The Portal

Positive experience: Water is a bit cold, showers luke warm. Pool and poolside are clean and tidy. Staff are attentive and friendly. The council should add a steam room and sauna. I probably won't visit again until facilities are improved.

Fantastic experience: Lovely lscrambled egg roll Staff are helpful and courteous.

Fantastic experience: Great gym with a brilliant selection of kit!

Positive experience: First ever visit to the portal cafe and it wasn't the best tbh, the food isn't as good as the cafe at eglinton park, the toasties are made with cheap bread and flavourless cheese and yhe smoothies don't taste as good either. The tables weren't very clean, didn't see anyone cleaning them, bit disappointing!

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff and good facilities.

Fantastic experience: Good pool and quiet.

Negative experience: Horrendous, until I entered this ungodly, soulless, rotten pile of cold, dead concrete and all revealing glass I had the foolish notion that swimming was fun, more so when accompanied by my daughter, who loves swimming, however I was wrong, soo disappointingly and soul destroyingly wrong. Entering this hell on earth, I could pull my soul, my joy, my very love being ripped from my body, I felt like I had rotated around the accretion disk of a black hole. Like the Milky Way orbiting Sagittarius A*. I desperately tried to pull away, save what little happiness and dignity that hadn't yet been stripped from me, I tried in vain, but the pull was too unforgiving. I left here a broken shell of a man, wishing, hoping the pain would be over, but alas, it wasn't. The memory of that day will haunt me until my final breath. I suppose all I can say is, welcome to a masochists euphoria.

Negative experience: You'd be better teaching your own children how to swim, will be safer too.

Fantastic experience: Amazing and very clean and respectful staff

Fantastic experience: Fantastic swimming pool facilities. The only trouble is they do not have any floaties for children.

Negative experience: Lane swimming is allowed 6 people per lane, don’t see how you can swim lengths with 5 other people in the same lane as you it should be 2 max

Fantastic experience: Nice place for a swim

Negative experience: Pool was frozen only stayed for full session as wee one wouldnt come out of pool

Negative experience: Waste of space and money I'm sure there will be bigger baths is some mansion than that pool

Fantastic experience: I go to the portal because of me falling and breaking ribs but I love there pool and the classes are great fun qnd always have a great time

Fantastic experience: Lovely staff and great pool. We enjoyed soup and a wee cake afterwards.

Fantastic experience: A really good place to get a good training! Machines are brand new and staff are friendly

Positive experience: Visited just after 10. Told swimming wasn't available until 1, although it stated that public swimming was available from 10 on the website. The building is impressive and facilities are spotless and modern. Teaching pool wasn't great, no floats or toys for kids to use. Although it's modern the experience doesn't match up to other pools we have visited in surrounding areas. Pool temperature cold too. Swimming session was one hour. We weren't notified of this at time of paying, although it was busy so put it down to changing over of sessions. After getting changed we realised that there was no rush for people to vacate the pool as the teaching pool was now closed and vacant. Absolutely no doubt the Portal is a great facility and the staff seem lovely, but for swimming for a child that is at the learning stage it just doesn't match up to other places we have been to.

Fantastic experience: Really good place for kids

Negative experience: Was in the small pool and ended up with a rash all over my body that wasn't there before I went to the pool

Positive experience: Great for exercise and fun, I like diving but no diving pool really welcoming staff, Theirs a toddlers pool, gym other rooms for different types of exercise and a big cafe.

Fantastic experience: Had a incident with a really bad nosebleed on Sunday. The pool staff were great. Can't thank them enough. They really good with our great nephew.

Fantastic experience: Nice place enjoyed the PORTAL

Fantastic experience: Happy workout good gym recommend it to anyone

Fantastic experience: Cleanliness, organization, and two wonderful swimming pools for all people

Positive experience: Decent cafe , nice coffee and good prices but friend got a bacon roll and it was scraps not slices of bacon , you would feed it to the dog at home

Positive experience: For a leisure centre that was supposed to replace the magnum there's not not in it no sauna for a start gym and equipment are all well and good but that's not for everyone and no ice rink bit of a let down

Positive experience: Well equipped gym, great pool, very clean. Lovely staff. Update on this 09/04/24 - the pool area, changing rooms and showers need a good scrub. Lots of ground in dirt and limescale. Such a shame that a new facility has been poorly maintained. My son attends swimming lessons and everyone has been commenting on how dirty and unkempt the teaching pool area is. I don't think it's had a clean never mind deep clean in sometime.

Fantastic experience: Great gym, clean and spacious.

Fantastic experience: Really nice pool. Very clean.

Fantastic experience: Only used for swimming but a great place and my girl loves it here

Fantastic experience: Went swimming with my granddaughter and it wax brilliant

Positive experience: At first I never really liked that they demolished the magnum and created the portal to be completely honest but I eventually got used to it. It is a great facility but it would be better if they added more stuff for the kids like a soft play, if it’s to be a replacement for the magnum.

