Health Hydro

Positive experience: When is it open again

Negative experience: Fantastic old building in an awful condition. Dirty, manky, unloved - run into the ground by SBC and Better - grim, grotty, dirty & cold

Fantastic experience: Been visiting this place for 35yrs. I feel so fresh N clean when I visit! Totally refreshed when I finish a session in the Turkish bath it's really addictive buzz! The cold plunge is the biggest in town I believe. I always feel brand new when i leave! Looking forward to the refurbishment in 2023/24

Negative experience: One Receptionist is bit rude and not nice enough

Fantastic experience: Health hydro is an old victorian building, housing a gym, swimming pool, Turkish baths and shower facilities. I attended the gym today, whilst a bit dated, all the machines worked fine, and there is a side room with free weights. The place is clean, and tidy, whilst being dated, (it is a couple of hundred years old). The staff were very friendly and helpful. I do believe that there will be an upgrade in the near future, so it will be nice to see the changes.

Negative experience: The staff were helpful, the pool water was warm and adult swimming well organised. However, the changing rooms are dreadful, many things broken, pool are and the whole facility is outdated and does not fill me with confidence that it is hygienic. I would not want to repeat my visit.

Positive experience: Excellent pool, let down a bit by changing room needing major improvements. Not used the other facilities yet.

Fantastic experience: Great swim the grandson, a few lengths to keep us fit followed by a lovely hot shower. Definitely a great local pool.

Positive experience: I grew up with this place and I swear it looks the same. Rusty, pealing and confused tired interior. Stunning Victorian pool and potential as with most of Swindon. Could do better. Etc.

Fantastic experience: Lovely old building with everything all in one place, gym, pool and Turkish baths, super easy to get to, and several car parks nearby.

Positive experience: I visit only for swimming there. Staff is quite helpful but changing area needs a little refurbishment.

Fantastic experience: Great Aqua aerobics class

Negative experience: Swimming lessons becoming to overcrowded and staff unable to keep all children supervised and engaged, Not enough staff for the amount of children. No discredit to the staff themselves who are very good and professional.

Negative experience: I have to agree with Amal Malenki review. The place is outdated and needs a serious revamp. Parking is a nightmare, luckily we visited on Sunday so parked up in Brunel for free, it's only a short walk. Staff were very friendly and helpful but everything else not so great. Dirty changing rooms, broken toilet seats, broken door locks in the toilets, funghi in the swimming pool, those are only few things we have spotted that definitely need looking into. We will stick to Link Centre in the future

Fantastic experience: Nice sport center with swimming pool, gym, steam and sauna. No parking though. Very friendly staff

Negative experience: I took my son here yesterday 19/3/22 we just wanted to go for a swim and to show him were my dad used to take us, only to find out that public swimming only on a Sunday for 2hrs well i and my son was so disappointed, I'm disgusted with this as we live in town and with the oasis shut and i don't drive had to get the bus to the Link centre, why is there not more public swimming here

Positive experience: A bit run down but still a very good pool right in the Town centre.

Fantastic experience: Staff are always friendly and accommodating, and the fitness classes are always fun and accessible.

Positive experience: The Milton Rd facilities were visited today, Saturday 22 Jan at 0900 by my wife and I. Although the tepidarium and one of the steam rooms was out of commission temporarily and the resident team of locker door slamming clowns was still in bed presumably, along with the braying idiots who tag along with them to spoil our day's quiet relaxation. Overall a pleasant experience. Seriously folks, it's been eight years since I mailed you about the lack of rubber buffers on the locker doors. Available from any good hardware shop. Nothing has changed except the management!

Fantastic experience: Great staff that are so helpful, beautiful old building that needs a bit of TLC, please support them!!!

Negative experience: Jazzuci was closed and they took 15mins to provide a refund.

Positive experience: Very accommodating staff .And equally pleasant members

Positive experience: It's a lovely old swimming baths but is looking very tired in places.

Positive experience: Friendly small gym ideal for people who don't like big gyms

Negative experience: It is situated on a main road with no parking on site and off road limited residential parking which has lots of restrictions. Inside the building and changing rooms are very old and have been maintained quite poorly and toilets seats and locks are broken and or either dirty or both. The showers are really old as well and there is no accessible shower system for toddlers as the main pool is used by both children toddlers and adults. The main pool when observed from the spectators side from the top balcony is very large and good sized however light green hue was seen on the edges of the pool indicating mould or build up of fungi. My husband was in the pool with my son who said that some of the floor tiles in the pool were mislodged and the rubble from underneath like stones were always coming in the feet whilst standing. He also mentioned that the some of the dislocated tiles were sharp and could risk injuring the bottom of the feet . We were not impressed with this "better" facility and would hope that the organisation/company will look to improve the hydro health branch or demolish it as it is very very outdated.

