Plymouth Life Centre

Negative experience: Disappointed that the gym closed on Christmas Eve without notifying members. A heads-up would have been appreciated, especially for those of us who planned workouts around the holidays. Poor communication, not the first time this has happened either!

Positive experience: Could be great, but consistently disappoints. Almost every weekend we come with our children to play in the kid’s pool and slides. If you go before 12pm the small kids pool is half size, due to lessons. Over half the time when we visit (at the weekends), the flumes are closed. Either a fault or ‘someone called in sick’ and they can’t staff it…. Not to mention the ‘jacuzzi’ and fountain are rarely switched on. When you pay for something it’s nice to actually get it. Today 3 of the pool showers were out of service. The adult swimming lanes are good but can be busy. The gym is well stocked but prior to COVID used to have a sauna, however they have cut that cost now and it’s gone for good. The sports halls are good. And the cafe fairly reasonable. Much like Plymouth, it has the ingredients to be great. But is mismanaged.

Fantastic experience: Great place to go swimming, my granddaughters have swimming lessons here, very good instructors.

Fantastic experience: Love it.

Fantastic experience: Brilliant wellcoming friendly staff.

Negative experience: The centre is a mess. Staff are not trained in customer service. Very unwelcoming. Thankfully Belle the Pilates teacher is sooooo good it’s worth the stress and aggravation of visiting this facility.

Negative experience: I can't share experience of the actual activity areas but I can share experience of being in the meeting room in two occasions at the top of the building. The heat, stuffiness, and lack of ventilation is terrible. They have 3 or fans blowing the same old crap air around the room. So many in the room complained on both occasions. Need to sort a proper ventilation system. Never would I hold a meeting or conference there. Sorry, my other moan is the quality of food available at the cafe. You would not think this is a fitness centre. Overall an impressive place but the top 2 points really let it down in my opinion.

Negative experience: The most expensive gym in Plymouth that regularly fails to open on time with no warning or explanation.

Positive experience: Great places. Gym is good nice amd clean enough equipment. Pool is lovely. Only down fall is the hairdryers they are useless really

Positive experience: Went for an adult gentle swim which would have been better if some adult lane swimmers were not using the pool at the same time. Very disruptive to the less confident swimmers. The pool, however, was at a very pleasant temperature and most of the people swimming were friendly and respectful

Positive experience: Facilities are great, every machine you need. I wish the male personal trainers could learn not to smash weights and put equipment away. Leaving females with 300kg free weights on a leg press and dropping free weights everywhere is not a good look.

Negative experience: Life guards are clueless.

Negative experience: *Review is for Cafe only* Tried to pop in and order food for my daughter at 16:55, only to be told the kitchen shuts at 17:00. They obviously wanted to go home early. Was told I could choose from what was left of the cold food, none of it was lactose-free, so useless. Ordered a coffee with was nearly £4 for some reason, and it came in a cardboard box thing with no insulation, which is a future lawsuit for someone. Basically completely failed so definitely recommend not bothering.

Positive experience: Gym is a little chlorinated on some of the older machines, but the swimming pool is adaptive and second to none, both 50m and 25m options depending on time, diving pool, toddler pool and familyPlenty of classes and varied activities included in the reasonable membership, or PAYG

Fantastic experience: Great experience. Kids loved the beach style pool, slides and hot tub. Paid for an hour session but it wasn't busy so we stayed about 20mins extra.

Negative experience: Somebody seriously need to interest in reception. I dont know if they get promotion from the entry fees but they are unwilling to show university free swim times, they are trying to make it difficult everything for people not to come in.

Fantastic experience: One of the non-sports events comicon type that takes place in varying degrees. Life centre has plenty of scope for sports halls to be used for all sorts of things. Picture shows just one of these. Lego to name but one. Events usually well attended but better to book in advance on line if possible. Just check out forth coming events

Positive experience: Good facilities sometimes quite busy, gym card seems to glitch a lot don't like that the gates are open, if you have a scan in you and out you should need to use it I know sounds silly but practically so I recon. x

Fantastic experience: Fantastic place to visit we took a group of disabled players to the indoor bowls hall situated under the swimming pool.

Negative experience: Thought I'd book a swim for myself and my daughter, however the website is awful. It tells me I'm already registered for Plymouth active but then when I request an email to reset the password , I receive no password recovery message. Have tried it with my wife's details and also tried signing up again with a different mail address to run into the same barriers. As with everything Plymouth does, they fall flat on their face with the basics like a decent website.