Fantastic experience: Awesome friendly staff, I went swimming with wee George who has Down Syndrome, staff very helpful and welcoming love the place.

Negative experience: Never open to public swimming at the right times

Fantastic experience: Pool clean and decent temperature enjoyed our visit

Fantastic experience: Staff are friendly and helpful

Positive experience: Overall not a bad pool, still think it's in the dumbest of places solely built for a select few to make it easier to get to during their lunch breaks. The pool itself is good, the seating is awful, the changing are is ok, toilets are disgusting, staff are the most unfit looking bunch I have ever seen at a swimming pool bar a few semi athletic lads who are very dim and get confused easily while setting things up in pool area. Sports facilities are, well tbh, a bit basic, I mean there is no air-conditioning in sports hall and I think it's above the boiler room so it is literally a sweat box, fairly poor. Cafe is mediocre, not the best health food options. Reception staff are morbidly disinterested in everything and everyone, it's like trying to talk to zombies at times. Smallest parking lot for any sports centre/pool slap bang in the middle of a busy town centre and the place's basement floods everytime they drain the pool due to poor drainage systems in the town, typical moronic cheapest offers gets the build thinking by the people pulling the stings. Should have rebuilt where the Magnum stood instead of trying to line their pockets by selling the land for housing ‍♂️

Fantastic experience: Great basketball facility. Friendly staff

Fantastic experience: Great place for kids to swim and good kids pool

Positive experience: Great facilities but not very welcoming at the door, it's not a clear system at the desks and unless you ask every time or there's already a queue, you won't know where they want you to be!

Negative experience: Good pool but the lack of baby changing facilities is truly unbelievable. Twice we have had to get onto our hands and knees in the middle of the floor to sort and change our baby

Positive experience: Pools very cold, baby and main pool, shock to the system haha! But for £2 the kids enjoyed it

Fantastic experience: Staff fantastic and helpful make you feel welcome

Negative experience: Overpriced and not a patch on the old magnum centre Better by a slight margin than my last visit but still NO MAGNUM CENTRE

Fantastic experience: Very clean. Good pool. Fabulous yoga.

Positive experience: Nice swimming pool and free internet room, but poor parking and you have to ask receptionist for key to the toilet which is a bit embarrassing

Negative experience: Imagine knocking down the magnum for this it's an embarrassment we cal it the potaloo because it's utter ....

Fantastic experience: It will never be the Magnum, but it’s clean and well priced.

Fantastic experience: Swimming lessons include Adult and baby, adult and toddler, adult and child. Preschool through to adult group lessons. Inflatables are back on fun night and the gym has been refurbished.

Positive experience: 25m pool, popular and can be busy. No enforcement of showering before swim is disgusting though. So many getting in bone dry.

Fantastic experience: Great

Positive experience: Good facilities for taking babies in for a swim.

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff, clean bright reception area, chatty friendly staff in coffee shop. Swim there regularly and have never had the misfortune to find a dirty changing cubicle. Ladies loos really clean. Lifeguards certainly alert( tho' may appear to be just standing around). Any unwelcome behaviour in main pool is dealt with swiftly. Pool busy for summer holidays, so good to see it being enjoyed. Having a couple of lanes roped off lets we swimmers have undisturbed laps. Keeps everyone happy. All in all, since starting to use Portal during pandemic, I haven't had cause for any complaints. Long may it continue and long may the Portal welcome families/individuals in the steady numbers I have witnessed during my own sessions there.

Fantastic experience: Have visited several times to go swimming. Pool temperature was good, plenty of space. Depth goes from 1 to 2 metres. You need a pound coin or similar to use lockers. Free to use hairdryer.

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff and very helpful

Positive experience: Great swim with nice water temperature, the showers could do with a bit of maintenance though. There were holes in the ceiling panels and no shower head in the disabled area.

Positive experience: Pools ok. Could maybe use getting some slides like the old magnum had back in the day. Had great memories in there.

Positive experience: It's ok it's very warm my daughter goes here for swimming club

Positive experience: I only use the gym which is good but I also see many other things happening. Various classes as well as swimming make this place a good place too spend some time and energy. Car parking however is a major let down. Making you walk down very dingy alleyways is not exactly safe.

Negative experience: Magnum was better and more fun for the kids had more thing under one roof should have spent the money on it had more parking

Fantastic experience: We visited the cafe for a coffee. Pleasant young lady served us. Tables far enough enough apart in these times of ' distancing'. One way system in operation and laminated notices on tables advising if cleaned or still to be cleaned. First visit to portal. Would return..

