Deben Leisure Centre

Negative experience: We lost access to the gym for most of December with no compensation and my mails to the manager were completely ignored. Facilities paid for by the membership are withdrawn for extensive periods by the centre with no consequence. Members opinions are clearly of little importance.

Fantastic experience: Very nice

Fantastic experience: Quiz night, friendly enjoyable evening, warm but hard chairs

Fantastic experience: Nice clean place, staff are helpful....

Fantastic experience: I go to the gym for rehab my fitness instructor is great

Positive experience: I’m taking Swimming lessons in Deben Leisure Centre. Instructor is really sweet, and friendly. She teaches with patience. Most of the times water will be cold.

Fantastic experience: I use it all the time. Love my classes. Love the range available

Fantastic experience: Enjoyable

Positive experience: I have no idea how to impart this information without leaving a review, but hope it will be helpful to others who had similar questions After trying to find clear information via the website, then getting the app and having to create an account, messaging the centre via their social media, and still not finding the info I needed - I ended up having to ring the leisure centre to ask if use of the sauna/steam room was included in a swimming pass. I was told no, it isn't. I then had to ask "... How much is it?" It costs £15 for a combined swim/sauna/steam pass, when just swimming is £6.40. Ultimately, I've decided to give Deben Leisure Centre a miss, partly because of the price (I'm a bit shocked that use of the sauna/steam more than doubles the fee), partly because of my frustration that neither their website nor their dedicated app could give me this basic information, and partly because a lot of the timetable is either lane swimming or closed for lessons or groups. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just pop to the pool for a casual swim, eh. Contrast this with Crown Pools in Ipswich, where leisure swimming is far more accessible, you can swim for £6.50, and add on sauna/steam for only an additional £1.20.

Fantastic experience: Good big swimming pool

Positive experience: Really nice sized pool

Fantastic experience: Fantastic place. Excellent swim team, amazing coaches.

Fantastic experience: I joined this gym a couple of months ago, it was a good decision. The kids' membership is so reasonable, and the fact they can use the gym (supervised) is excellent. I've found the classes to be excellent, the class teachers are all fabulous people and help you feel at ease. The members that go to this gym all seem to be just lovely, and the reception staff are all really helpful and nice. The gym itself is not huge, but it is filled with a good balance between cardio and strength. It can get very busy at times. The swimming pool is clean and tidy, and the kids enjoy the family fun sessions. Overall, the price is good, the facilities are good and the staff and members are good. The only thing that lets it down is the app, which is slow and clunky. You do have to pay to park before 6pm. But again, very reasonable rates as an ESC car park. Very happy.

Fantastic experience: Great team at Deben. Had to borrow their disabled loo as public ones had been vandalised. Thank you.

Fantastic experience: Great value for money at Deben, parking is dirt cheap, and the facilities are spot on.

Fantastic experience: Fantastic value for money, exceedingly helpful staff and great gym and swimming pool facilities

Positive experience: Lovely helpful staff

Positive experience: Have not used these facilities

Positive experience: Good experience, not too big and everyone seems friendly.

Positive experience: It's a friendly gym but very limited on gym equipment and personally I think to many members for that size of gym but other then that it's good.

Positive experience: Despite the infrastructure being a tad on the tired side, this is a very good leisure centre considering how cheap, clean, accessible and safe it is, the staff are also really friendly. It’s also generally quite which is nice when trying to teach kids or if you want to swim in relative peace. The only downside is that there isn’t much in terms of entertainment in the pool for kids, you have to go much further afield for that, such as Felixstowe. Four stars - looking forward to going back.