Negative experience: THEY cancelled my membership without telling me and told a month later when I called them up to sign up again and pay £34 instead of £25 I was paying. Absolutely a no go. Luckily there are other places to go to. Either people don't know what they are doing or another rip off.

Negative experience: The gym needs maintenance, it has worn out machines, and the cost of membership is still greater than competitors. Of course the pictures did not cover all the sports equipment because some of them were used but all of them are like these in the pictures or worse

Fantastic experience: Really good location, plenty of parking and lots of activities. Good for kids and families. Nice swimming pool and nice food.

Positive experience: I'm a regular visitor to Plymouth in my camper and don't normally require the use of a shower but thought I'd go in as most leisure centers charge £2 or personally I'd pop money in a charity box. Anyway nearly £6 which was the charge of a swim which I didn't need guy in reception was apologetic not his fault. Then trying to actually find a real shower where you can get in the buff i think i found 2. For such a large facility its not great especially as a parkrun there on a Saturday the access to a shower would be great.

Fantastic experience: Life Centre Cafe, food and staff are great. Jade and Paul are Fantastic, they are always polite and friendly.

Fantastic experience: I started my life of climbing in here 13 years ago and still love these walls.

Fantastic experience: Very nice service the water I'd so clean and blue the dressing room is amazing

Negative experience: Contacted the life centre in regards to my family doing the wall/rock climbing spoke to about 4 different people who obviously don't communicate with others as every different person I spoke to didn't have a clue what I was on about even though it was apparently noted down.

Positive experience: A great place to visit. Swimming, climbing, diving, squash and more. Fairly decent cafe but could be cleaner, however, it’s usually pretty busy. Would be better if it were not right in the reception area where high footfall happens as it can also be noisy. Very friendly and helpful staff. Large changing room for the pool and other dry change facilities if you’re not using the pool.

Fantastic experience: Superb facility, great pools, simple straightforward booking process.

Fantastic experience: We love this pool, plenty of park space, easy access

Negative experience: The place is filthy. You see people with 'cleaning team' on their polo-shirts but I'm not quite sure what they do. I accidentally put my hand on top of the changing room doorframe and the black furry mess that came back made me retch. I understand the pool must have a lot of footfall but that was months of dust and grime. The receptionist ladies there really hate you as well. You can stand there and they'll just ignore you. I thought I was perhaps dead like in The Sixth Sense and I was a lone spirit trying to get the livings attention.

Fantastic experience: I go there for weight and dietition gym and swin stuff and it is an amazing space the gym is so sanitary has toilets water fountains and even Netflix and youtube on your workout machines!. There swimming pool is just amazing and warm it is so good there! Highly recommended!

Positive experience: Great facilities. But £16.50 for 55mins of Badminton.... what a rip off. Would get more people in the door if the price are made reasonable

Fantastic experience: We were in Plymouth for our long holiday and spent most of our time there swimming, kids attending swimming lessons and summer camp. Great facilities and most importantly staff are so professional, they were so consistently helpful. The swim coaches are excellent, in a few weeks my kids became so confident to swim and encouraged to keep practicing. Thank you.

Positive experience: Great pool and facilities. Having been here for multiple swimming events, I just wish the missing balcony seats were replaced & there were more bins on the balconies.

Positive experience: swimming is good, please fix you r website it’s a mess

Fantastic experience: Joined an evening walk for females around Central Park. Meeting at the life centre.

Negative experience: Pool was sooooo cold and changing rooms not much warmer, when I said to the staff about this the response was ‘what do you want me to do about it’ Lifeguards also just let people do what they want in the pool

Positive experience: The gym in this place isn't the place to be if you are under 16 since the free weights are restricted however other than that it's an okay gym and with the swimming pool being included in the membership makes it so you can't complain however if your a serious gym-goer I wouldn't recommend it.

Fantastic experience: Great gym, lots of space, swimming pool and climbing centre available too

Positive experience: Won the game despite the pitch being about as level as the himalayas! Some of the other pitches looked less like they wanted to break ankles though so can't knock it too much.

Negative experience: One Lady at reception always treats me like I'm a criminal and now that I am writing a Review it is two am cos I am sad and thinking why I am treated like that. After a lot of stress and pressure at work I go there to relax but I always go back feeling awful.

