdays and 6pm on weekends, the Riviera Centre can be far less convenient for workouts than the several gyms in Torquay which offer 24/7 opening hours.

Fantastic experience: Tasha is a star, she provided excellent customer service and her kindness really helped my day

Positive experience: Brand new gym facilities, little to complain about here.

Fantastic experience: Great gym has facilities for those with disabilities also has a sauna and jacuzzi

Positive experience: Lovely café with friendly staff and good variety of food and snacks.

Fantastic experience: Pfizer covid jab walk in and straight out again , nurses are great all volunteers excellent.

Positive experience: I go here to watch my 6 month old grandson have swimming lessons with my daughter & son-in-law on a Tuesday then we have lunch there, it's a nice place & suitable for disabled people, ample parking spaces & a blue badge only car park with dropped kerbs. The staff can't do enough for you & are very helpful.

Fantastic experience: It is a great place for families.

Fantastic experience: Nice place I would like to learn to swim in your swimming pool From jean shepherd

Fantastic experience: Brilliant organisation for COVID boosters. Nurses and volunteers excellent.

Fantastic experience: I had my COVID booster, so very well organized, really excellent.

Positive experience: Had jab .In and out quickly

Negative experience: If your going for your covid booster etc then make sure you have money for parking. Tobay council has condescendingly given you 40 mins free parking which is totally inadequate as the time you need there is at least one & a half hours if you follow the instructions to stay 20-30 mins after you get the jab. Even with timed booked appointments you will still have to queue. Many were so scared at getting a £100 parking penalty if they went over the 40min free time that they left before getting their jabs. WELL DONE TORBAY COUNCIL.

Fantastic experience: Extraordinarily helpful events team (Vikki et al) that turn a good venue into a great one. Used annually for an event for 500-700 attendees, and attend two similar but smaller events each autumn. Have been there today and glad to see, despite COVID, has lost none of its former lustre.

Fantastic experience: Perfect facility for large formal meetings.

Fantastic experience: A complete recreation center with gym, pool, sauna, hot tub, steam room, and classes for many exercises and all ages.

Negative experience: We were really looking forward to a healthy option for breakfast: porridge, muesli, cereals, non dairy milk etc..... We would like to continue using the centre and would dearly appreciate your consideration of this proposal, not only for ourselves, but others.

Fantastic experience: It's nice as hell, went to the swimming bit and it was all nice, waterslide was good for little one sitting on lap, need better looking male lifeguards though they letting the team down

Fantastic experience: Lovely swimming pool for family fun, wave machine my kids love. Not great for swimming lengths as small width but I go to Paignton for this style of pool. Staff very helpful and friendly. Clean changing rooms, lots of lockers and changing rooms. Nice place.

Fantastic experience: Great customer service helpful staff changing area was really clean and tidy really easy to book tickets

Fantastic experience: This was a great place to have my 4th covid injection and l would recommend it to everyone. There was lots of banter with fellow jab participants and the staff were first class. It was sunny outside and felt sunny inside. Well done to everyone l can't wait for a 5th one, hope its not to far away. Sorry no photo's were allowed. But l have my memories.

Negative experience: Not happy with disabled changing rooms as they let anyone use them so every time I go I have problems using them so I miss swimming time due to extra waiting bought it up woit management they know its wrong but Don't care

Fantastic experience: COVID injection - easy parking and very efficient thank you.

Fantastic experience: Fourth vaccination, staff very friendly and efficient .

Negative experience: Facilities are good but beware of 'special offers' read the small print. once in - you cant cancel without penalty.

Fantastic experience: Really good gym, gym classes and a decent leisure pool.

Negative experience: Absolutely AWFUL!!! So, some context. We have been here before and our oldest (5) loves the slide. We usually avoid this place as it is COLD and I mean COLD. In 3 years we have not had one visit where our youngest hasn't gotten out early with teeth chattering and blue lips. It took him a 10 minute shower to warm him up to a point he would let go of me. His teeth were still chattering. And yes, I took him out early. Not only this but we only went here as its Eater Bank Holiday and the other places with slides we go to are only open to residents. So to turn up today to be told that the main attraction (the slide) was not available because someone called in sick we were less than impressed and asked for a slight reimbursement as it was the only reason we attended. The lady on desk was rude and acted like a petulant child. You would think they waves would be on more but no, twice in one hour. Centre parcs manage 4 times in an hour. Still the changing rooms look like something from the nineties. They are horrendous and need a good old pressure wash and bleaching from top to bottom. Half the lockers have broken keys too. To make it worse the car park you can pay for 40 minutes, 1 hr or 2 hours etc. If you can only swim for 1 hr. Where is the 1.5hr option. But safe to say this place is not good for young children. Even our oldest was shivering and neither of my two stop. So it's not as if they were just sat. They were swimming and playing or at least trying to. If I could give it no stars I would.