Negative experience: Firstly, this place has the worst designed gym I have ever witnessed. Extremely poor decisions in terms of equipment choice and layout: - 2 barbells in the whole gym and very cheap plates - No bench press rack!! - No lat pull-down cable machine and no seated cable row machine!! - Free-weight area very cramped - 1 set of dumbbells increasing by 2.5kg only and tucked in the far corner of the gym - Closest vending machine all the way downstairs next to reception - Just generally poor choices of equipment and placement all round. It's also expensive. They charged me £22 to use the Gym and the Sauna afterwards. I was in there an hour. For what you receive in return for your hard earned cash it just isn't worth it. To put it into perspective, my local gym literally has 10x more equipment and space, far better quality facilities and includes use of a sauna (so everything and more than this place) and I only pay £20 for the whole month which is less than what they charge here for a day. On top of all this, staff were rude and made me feel so unwelcome. I suggest to them - if you don't want to do your job and provide decent customer service, then LEAVE. Let someone else take your place you actually cares about doing a good job. I highly recommend travelling to another gym in the area instead.

Fantastic experience: Best sauna around!!!

Positive experience: Come swimming here regularly, staff are really friendly, the pool and facilities are really clean & well maintained, **only downside is the pool is FREEZING!** there's plenty of swimsuits and accessories if you don't have any and the vending machines can be paid with card or cash which is really handy. Remember to bring a £1 coin to use the lockers otherwise keep your possessions in the car or poolside! Just a shame there's no free or special parking. It's ring go/ council car park £1 for two hours (blue badge holders still have to pay btw!) unless you come after 6pm.

Fantastic experience: My daughter comes for swimming lessons and really enjoys it. Lovely pool with fantastic staff and swimming lessons are really well priced.

Fantastic experience: Could not believe how quiet lane swimming was at 0730 on a Saturday. The pool was great and had a very nice hour's swim. Thanks

Positive experience: Pool cold on getting in

Fantastic experience: Beautiful pool to swim in. Staff friendly. Have been to this pool several times over the years.

Fantastic experience: Went for a swim. The changing room, locker showers, clean and tidy. The pool was nice. The staff are really friendly answered all my questions. Will come back again.

Fantastic experience: Recently refurbished! Easy to access! Staff very helpful

Positive experience: I attended for a swim session and for aqua aerobics. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience. The water was a good temperature and everywhere was very clean and tidy after a refit. Lovely.

Positive experience: Very warm in viewing area watching grandson in swimming lessons

Negative experience: The pool was ridiculously busy, with so many people in the wrong lane, ended up getting out after 15 minutes.

Fantastic experience: Very friendly, helpful and kind staff. Loved the facilities. 5* from us!

Negative experience: Pool was very cold and the changing room floor was very muddy, it could do with someone to clean it regularly as they do at crown pools

Fantastic experience: Lovely swimming pool easy online booking.varied times lots throughout the day.

Fantastic experience: I sat and watched as my boys used the pool, the lifeguards were very good with getting the boys to try new dives the boys and myself loved it .

Fantastic experience: Great place for a swim and they do coffee at reception.

Fantastic experience: It's ALL good

Fantastic experience: Nice leisure centre, alot cleaner than others in the area. Decor is fresh, facilities are up to date.

Fantastic experience: Great facilities. Well run

Fantastic experience: Kind, helpful staff, clean, good range of different types of swimming groups

Negative experience: Hi took my grandson swimming here for the first time since the re vamp,disappointed with pool area , tiling above water level very dirty ,lane flag pole on poolside just about to fall over because screw pulled out of tiling,pool side very slippery at head of pool steps so much so that grandson fell over, pool staff approached but didn't seem interested ,in all disappointing visit.

Fantastic experience: Great pool and staff. Highly recommended.

Fantastic experience: Great pool for doing lengths, great location. Inflatable obstacle course is brilliant, highly recommend.

Fantastic experience: Lovely pool and lovely staff. So glad this is my local

Positive experience: True, it is a bit over priced when you compare it to other gyms but it's convenient, local and has everything you need. One of their personal trainers, Ashden, is fantastic. As well as gym training me, he also sorted out a shoulder problem (that was scarily reminiscent of the Frozen Shoulder I had), as he's a qualified sports therapist/massage.

Fantastic experience: Great place to swim once you have worked out a time for public swimming.

Positive experience: Good parking

Fantastic experience: Great swim ‍♀️

Positive experience: Very clean, great staff, nice atmosphere.

