York Leisure Centre

Fantastic experience: I took 3 children to Clip and Climb and they all had a great time. Fantastic facility. Definitely recommend

Negative experience: The pool is freezing!!!!!!!!!! I definitely got hypothermia. Definitely avoid

Negative experience: Hadn't fully appreciated how bad the children's swimming lessons are here until we moved to a different provider! The teaching isn't very good, lessons aren't fun for children and there's a lot of waiting around. There seems to be an issue with training and supervision of staff and very poor customer service. One particular teacher was so inexperienced she didn't know how to differentiate her lessons or consider the abilities of the class she was teaching, with the result that she made a class she didn't normally take swim far past their ability and I ended up with a terrified child who was too scared to even jump in and hated going to lessons. Complaints weren't acknowledged or followed up until I went on social media. Then I was promised this dreadful teacher wouldn't teach my child again - and then she did, fully realising she was doing something I'd been promised she wouldn't! At that point we moved to a different provider and realised how much more fun and engaging the lessons are elsewhere.

Positive experience: Have been a member for several years and will continue to be so. Some of the many positives are an excellent range of classes with, on the whole, some wonderful instructors. Particularly Yoga, Rebound and Spin. Great reception staff and overall a positive and friendly atmosphere from almost all staff which makes me want to visit regularly. Bright and cheerful environment. Good value. Great range of members resulting in making several long term friends. Some weak areas such as main gym floor which is routinely overrun by large numbers of users without any obvious traffic regulation. The access point to the spin studio is regularly obstructed by poorly placed gym equipment and users encroaching on what would clearly be a fire escape route. Can be like a chicane getting through. Too many items left lying on floors as trip hazards, weights, bags, belts, shoes? Training in just socks now seems to be a thing? Cleaning is hit and miss in Yoga studio. Unpleasant at times. Also the car park can be a nightmare. There is no visible enforcement of poor parking. Cars are routinely abandoned on the turning circle at the front and on grass verges, particularly during the busy usage periods of the football courts. Disabled bays are routinely blocked by users not displaying blue badges. Last week I witnessed an older disabled man being abused by someone parking his super car in a disabled bay and verbally attacking the disabled man when challenged. The driver informing the man he was given special permission to park in the disabled bay by centre management? I have reported the negative issues several times but no improvement. Though it doesn’t affect me personally I would point out I feel sorry for the reception staff as the main reception desk is a poorly designed health and safety nightmare. Uncomfortable, ill thought through layout in direct sun whilst cramped and ergonomically bereft of any functionality. Health and safety would have a field day. On the whole though this is a well situated, reasonably priced facility with some great training options and some fantastic instructors and staff so would recommend it to others.

Negative experience: Today I was on the climbing wall with my child. Great place, unfortunately terrible service. The two girls helping put the kids in harnesses and keep them safe were obviously bored and not eager to do their jobs. They were better at staring at their phones.

Fantastic experience: This is one of our favourite swimming pools. We like to come on a weekend and school holidays for the Family Fun Swim. The Family Fun Swim is packed with inflatables, balls and a couple of small boats, the kids love it. The large pool can be a little cold for the kids, but if they're moving around a lot it's refreshing. The kids have to do a swim test to go into the deep end (standard practice), and the staff are very supportive and helpful. The changing rooms are clean, the pool is modern and clean, too. Plus, the prices are great, as little as £1 for the kids. Free parking, too. What's not to love.

Negative experience: pool changing rooms clean, tidy and spacious however pool itself was horrible! Not only were there leaves and dirt at the bottom of the pool but I’ve never seen so many clumps of hair!!! this was rank and will be looking at somewhere else to swim!