Positive experience: A wonderful place to begin the first lessons in swimming for kids and youngsters. Wonderful trainers and other support staff always available at your service with a friendly smile and to help you around the facility and answer your queries. Separate changing rooms for ladies and gents with shower and locker facilities available. Open at their usual hours without any restrictions. As the weather is getting better can see more kids getting enrolled to enter the swimming world . Presently refurbishment works are going on and so the facility will be temporarily shut down for about a year and a half. Till then one can enroll in their other centres, the closest ones being Dorcan and Linc centre in West Swindon.

Positive experience: Attended Hydro pool and sauna facilities. Looks as if place could do with a good cleaning and maintenance is very poor . Such shame see. Also sauna facilities not working as good as they used be . Staff can I add are fantastic and great help. But I won't be back . As waist money that I had pay .

Positive experience: Not sure

Positive experience: Great pool and lovely staff, but changing rooms are sub zero i headed back to my hotel rather than shower off there, need heating and new changing facilities urgently.

Negative experience: Very grubby and run down. Changing rooms and pool are a disgrace. Covered in mould and dirt, with bits floating in the pool. Certainly not worth the £6 to go swimming - won't be returning.

Positive experience: Historic buildings shamefully maintained with willing staff doing their best

Negative experience: I agree with most of the other negative reviews even from years ago, which I think shows that staff couldn't care less about feedback and ignore any possibility of improvement. What I don't agree with is how most people seem to think the staff themselves are friendly or something... every interaction is unique, so it's impossible to generalize, but I've had at best neutral interactions, at worst awful, obsessive, and dismissive ones... with regards to the latter someone called Christine apparently loves to live in her own delusion and even when pointed to these many negative reviews over the years she dismissed them... and all this while avoiding eye contact at all costs. Oh, and half an hour earlier she hung up on me after phoning... this apparently is customer service, here. So, she dismissed all negativity and rambled something about their CEO just coming earlier and praising them all for some kind of perfection...? So, I don't know whether to not believe her or believe that the whole establishment is severely delusional. Another encounter with a male receptionist (will get name later) ended up with him taking personally some comment I made on the tactics of swimming coaches, since, without knowing (am I supposed to to avoid the widening nostrils? He was literally so mad that was his facial state, where everything indicated that he was seriously offended, because...) - and this is yet another issue I have. Basically, their general formula is: something doesn't work? (Which is a lot, small pool as mentioned by another review after many years that led to this issue, a treadmill currently, one of the saunas until recently, changing room doors can't lock as others mentioned, including having just a single door for the changing rooms near the pool... a single door for, what, a single customer? Oh, and just two changing rooms near the baths for both genders, as if they only ever have one male and one female customer, or they expect them to all change in front of each other as there aren't even any cubicles unlike the ones near the pool... it's like one facility worse than the other, oh but Christine will so totally plug in her ears and put on a single brainwashing track from her seeming crush of a chief that everything's fine!) - so, 1) doesn't work? 2) blame customer! Apparently , this is what's very much happening especially in the pool, but could happen due to lack of changing rooms too, but oh, they can't possibly alter their building to make it easier for customers due to its age? Well, either decide if it's a museum or have working facilities! In the pool, currently, if anyone even dares not be as fast as the fastest, as another review mentioned, they're bothered, to say the least... swimming pool conjures up images of relaxation? Well, not anymore, and certainly not with the aforementioned male receptionist who takes everything personal and from then on watches you like a hawk, trying as best as possible to make your life miserable. No, instead of asking a really fast swimmer in a slow lane to move to a faster lane... of course, he had to come to me since he now and forever holds a grudge and despite there being tens of people in the pool he must have been absolutely focused on me, which is creepy at best, but annoying at worst, and so clearly deserves a special mention here. Oh, and that all began because... they just let anyone who pays enough to bother anyone else, apparently. For £75 a day one could possibly get a jackhammer and it's all fine! "Feel better"? What's this, Orwell having competition? This coach in this instance, or apparently all coaches of all ages (with, somehow, no complaints) can shout and repeat so loudly they can be heard from the lockers, which is separated by a heavy wall. But it's fine, since 'Better', this laughably 'social organization', does anything for money... and as long as one group is happy who cares about everyone else, right? The coach said that they become faster... so, for, let's say one second of extra speed, the days of tens of others and their relaxation is ruined...