Negative experience: I sent them an email enquiry.Never had a reply.Went to David Lloyd instead

Fantastic experience: Great fun swimming today

Fantastic experience: Lovely pool, very clean and friendly staff

Negative experience: Could be an okay place, but the pool was skanky with silt building up in the corners, changing rooms a bit grubby and the reception staff were surly. Antiquated locker system and stupid payment system for the car park.

Negative experience: Staff were rude and was speaking to other members of staff about me and my family behind our back but didn't realise we were standing there still. It was the first time there and we will not be returning, no one told us where to go or where to place my push chair safely.

Positive experience: Shiny new facilities. Pleasant Reception staff. Swim classes may be a bit crowded so worth checking how many are in each class before you sign up.

Fantastic experience: Nice pool and friendly atmosphere. Recommended.

Positive experience: Nice gym. Small drawback no Wi fi for headphones on running machine

Negative experience: Decent equipment, but basic equipment for the money. Friendly staff, but the price you pay for the gym simply isn't worth it in comparison to other gyms. £35/pm for very basic equipment is steep. Far too steep.

Positive experience: Good facilities, very good deal with family swim, pays for itself.

Fantastic experience: My granddaughter's have swimming lessons here and have got on very well

Fantastic experience: First visit back in years and it was great. Clean facilities. Polite staff. Free parking after 6pm

Negative experience: Thankyou to Ellie who works at Deben Leisure Centre. You're helpful and courteous which goes a long way. The changing areas and clean and clear. Pool was a perfect temperature too. Unfortunately this can not be said about your DM Jason. Today we regrettably got the pool session times wrong, resulting in just 10mins in the pool during the family session. Ellie kindly said "wait to see who arrives in the next slot you may be able to stay and go in the pool again, depending on numbers" We were very keen as this was our first family swim since lockdown and we are paying swimming members. The next group arrived and numbers did not exceed current covid limits being 40 in a pool. DM Jason had little understanding and told us we were not able to go back into the pool, even though the pool was only half full to current guidelines. What a disappointment.

Fantastic experience: Love this place. Really good swimming pool here.

Positive experience: Charges £5.50 to shower. Pool is a good temperature although it can get cramped if your a faster swimmer than others in lanes. Showers and floor needs cleaning more often... I recommend taking flip flops

Positive experience: Really friendly staff. Always a pleasure

Fantastic experience: Fantastic nice and clean pool and changing area

Positive experience: Nice gym but very small! I wished they had more weight machines but only have about 6. I feel like they should put more weight machines in the main gym and free weights and stuff in another room. Otherwise it's nice with swimming pool and can get a decent workout. Price is OK although I went to a way bigger gym with more gym equipment for the same price. Staff are pretty chill and the place looks well done and taken care of. Update: changing my 4 star to a 3. Dealing with billing and charges has been a pain. They give you a penalty charge for not showing up which is fine but they have charged me twice even though I came and gave my name to the lady up front. The first time I didn't bother to complain but when it happened again I had to say something bc it was getting ridiculous! Also someone there put in the wrong direct debit info on my account. So I was charge a late payment fee. It was a different name and a different bank luckily they(harlonds) took off the charges but now I wish I didn't sign up for the 12 month payment scheme as I'm now stuck with them for a year.

Fantastic experience: Wonderful operation. Careful, caring and successful in giving the public a great facility in very difficult times.

Fantastic experience: Live this gym

Fantastic experience: Lovely covid friendly pool...lovely staff too

Negative experience: Impossible to cancel. Keep getting confirmation of cancelling and refund and then more comes out.

Fantastic experience: Very good staff and nicely refurbished.

Fantastic experience: It's the perfect place for a leisurely swim - I can't praise it enough. The changing rooms, reception and pool are spotless

Fantastic experience: Great place helpful staff

Positive experience: Great for oldies in slow lane. Nice staff.