Negative experience: Reasonably equipped gym. Nicely caters for most people’s needs. Overcrowding is definitely an issue. As mentioned in previous comments I have to agree that the amount of youths gathering around the only flat bench press is a little bit annoying, I have absolutely nothing against young people spending their time in the gym. I’d be the first to encourage it compared to all the other negative things they could be doing in their spare time . But just to congregate around a specific station doing nothing more than snap chatting is depriving people of doing their workout, which is unfair and irritating. Maybe a 2 person per station rule would be a solution to this , or a maximum of 20 minutes per station in peak hours. I can’t imagine too many scenarios where anyone needs to bench press for over 20 minutes???

Negative experience: Baby splash pool cold. Main pool cold. Overall disappointing

Fantastic experience: Gym , pool and facilities are first class.

Fantastic experience: Brilliant gym. I use it when im down here working, just over £8. Lovely centre

Fantastic experience: We’ve been going to Clip and Climb at York for a few years, but this weekend we had a great time. There were two guys in called Ben and Josh who were super helpful with the kids and really built up their confidence in tackling some of the more difficult climbs. Thank you so much guys and keep up the brilliant work.

Fantastic experience: Good and health place to go

Fantastic experience: Wow, went here for a meeting on floor 2. Very nice center, lots to do. I recommend the cafe on ground floor near swimming- had a nice big coffee with a lovely bakewell tart slice. The options were fantastic x

Positive experience: Good place to meet someone. It was a little noisy with music on arrival. Cafe served good hot drinks.

Fantastic experience: Very nice experience. Staff were very thorough with explaining the rules and techniques and were also helpful and kind. Large variety of climbing walls suitable for a wide range of ages.

Negative experience: For the love of god why can’t this place have an actual human at the other end of the phone to speak to. The app is terrible and the time table hard to follow. When arriving with my toddler after a long drive there was 2 members of staff sat having a chit chat - obviously not too busy to answer a phone. Anyway I was told swimming finishes in 15 mins and she turned to carry on her chit chat with her work mate. Went to another pool in the end where there was a human at the other end of the phone who I could speak to. Absolute nightmare experience. Just put a phone line In for the love of god. The automated options are just a revolving door of frustration. Not fit for purpose.

Fantastic experience: Excellent leisure centre....lots of things to do....great swimming pool, especially for babies/young children which is why we were there.. reasonable cafe....lovely play area outside.....extremely safe and clean

Fantastic experience: Brilliant pools for babies

Fantastic experience: Lovely gym, staff very friendly and helpful with all your needs. Staff were able to help me with a flexible membership being part of B.A.F. on leave. Look forward to coming back in October and resuming a membership. Thanks, Jon :)

Positive experience: Went to the health centre side can't comment about leisure centre

Negative experience: Booked to go swimming at this venue, whilst I appreciate you do need to have upfront control on admissions at busy times I cannot understand why I needed to sign up to an account to book tickets, my daughter has been before so got her to do it. We also inquired why there was a senior price as well as many others have no real answer on that one, because we were taking the grandchildren just paid the full rate even though we was really not going to be using the facilities just watching and caring for the children. This is the first time of using this venue and whilst the overall impression was good, the water temperature was not that brilliant and the air temperature of the building was very cold which was also mentioned by a few more people, both my granddaughters wanted to leave and this was 20 minutes before time, one of the children was looking blue from the cold conditions and had to use the hot showers after to get her warmed up. I even mentioned the temperature to a life guard on the way out! Overall wouldn’t be hurrying to go back.

Fantastic experience: We attended the soft play area with our two grandsons and had a super time.. there are lots of activities here including swimming and a lovely cafe..

Fantastic experience: Light, airy and very clean inside and out. Great choice of 3 pools, gym and climbing wall. The cafe has good selection of light bites, sweet cakes and hot / cold drinks. A library adds to the options inside, + upstairs holds a blood taking department + other health needs. YCFC + YORK KNIGHTS both play their home games here, which is an added bonus. Outside offerings include a popular children's play park, + an area to play football and other ball games.

Fantastic experience: Very friendly staff,small cafe,great selection,hot and cold drinks, good selection of activities to do,also able to give blood and not have to go to hospital to give blood.also a small library on ground floor.well worth a visit.