Fantastic experience: We climbed at the Life Centre with our 5 year old. It’s a great family friendly climbing gym with some amazing routes! The biggest indoor climbing wall we have climbed so far as well as an awesome feature wall. It has a really good bouldering area too. Staff were helpful and friendly. We will definitely be visiting again! Thank you ☺️

Fantastic experience: Public pool and kids pool with 2 water slides and a pool for lessons or converts into Olympic pool also has a diving pool at the end also facilitates a wide range of sports and fitness activities. There is also a gym and climbing wall available in the building

Negative experience: Not one private shower! Not one!!! Was terrible. Would never go back. Had to leave wet and sweaty and go home to shower before work. Not everyone wants to shower in front of people

Positive experience: Plymouth life centre is a poorly run active center. I play Bowles there and the booking system needs improvement. The indoor league started on Monday 2nd October. And we didn't receive the membership cards until the 16th. Sort it out Plymouth Active

Fantastic experience: Working in the area and went early morning swim, fantastic facility and staff at reception so helpful. This is by far the best pool I've swam at and Plymouth are so lucky to have this centre 5 stars

Fantastic experience: Recently moved to the area and we come about three times a week, its really easy to book and manage your bookings as well, staff are friendly, parking is easy (except when the football is on!) and its a great facility, 2 squash courts, a few huge gym halls, a large gym, multiple pools, classes etc

Negative experience: Because i can't give it no stars. The origanisation here is rubbish, and they are unable to offer any customer service. Disgusting waste of Plymouth resources.

Fantastic experience: Fantastic fun, great park, food was good

Fantastic experience: Tuesday workout 1st time in months. Feeling it. Gym very busy

Positive experience: It has great facilities, lots of room to get changed and reasonably priced. The website dosent seem to work well when im trying to organise swimming lessons. The swimming pool is a tad cold and very dirty around the sides the floor was black and orange around where the bins are and the floor isnt non slip everywhere. We slipped several times. Not safe for a 2 year old. The floor of the pool is also slippy. The life guard was useless didnt check if we were okay after my son fell over he was just looking at the ipad the all the time, he hardly moved. Do not feel safer with him there. My husband slipped while in the water while trying to hold our baby and again the life guard didnt even move. Useless if im honest.

Positive experience: Love this place especially the gym quite a nice environment, but they have changed how their gym works with under-16s they used to allow kids to use all the gym equipment (if you knew what you were doing) but now they have stopped that entirely and given us annoying bands to wear in the time slots and then at the end of the session they will call you on the speakers and a member of staff will kick you out after your done. Plus you can only book 1 time slot a day (45 minutes, for under-16s) unless your accompanied with a over 18 which is annoying for the people who know what there doing and can’t without someone babysitting them, Overall this is a good gym with the perfect amount of equipment but they could change some of their policies and rules regarding the gym.

Negative experience: NEVER ANSWER THE PHONE! I have been trying for 2 days and even left an answer phone message, but still no one has got back to me!

Fantastic experience: Kids seemed super happy to come here today. Let's see what they thought later. Place is huge and full of happy people very much like Devon itself.

Fantastic experience: Went to the roller disco at the life centre kids had a great time. Easy parking , £7 entry and skate hire. DJ Gary was brilliant, a little tuck shop with chocolate and drinks was nice. Friendly staff , go early to queue up and get set.

Positive experience: This used to be my favourite but it hasn't been the best recently, swimming changing smelt unclean and I hate the hairdryers they have that you still have to put 20ps in. Can we just have plugs instead to bring our own?

Positive experience: My daughter loves coming here to swim and seems to make a new friend ever time. Shame the flumes aren't open more but I'm sure the reason is safety based. My personal impression is not quite so fabulous. Being sneered at by a cafe staff member when i asked a question made me feel less than welcome. I can only hope that she had a bad smell under her nose at the time and that it isn't her normal attitude towards customers. At least the coffee was nice

Negative experience: A very poor experience on more than one occasion. Tonight was no exception. Despite booking a badminton court you've no guarantee of getting the one you want. The toilets are disgusting and front of house.. well, some are better than others but the service is far from consistent. I would advise against making this your local

Negative experience: Equipment is always broken and basic machines aren’t there. Rolled my ankle during walking lunges as the cushioned floor had a panel missing underneath and was uneven as a result - no sign, tape or warning. They have upped the price by £5 a month, for what exactly?

Positive experience: Good size pools, little bit cold in the bigger pools but toddler pool warmish. Can get very busy and sometimes it says in the app 3 pools available but only 2 open and the other one is changed to lane swimming

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff lots of facilities with accompanying lessons. Well organised.