Fantastic experience: Great and clean

Positive experience: A nice pool with a cool obstacle course

Fantastic experience: It's great

Positive experience: Recently refurbished leisure centre. Staff could be more customer oriented

Fantastic experience: Brilliant leisure centre and great pool

Positive experience: Visited the gym as have monthly membership. Lots of modern fitness equipment but quite cramped, just not enough room sometimes. Very rarely get to speak to anyone as many have headphones & some spend more time on their phones ( including some staff ). Pity some of the staff don't seem to want to interact with the public. This is such a shame. Have visited the Felixstowe gym run by same firm & staff are much more friendly there which seems to encourage gym users to say hello etc to each other.

Fantastic experience: Popped in on our holiday and my little one loved swimming there. Lovely pool and very helpful staff.

Positive experience: Very good place for relaxation and comfort.

Fantastic experience: Fabulous new fzcility with a splendid addition of the steam room and sauna.

Fantastic experience: Small pool but clean and fantastic for smaller children as not overcrowded

Positive experience: Great for holding sales there

Positive experience: A bit pricey but it's a new refurb so it's all brand new equipment, nice clean changing rooms. The gym can be a little cramped at times

Positive experience: Like the gym, pool a bit desparate. Changing facilities OK though could do with slats on floor or equivalent.

Fantastic experience: Nice friendly staff. Clean and well equipped gym.

Negative experience: Initial review - April 2019: gave 2 stars Nice pool just a shame there are very limited times for public swimming duriing weekday evenings, when I imagine most people who work can visit. Very busy in the hour sessions on Mondays and Thursday's 6-7pm. Classes in pool before and after so can't go then. Seems that all those wishing for a general swim are squashed into an hour so gets very busy during this time on these days with no limit on the number of people allowed in the pool at once. Those swimming arent always the most selfaware or considerate e.g diving, backstroke or front crawl when the pool is busy leads to a lot of wash and collisions, but staff don't intervene, none of the traditional signage about no dive bombing etc. Maybe because of volume of people using at these times but changing room floor very wet and slippy at locker end of the walkway from the pool (after the showers) so concerned about falling. Other than above clean facilities with friendly staff. Would be great with more public swimming sessions. Second review /update - September 2019 - reduced to 1star as no improvement made There are reviews both on here and Tripadvisor complaining about poor public swimming times from 5+months ago (not just mine). No changes made to times. Therefore still very difficult to go swimming at convenient time for those who work full time, resulting the 1hr sessions available Mondays and Thursdays overcrowded. Seem to be more interested in maximizing profits by dominating evening timetable with aquafit and other classes for which they charge a lot more per person than a regular swim. Surely they should be providing more general swim sessions as a public service? Such sessions allow for those of all ages and surely are are therefore more inclusive than the club's and classes? Also, maybe because 1hr public swimming slots are at peak visiting times sandwiched between classes but changing rooms still have very wet floors. Lifeguards also appear to still be asleep totally ignoring those jumping in /messing around even when they put others at risk from being injured by collision. Hoped my initial review would have been taken on board but no changes made as far as I can tell.

Positive experience: It's so much better since it's refurbishment. Clean and easy to access and staff were friendly.

Fantastic experience: Lessons are great, swimming pool super clean

Positive experience: Nice pool and good gym. Like the referbishment

Positive experience: Much much better now it's been refurbished, pool is the same size, changing rooms revamped, gym is 10 x bigger and better but has a small free weight area would be my only criteque

Positive experience: The new facilities are well designed and the steam room and sauna area is a good addition but the monthly adult membership is too high. The pool is too often closed for groups and club access in the early evenings instead of public lane swimming. Like many people I work full time and can't make it before 6.30pm but don't want to swim as late as 9 or 10pm. Please revise your week day pool timetable.

Positive experience: Nicer than Felixstowe

Positive experience: Good gym equipment. Although centre layout is poor

Negative experience: The first time i went the pool was too cold,my hands turned blue and i was so cold it was a struggle to swim. It was cold when i got out. The changing rooms were dirty and the loos smelt of wee. The second time everything was much cleaner but the cold was still very much an issue for me.