Fantastic experience: That Jimmy breechie is a sound lad...... Notttttt

Negative experience: Absolute joke turned up for a swim to an empty building to be told that it was fully booked ( a don’t think so ) no wonder there’s no money to be made but like the magnum poorly run I did try to phone a book but no answer yet again. Checked the website no where said we had to book No be long till that centre will be knocked down

Negative experience: It's ridiculous service. Staff don't answer the phone. Tell to book on line and ask to buy a membership

Negative experience: For having to phone to book the swimming they never answer the phone. To use the online booking service you have to pay for a membership. Very poor customer service.

Fantastic experience: The Gym's absolutely spot-on. Full cardiovascular and resistance section; then another section full of free lifting weights & benches. Perfect for beginners, intermediate or advanced

Positive experience: Clean and smart with very friendly staff, but at the time of my visit the website was out of date, showing classes that didn't exist and incorrect times for some that did.

Fantastic experience: Great that this sports centre is coping well with the covid restrictions. Alway clean, lots of hand gel to use.

Fantastic experience: I swim there regularly. Never any hassle, lovely clean pool and changing rooms.

Negative experience: Unfortunately I have heard many poor reports on this gym re the standard of customer service. The gym itself is fine it is however poorly managed and in my view lacks a focus on service users that is why so many have stopped using this gym.It is sad that poor management is doing the reputation of this gym significant damage but it is clear without drastic change this gym will continue to disappiont.Customers should be valued not taken for granted this complacency and poor customer service comes from the top no doubt about that.

Fantastic experience: First time in The Portal for me & I only used the pool. I was in early doors at 7am & the foyer to the changing facilities to the pool was immaculately clean. Staff were very friendly considering that it was first thing

Fantastic experience: I really like it. Stuff is very helpful and friendly. Just because of the covid I can't visit it as much as before.

Negative experience: I have phone continuously for 30 mins to book the swimming and nobody will answer the phone. Shocking when you need to book everythingu

Positive experience: Went to join up so can't actually review it yet but the receptionist (Julie, I think ) was very helpful and friendly.

Positive experience: Decent enough facilities if only the life guards looked a bit more enthusiastic and keen to look after the customers better

Positive experience: Enjoyed my time at portal it was clean & we had fun

Fantastic experience: The keep fit classes are really good

Fantastic experience: Swim regularly. Great pool for lengths. Staff doing everything they can during Covid restrictions

Positive experience: Found desk staff to BUSY to help me with info,wasent paying in money no time for me. So

Positive experience: Fantastic leisure centre. Great facilities, friendly staff and very well thought out measures in place for social distancing. Would be 5 stars if they had a steam room and/or sauna.

Fantastic experience: Looks like the portal opens on Monday 26th April. Remember to book your activity

Negative experience: Pool very small, nowhere to park pram.

Fantastic experience: The portal is great for early morning swim lovely staff keeps you sane in these times

Positive experience: Some staff not helpful when i requested larger changing room I do have some problems alough they are not visible

Negative experience: Just didn't like it. For a building that's only a few years old it doesn't feel right. Sorry.

Positive experience: Nice pool and well supervised but seriously lacking in changing units big enough for a family with kids

Positive experience: Went to cafe, large and airy. Food and drink OK

Negative experience: Pool is such a disappointment. No atmosphere, has the bare bones of functional at best. I'm a Magnum leftover, so biased, but horrible to swim in.

Positive experience: Well, honestly... The Magnum seemed waaay beter... This just has a small pool and a fitness area, very underwhelming compared to the fact that the magnum had basically everything, but is now knocked down. Which i see as a big mistake, honestly... I dont remember being inside the magnum as it was years ago, but i did know it had way more stuff to do there... It's sad...

Fantastic experience: Always great service and pleasant staff

Positive experience: The portal is an ok swimming pool when it is open as it has been plagued with issues since it opened. But really it just a fancy gym for adults not much for kids to do other than swimming.

Fantastic experience: Great gym. Swimming is just a regular pool and an infant/beginner pool. Plenty of halls. Lots going on. Friendly staff. Best thing is the membership unlimited uses for a great price aswell as the fitness classes aswell included. If I was go put a negative on it, it would be that it could do with a sauna and steam room

Positive experience: Has become one of my fave places for swimming. Lovely, cool pool. Cafe over-priced however.

Fantastic experience: Excellent facilities and friendly staff

Fantastic experience: Very clean great pool

Fantastic experience: Excellent addition to the local area!

Positive experience: Only been in spectating but seems busy enough.

Fantastic experience: Good swimming pool , not very good parking .

Positive experience: Absolutely love the different coloured chewing gum on the slabs outside and the pool Is so good cause it doesn't have the pee dye. Cant beat a good chlorine piss on a more serious note the cupcakes are tremendous .. sorry ignore the cupcake comment that was greggs