Negative experience: Street parking only (if you are lucky) and the place smells like a soiled nappy when you walk in. However the staff and the chap who showed me around were really nice so I gave it a chance. This is an old building, the team here are working miracles to keep it reasonably clean but it's time to accept this place is falling apart. Nothing in here makes sense either- the lockers aren't in the changing rooms, the sauna isn't near the pool. My short visit was also a baffling wander round a labyrinth of unmarked doors. The plan was for a sauna and a swim. I got as far as the sauna and hot pool area and it appeared to be a male, over 60s pool party with tea and sandwiches. I got dressed faster than ever before and I ran, I literally ran. I plan never to speak of this again let alone return.......

Positive experience: 20 length completed after not attending for months. It is an old fashioned site, but it serves it's purpose

Fantastic experience: It is a amazing swimming pool

Positive experience: Swimming pool is alright, staff are great but changing, shower and toilet facilities are very worn and outdated albeit quite clean.

Positive experience: Very friendly staff though the facilities in the spa area needs an updated. It looks like from the 80's. I must say it was clean and almost all things working though the sauna temperature was moderate and the smell was terrible in the steam sauna and I think it was due to the age. The staff 5* but the facilities 1*.

Negative experience: Not great for serious swimmers any more. They keep reducing the lane times; Wednesday & Thursday are now a joke. Has gone downhill since Better Leisure took over. Closed small pool reduced swim times lack of investment, asset strippers!

Fantastic experience: Great building, loads of history. Staff are pleasant and kind.

Fantastic experience: Good place to go swimming A1 staff

Fantastic experience: great facilties would recommend visiting for a swim and steam

Fantastic experience: Wet and fun

Fantastic experience: I love this place

Negative experience: Today I came in for a trial of the Swimming Pool and Health Suite... All I can say is, I am very disappointed. The only good thing about my experience was the staff, they weren't 100% great but majority were polite. However, the real issue I had was with the facilities. I was taken to the pool area and shown where the changing rooms were etc. When entering the changing room I was greeted by what I can only describe as a smell of urine and faeces! It was so overpowering it made me feel sick! The floors in the changing rooms were dirty, and the cubicles weren't even secure! They didn't have a lock on them, they were like a barn style door, so anyone could open it if they wanted! After getting ready, I headed over to the pool, again the floors were dirty and clearly hasn't been cleaned in a long time! As I hadn't been swimminv for a long time I decided to start in the slow lane. This was not slow at all, I was made to feel really uncomfortable as other people (who should have been in the fast lane) were over taking me and kicking me or making me stop mid swim as they cut back in front of me!! I didn't spend much time in there as I was just getting very frustrated and really annoyed with the fact I felt like I had to speed up to benefit the faster swimmers! After tip toeing back to the changing rooms, trying my hardest to avoid the dirt, I got my stuff. I realised that the member of staff told me to come back down to reception to be shown the Health Suite, this meant I would have to get dressed which I thought was ridiculous! So I ended up drying my swim suit as much as I could and out my dress over it. Which meant I was walking around with wet clothes which was not pleasant! Got to the Health Suite which had an open ladies changing room, no privacy whatsoever! So getting dressed after I'd finished here was very awkward as I don't like getting undressed in front of other people I so not know. Walked through to the "relaxation area", nothing relaxing about it! It was freezing, and right next to the lockers, so it wasn't quiet at all and you most certainly couldn't relax! The only decent part of the Health Suite was the Jacuzzi and the Sauna. I only went in the first sauna as the 2 other connecting saunas were way too hot (even a member of staff said it's got hotter over the last few days) Other than that, it seemed like it hadn't had a deep clean in a long long time! Maybe something for "Better UK" (their new name) to think about as the standards are very very low at the moment! Overall, not a great experience at all and certainly will not be getting a membership any time soon! I'l definitely been looking to go elsewhere!

Positive experience: The pool is nice to do lengths in although can be a bit cold but it is reasonably priced. It just isn't the same without the small pool. The staff are helpful and friendly. I can't say much about the other facilities as I haven't used them for a long time.

Positive experience: In need of some tlc

Fantastic experience: Great pool,gym and Turkish baths. Very friendly staff and always helpful.

Positive experience: Nice swimming pool. Always clean. Shame the small pool is closed though... I haven't been to the gym.

Negative experience: The location is very convenient, the gym is too small, I am member for almost two years and am still struggling with hygiene of the turkish bath. Hope they realised this point as it is very important. Good thing, the staff are very friendly.

Positive experience: Great place, greater (and sadly undervalued) staff. I used the gym for several years but due to the changes in managment and price I am switching to Kiss Gyms. Always ready to come back to The health hydro though some day...

Fantastic experience: Clean swimming pools, ok changing rooms and also lovely and nice staff. I really recomend it.

Fantastic experience: Excellent facilities n friendly staff n coaches !

Fantastic experience: Great local gym, nice staff, clean, love it.

Fantastic experience: Much bigger on inside than it seems. Very friendly and helpful staff, great facilities, and affordable prices.