Positive experience: So I haven't been here in the best part of a decade, but my daughter wanted to try netball so off I toddled to Plymouth Pilgrims training session. Well looked after building, helpful staff and the cafe prices are quite reasonable as well. Was busy even at 5.45, all the sports halls were in use and the brief look I had through the gym door showed a well equipped and staffed gym. Am going to be here once a week by the looks of it so I will explore more. 4 stars because although the coffee was reasonably priced it was not very nice.

Fantastic experience: Very friendly staff and the facilities are excellent. Our Charity attends weekly and we are grateful for the service

Fantastic experience: let’s be honest the staff are so lovely and kind! the swimming is wonderful and I would give this place 11/10

Fantastic experience: Top place, the team members are brilliant & super helpful... Great place to spend time with kids and be fit...

Positive experience: Small pool was warm, bigger pool fine if swimming. No flumes as not enough lifeguards, although reception said they were on. Overall a nice swim, shame about the flumes though.

Fantastic experience: Play indoor bowls weekly at the Life Centre. Restaurant staff very helpful and so are the Bowls Club staff and players

Negative experience: Baby has been unwell on 3 out of the 4 times we have taken her swimming. On the first and second occasion she contacted a stomach buy. Then this week, we went swimming on thursday morning, then by the evening we noticed signs of a eye infection. Otherwise healthy child.

Positive experience: Great location, good facilities. But boring for young kids. Been three times are different days and the slide is never open which is poor

Positive experience: Excellent selection of activities and facilities. I only really use the swimming so can't comment on the others, but generally very good. Staff always friendly and helpful, especially the lifeguards. Pool excellent, and plenty of space, so always room even when there are other activities going on. The timetable seems well planned. Only slight negative is occasionally the changing room floors could be a bit cleaner, but I do appreciate this is difficult when not everyone removes their shoes as they should do. Cafe a bit pricey but otherwise well run. Would recommend the pool highly.

Positive experience: Clean tidy and well presented, friendly staff and a fair price for the services provided.

Negative experience: kicked out because we were hitting a ball around a bit that they gave us, the manger stood out side our changing stools because there was there was a plastic bottle that wasnt ares and escorted us out for no apparent reason there was only one nice life guard that was nice but encouraged us to do bad things aslo I don't like the way the fat life guard spoke to us

Fantastic experience: Loved it so much,and a BIG Thank you To the life gard that helped me with my confidence,

Positive experience: What a great place for the whole family enjoy the swimming pools, for young and old there's a pool that caters for everyone. Disable facilities there also. Cafe on site with a good selection of the menu, hot and cold drinks also. You are best advised to pre book a slot for the swimming. Take a look at the Plymouth Life Centre website.

Negative experience: Visited 9th August 10-11a.m. Been before, so we knew procedure. (If you're a new visitor, don't expect much help from reception) On the day we visited, the water fountain was working, but the flume was closed. This was our 5th visit and only the 2nd time the fountain was working. Who decides when to turn it on, and what are the criteria for whether it is on or off? We booked and paid using the app. but when we arrived the receptionist told us the pool was full. We pointed out we had an advance booking and were eventually admitted. The receptionist advised us to book our next visit as we left, rather than using the app. However, when we left, the queue at reception was so long that we couldn't wait. Later in the day, we booked our next visit using the app. It will be interesting to see whether we are told the pool is full when we arrive!

Negative experience: So thirst things is that its a really nice pool and deserves appreciation. But the problem is staff. I'm a very confident club swimmer and my parents had booked a lane swim where I went to the fast lane BUT there were 2 people going very slowly up and down either side of the lane so I moved over a lane where I stayed for 10 minutes until they left and a quick, kind lady entered so I moved over and just in time as 2 minutes later a group of boys went In the other lane who could barely swim and who certainly hadn't booked but the lifeguard did nothing for the next 10 minutes when they left. Later they returned while I was doing dives and as I got out to do another dive they jumped right into my Lane! The lifeguards talked to them for a bit while I was leaving because I was having non of it and they said something to the lady before she left the lane! So I ended up getting out 10 minutes early. VERY VERY ANOYED!

Positive experience: I don't use muchnof this facility but the pool changing and showers seem cleaner now, although early mornings mean you don't see what happens during the day. Children like slides. Diving pool good fun for club and public diving. Swimming lessons were always a bit hit and miss, not sure about now it's in new management. Always difficulties, breakdowns with timing and display board equipment. It needs an update but under previous management they weren't wiling to pay the money. This extends already very long competitions and is difficult for the children on the blocks as well as spectators. Staff on front desk seem friendly and helpful the times I've needed help. Brilliabt free parking- and overflow at Argyle which is only an issue on match days.