Positive experience: Clean and accessible

Negative experience: My daughter has swimming lessons here and its pretty poor do really. The instructor looks like she's not interested and just going through the motions. Most of the lesson is just spend hanging around waiting for other kids to have their go, as the one teacher has 8 children to teach. It's too many kids for one person. At this rate my daughter is going to learn who to swim when she is 12.

Positive experience: I ate at the cafe and the food was good and service pleasant and helpful.

Fantastic experience: Super space and there is so much you can do here..

Negative experience: I used Anytime Fitness round the corner before moving here after it’s unfortunate closure (due to locality convenience). The gym is relatively okay, has all the facilities you want, just a shame none of them are available between the hours of 4-9 on a weekday as it’s crawling with people (mainly kids who don’t look long out of nappies). So my membership is £33 a month and I can only access what I want before 4pm through the week and on weekends. A booking system should be utilised for gym access as it just can’t facilitate the demand. Would drop this place in a heartbeat if Anytime Fitness re-opened.

Positive experience: It's a shame the swimming pool area doesn't have diving boards and slides like waterworld had, everytime I have visited there has only ever been about 20 people max yet when they had waterworld it was always full with lots of families enjoying themselves. Yes there is a gym and climbing wall etc but we go out of York as do a lot of others for more fun swimming pools.

Positive experience: The gym is clean and quiet, and the staff are friendly and work well, especially imogen , natalie , and Tom .

Fantastic experience: Wonderful place Alex and Edward who works in the clip & climb were really amazing. My little ones were so comfortable with them ... Thanks guys, keep up the good work.

Fantastic experience: Brilliant new facility. It has everything the family needs. Highly recommended.

Positive experience: Great gym facilities available, big changing room with showers and toilets.

Positive experience: Recently joined here mainly for the gym. A big bonuses was they have BP Pulse charging pints in their North Car Park. One of the two charging points has been out of order but repaired recently. Unfortunately the car park is so often full that non electric vehicles or electric vehicles not plugged in to charge block one of the four EV bays. On top of that some EVs, presumably staff, plug in and stay there all day. I presume the EV points were installed as a facility to attract customers but as they are not policed at all it’s a free for all. It’s similar to how they have staff at the entrance to the North Car Park on match days to stop football fans parking and yet the ones who entry from opposite the range have no warden to intercept them so anyone can drive in and this means that leisure centre users cannot park. Both are examples of poor management that could easily be rectified. Unfortunately once you let such behaviour slip, then the number of offenders will just rocket upwards. Also, I have a disabled Mum, I appreciate the provision of disabled parking spaces but for example about 25% of the North Car Park is designated for disabled parking. That’s a lot of disabled bays. This area isn’t well served by buses and it would take me one hour by bus to get here which isn’t feasible. Overall the car park issue, electric vehicle charging, match day access and reduced parking spaces due to too many disabled spaces is a big negative for this centre. It’s a shame. The leisure centre is good. The gym is very clean, a good choice of classes and nice pools.

Fantastic experience: Staff are fantastic, the facilities perfect, going to go every weekday. Loved it

Fantastic experience: We really enjoy the swimming and book the small pool which my children like. Shame it’s a tad small would be nice for a bit more to offer the children. It’s a shame you can’t book in advance other than seven days, would be good for a month in advance to book. Lockers and changing rooms are good and clean

Positive experience: Booked daughter into the beginners swimming class. Slow start and a lot of lessons spent stood around whilst waiting for the others to have a turn. Needs more staff in the younger session. Realistically a 30 minute session is 5 minutes of register and getting the kids into the water and then 15-20 of stood in the water waiting. This is a great shame as the staff are brilliant and really try and the facilities are good too. It’s just the class is too big early on and could do with an extra teacher for the first few sessions so all the children get to do more learning.