Fantastic experience: Took the bride there for her spring booster innoculation well organized, didn't go in the leisure side of the premises.

Fantastic experience: Just took my daughter to be vaccinated at the Centre and every single member of staff there was magical My daughter couldn’t have been put more at ease. Thank you everyone

Positive experience: Good facilities, with a new gym, the pool is gettinga little tired. Overall a nice place.

Negative experience: Live locally and visit often. However was not impressed when I took my Granddaughter to public swim session 13th April. I understand the need to book hourly sessions but why was there not a 15 min gap between sessions? The changing room was packed with those who were getting dressed after a session and those trying to get ready for next session!! The changing areas are very outdated and in dire need of a complete make over. When we had finished our session and my Granddaughter went to use the hair dryer both were not working. She has long thick hair which we had to towel dye. She left with wet hair. Staff didn't inform us of this when we arrived and notices were not displayed with any apologies . Just not good enough Swimming has never been a cheap activity, therefore to have tired, outdated and broken facilities just adds insult. Yet take a look at the facilities for the Gym users...marvellous !!!! Come on Riveria, spend some money on wetside facilities too

Fantastic experience: Just had our booster covid jab, parking exceptional, no cues, straight in, 15 minutes rest and on our way home, thanks to all the volunteer's who do a fantastic job.

Positive experience: Well organised and staff really good. Only problem was due to vast number of people it was a long time to stand in the queue.

Positive experience: Good swimming pool for children and I have a gym membership there. It's all great, only thing I would say is the reception staff need a bit of professionalism and friendliness to them. Every time I have been staff are laughing and joking with each other but when it comes to asking them anything they seem very put out and like you have disturbed them, puts you off asking anything. That's my personal experience anyway.

Positive experience: Got to be the tightest carpark I have ever been on

Negative experience: Booked in for a swim, no flume in operation (listed on website) no wave machine due to lack of lifeguards,

Fantastic experience: Amazing team of volunteers administering the COVID vaccines, friendly, efficient, and dedicated to the job. Many many thanks to everyone involved, from the car parking attendants to the clinical staff administering the vaccines.

Fantastic experience: First class, well organised friendly helpful staff, quick painless vaccination.

Fantastic experience: Best vaccine I ever had. Service was quick and friendly. Got exactly what they said was on the menu. No dessert unfortunately.

Fantastic experience: Serving as the local covid Vacs Centre and busy today. Running both walk-in and booked services. Very efficient, from the people directing cars to vacant parking spaces to the clinical staff checking details and giving the vacs. Lots of help on hand for anyone who needs it.

Fantastic experience: I went to the Riviera centre to get my booster jab, and was impressed by the way everything was carried out by the all of the staff, from the gentleman directing motorists to the correct parking areas, to the staff administering the vaccines. In total the whole affair took no more than 3/4of an hour from arrival to departure. And the bonus for me, was I never even felt the needle go in!! Would definitely recommend people who haven't yet had their vaccines, be it 1 2 or the booster, to go there, and there's a booking service to get through even quicker and wheelchairs available should they be needed. Excellent service!

Fantastic experience: First impressions was it looked chaotic but actually it was very well run ...well done to all involved

Positive experience: Car parking is only for the brave and still is and the ticket machines are only fit to use if you have binoculars and of course don't take money

Fantastic experience: Went to the Rivera Center today and got stabbed with a needle! ....... thankfully it was my covid booster!

Fantastic experience: Was in attendance for my Covid booster, which I am in agreement with, all vaccinations should be compulsory FOR EVERYONE. The layout and organising was second to none well done all

Fantastic experience: Covid booster walk in appointment very smooth and painless x

Positive experience: Was very busy with walk in people as well as people whom has official appointments, but all was safe in and out

Fantastic experience: Went there for vaccination very professional and efficient.

Positive experience: Excellent place to host the Civid vaccination process. Slick.

Fantastic experience: Went for Covid Booster and the team were very well organized. Well done

Fantastic experience: Very well organised, staff very polite and helpful.

Fantastic experience: Very quick and efficient put at ease

Fantastic experience: Booster vaccination fantastic and well organised

Fantastic experience: Walk In for my booster covid shot - flawless! Well organized, friendly, professional and fast....what is not to like......even good parking.

Fantastic experience: Had my vaccine there and found the staff very helpful and polite. Car parking was free but the spaces are so small

Fantastic experience: Went for covid vaccine, very well organised helpful and friendly staff, in and out in no time well done.

Positive experience: Went for Covid booster. Parking was available. Arrived an hour early..... the jab was done in 5 minutes...plus the 15 minute sit down time. Well organised, not too crowded and efficiently carried out. Walk-ins didn't look too crowded either.

Fantastic experience: This is our vaccination centre and I went for a cheeky, walk in booster. All so well run. Everyone helpful. A big thanks from us all to wonderful volunteers and vaccinators.