Fantastic experience: First time with my autistic 4 and 5 year old, they loved it!!

Negative experience: I have been a member since December 2021 - and since the local council have taken over management, it seem to have dropped it's standards. I only use the swimming pool, and it's looking very dirty at eye level when swimming. Green mould on the tiles, layers of calcium build up. All looking quite grubby. It doesn't instil confidence regarding the hygiene. And my membership has been cancelled for no apparent reason, and with no communication.

Positive experience: Lovely pool but poor booking system website needs work

Positive experience: First time swimming at the Life center, nice facilities,a little chilly when you get out with your baby. lockers are fancy with a wrist band you need to open them

Fantastic experience: It is a very big place catering for many different sports including a decent sized swimming pool. There are also meeting rooms cafeterias and a large indoor bowls centre. An amazing building, well worth a visit and situated close to the park and outdoor bowls greens.

Fantastic experience: Went for a climb in the life centre for the first time in a long time. Staff were all friendly, as climbers usually are. Will be back for another climb and 100% recommend it

Positive experience: The managment has changed from Everyone Active to Plymouth Active as from 1st April and unfortunately the new Managment failed to inform patrons of the rise in prices. We were also told on arrival with two of my grandchildren that the times for using the pool had changed from 8am to 8.30am, a fact which turned out to be incorrect. We were unable to book and pay online which caused confusion. Surely the new managment should have ensured the changeover should have been smoother.

Negative experience: the place is horrible they turn of the showers so they are cold so no one can use them, they close the deep pools and only let you in the baby area but also close the 0.9metres bit aswell for swimming lessons and the slides are always closed.I definitely don’t recommend!!

Fantastic experience: Recent closure has ensured upgrades were done and centre is a lot beter for it. Will def be going on a regular basis

Negative experience: Spent 20 minutes or so scouring the website for a gym/swim membership only to be directed to a 'search for sites near your location' page to access whether or not the membership is worth it for our area (Plymouth) and Plymouths life centre wasn't even on the list of places included on the membership. What a waste of time.

Fantastic experience: One of the best pools in the UK! Plymouth Life Centre boasts a full 10 lane 50m Olympic size pool, an Olympic diving pool, dryside training facilities, a sauna and steam room. This is a fantastic facility and very competitively priced. The facility is very well kept with staff really stepping up during COVID to ensure high cleanliness standards were maintained. Staff are always friendly, welcoming and professional. Would highly recommend to all!

Negative experience: Arrived 9.20am on a Sunday morning, car park almost completely full..... Difficulty finding a parking space! Very long queues to get a cup of coffee so gave up! Coffee machine would be helpful!

Fantastic experience: I took my granddaughter here for swimming lessons and there was free parking and friendly, helpful staff.

Negative experience: I have only recently started going swimming here from moving to Plymouth. The times are always unpredictable and the options for lanes and what type of speed they offer is also unreliable. This is the complete opposite to other everyone active pools I've been too where the activities offered are the same every day, and are frequent and predictable. This gets really annoying when you find out that they do not offer the same times as the day before etc. The staff are very pleasant and helpful however and they have done their best to help me with any issue. It is a shame that the way the operation is run is so confusing and nonsensical.

Fantastic experience: Great plate to all family. Swimming classes for the kids . Gym for the adults And plenty of activities for fitness and wellbeing.

Positive experience: There are plenty of activities to do. Unfortunately, a few things were still broken from last weeks visit. The toilets needed cleaning more frequently as 2 hours later still the same mess left by some lazy individuals. Otherwise, 5 star reviews.

Negative experience: Good facilities but they keep jacking up prices throughout. Cafe was reasonable but now prices are disgusting.

Fantastic experience: For less than a fiver you have a well run leisure facility and plenty of space to train and swim. Open till 10pm

Fantastic experience: Excellent gym and facilities and really cheap monthly contracts available. Swimming, classes, weights etc... It has it all and all up-to-date equipment.

Positive experience: Gym: smallish but nice. Not too crowded whenever I've been. Mixture of ages and abilities. Pool: nice, but haven't been yet Pros: £30 pm includes classes/gym/pool and no contract, and plenty of parking

Fantastic experience: Top facilities nice and clean, friendly helpful staff, yet on the app swimming nearly fully booked yet two lanes were empty