Negative experience: If you want a good coffee go somewhere else..... Very poor and very expensive

Positive experience: Great centre but website and booking process is awful.

Fantastic experience: Really like this place. Gym is clean not very busy when I go in the night time. Staff are nice. Swimming pool amazing.

Negative experience: Very upset at having got a fine for overstaying 20 minutes on a match day. With 4 children between us (one getting diagnosed for Autism) this does not seem fair.

Fantastic experience: Great complex

Fantastic experience: Took my 7year old son to the clip n climb and we both loved it. He wants to go again so that says it all.

Fantastic experience: Quick and easy booking online for the swim session, very friendly and efficient staff. Very clean pool and facilities.

Fantastic experience: Fantastic facilities with ample parking. Great little park attached that's free. Really recommend it here

Fantastic experience: The centre offers many activities, is easy to book for and is clean throughout. There are a number of lockers for swimming that are not working, but these have been earmarked for repair and there are enough for it not to be a problem.

Fantastic experience: Brilliant

Positive experience: Very clean. Nice pools for young kids. Baby enjoyed her time there and so did we. Most middle row lockers will swallow your money but top row will give it back. Quite small lockers not suitable for families x

Positive experience: Swimming ‍♂️ twice a week hopefully helps me stay fit, well it tires me out, not sure if that good or bad but l do enjoy Not sure if lm up to Olympics standard but today stopped only once

Fantastic experience: Great place for any member of the family, also NHS services and a library and cafe

Fantastic experience: Great place to swim and go to the gym. The staff are friendly and helpful.

Fantastic experience: When I enquired about the membership for my 13 years old son, Leonor gave us the full information and no pressure to join. My son liked the centre, so he decided to join, and it has been one of the best decisions we have made. He has been using the centre regularly, the staff, particularly Leo, are amazing. Now, many people complain about the parking arrangement during the match days. In fact, I got a ticket for staying over two hours which was a shock to me as I was waiting for my son, who was using the gym and then swimming pool. But once again, thank to Leo, Ben and his team, the issue has been dealt with. If you have to park longer, you just need to give them your registration number to avoid a parking ticket. I want to thank Ben and his team for being so helpful.

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff, clean, and excellent variety of gym equipment.

Negative experience: The walls themselves were pretty good, and it's nice that you can independently clip in and out without the need of a staff member meaning less time waiting around and more time climbing. However there are a number of downsides: - Parking on a match day meant there was no space in the car park - Booking was a challenge (Better system just is poor) Finally and most importantly the staff there do not supervise the climbing properly. Instead they stand around chatting. When my daughter was hanging upside down with her leg caught crying for help they were oblivious - given the fact this was a half harness that you could slip out of if inverted this was really poor from a safety perspective.

Fantastic experience: Easy to get there , great prices, helpful staff, pools etc are really clean , spacious and offer different session's available to accommodate all the public :)

Positive experience: Only took a patient to eye clinic

Negative experience: One of my kids went to a climbing party here. unfortunately it was a match day apparently so could not get anywhere near to pick up. Parking attendant was about as helpful as a chocolate fireguard. Will now avoid this place as it's not worth the hassle

Negative experience: Our gym visit was cancelled without any notice. We turned up and were told that we were being refused access and would have to repeat the induction. No adequate reason was given for this and instead the staff members talked to one another. Really poor customer service. They behaved as though there was no other gym we could join as members in York?? We've cancelled the membership after the leisure centre subsequently cancelled the gym induction - again without warning. Once more the customer service was shocking - this after a phone call to the help desk to make sure the induction was going ahead before driving in - the person on the end of line confirmed it was going ahead - only to be met with a blank expression and a dismissive attitude

Fantastic experience: An excellent sports facility. But DO NOT price it out of reach of younger and less wealthy members of the community.

Fantastic experience: When some nob complains there is no spinner or dryer for swim gear you know York is truly middle class. Take them home in your towel like a normal person.

Negative experience: Tried booking online for swimming on multiple occasions. The most over complex app and website I’ve ever come across. Went in as couldn’t book a slot for me and my daughter and despite calling I was directed to the website. Walked into the huge and open lobby. No one there apart from 4 staff members stood around the main desk. Asked if they could book me in for swimming. “Nope it’s all online but a word of warning our website is crap” (their words not mine). I was directed to the app which I was told was “a bit better”. Still can’t book a slot for 2 people even though there are slots available. They suggested I book slots separately and hopefully we’d be able to get into the same slot and swim together. You really can tell this place is council run never mind we’ll just stick to the sports village! If the place needs a bit of income I hope they sort it out. Really shouldn’t be that difficult. Edit - in response, nope sorry but even when there was 4 slots available there isn’t an option to do more than 1 booking. Hence your staff member telling me that i should just book multiple sessions. Anyway good to hear the dreadful app is getting a revamp. I agree it’s needed

Fantastic experience: Great first visit. Friendly staff too. Parked in the wrong car park though...

Fantastic experience: Brilliant place for fitness and swim, brand new equipment and pool great for a work out.

Positive experience: Quality facilities. No atmosphere. The gym is like a morgue with state of the art equipment. The gym has technogym equipment which is state of the art. Best equipment for a consumer market gym. But there is zero atmosphere... Radio station on supplying 3 minutes worth of songs before 10 minutes of insurance adverts. No one talks to each other because they're all wearing headphones to account for the lack of upbeat music through the sound system. £36/month for state of the art facilities, fine. That's reasonable. £36/month to train at a morgue, no thanks. One gym user was on the phone. Their entire conversation was heard, through no fault of their own. Just the atmosphere is dead. When I go to train I like to be in a vibing gym with lots of energy. This keeps me focused and pumped. Instead I'm wanting to be quiet because I feel like I'm in a library. Greatest hits radio is not the answer to your music and atmosphere problems With a better atmosphere I would 10/10 recommend this gym. Currently I'm sat on the fence whether to sign up.

Fantastic experience: Absolutely fantastic place. All staff are amazing both ground staff and better staff. Gym is really clean and family friendly, pool is very nice accommodates all ages family's and more. The clip&climb is brilliant kids love it staff are very professional

Fantastic experience: Visited this venue to observe my granddaughter swimming with her mother. The staff were really friendly and helpful, the facilities were spotless. Covid measures were in place, most reassuring. There are 3 pools, one large one for adults and the other two are for children. One of the two has lots of active things for children, including a mechanical gadget that periodically drops loads of cold water into the pool. My daughter in law forgot about this, and stood directly underneath - I haven’t laughed so much in years! Highly recommend this venue, excellent.

Positive experience: I only went in for an NHS Blood test. Car (or in my case van) parking was easy in the North carpark by the new stadium North entrance. Directions to the NHS Care floor were clear and easy to follow. I only had to wait for a few minutes before being called by the phlebotomy staff. All done in 2 or 3 minutes.

Positive experience: Great splash pool

Positive experience: A new facility so the equipment is brand new and everything is clean. The pool's a bit small but nice. It has a nice toddlers/baby pool. The climbing wall is really good. It has a small library and vending machines and a shop. Staff are friendly and helpful. Not a massive car park though, especially for match days. Don't know anything about the pitch/stadium.

Negative experience: I went to enquire about joining the facilities. 2 staff on, Got told to use a machine for information.no customer service!

Positive experience: Great new leisure centre. The pool and changing rooms were modern and clean. Stuff were nice. Downsides: no spinner/dryer for swim shorts. Phone signal poor and no wifi so hard to coordinate with others on entry/exit.

Fantastic experience: I have only used the pool. Was meet by a friendly member of staff who explained where the exti was. Shoes are not to be warn when entering the swimming pool changing rooms and there are lots of changing rooms and lockers. The pool is not to hot and there was lots of space for everyone