YMCA Hawker, Kingston (part of YMCA St Paul's Group)

Fantastic experience: Great soft play area for kids!

Fantastic experience: I absolutely love reformer Pilates at The Hawker Centre, I usually go to Paula’s classes over the weekend and she’s a fantastic instructor, always the best attention to detail and you come away from the class feeling like you’ve had a great workout, Looking forward to trying the Surbiton studio too.

Negative experience: They take the money upfront, but then you can't leave because they say they're fully booked, they have a ridiculous crappy system...

Negative experience: Must have contacted this place 7 separate times, never get a response unfortunately

Fantastic experience: Great place for a drink-in or takeaway coffee along the river! If you’re lucky enough to get a coffee by Kevin, you won’t regret it!

Fantastic experience: I regularly attend Reformer Pilates classes, and it is fantastic! All instructors are top-notch—knowledgeable, attentive, and able to cater to all skill levels. Mostly I attend Sabina’s and Daniela’s classes. They provide clear guidance and personalized adjustments, helping me to improve. The studio is clean and well-equipped. Highly recommend for anyone looking for an effective workout with excellent instructors!

Fantastic experience: I have been coming to Pilates Reformer Flow with Paula for over a year, she is an exceptional instructor who has transformed my Pilates journey. Her reformer classes are always challenging yet enjoyable, and she has a remarkable ability to tailor the exercises to suit our needs. Thanks to Paula's expertise, I've seen significant improvements in my core strength and overall flexibility. I highly recommend her to anyone looking for a fun and effective Pilates experience!

Fantastic experience: I took my reformer Pilate class with Zoe and immediately I bought my 5-class package and on my second 10-class package. Zoe tailors her class according to the day’s attendees and she gives extra attention to beginners. She’s very professional and her demo/instructions are always clear, making it easy to follow and effective. Due to some uncontrollable and unforeseen issue, I came to a very small class (the normal maximum class size is 7) and Zoe didn’t mind at all and gave me all the attention and instruction, which is extra helpful and I feel really grateful (and lucky). This is such a wonderful class and I struggle to write this review for fear it will be hard for me if more people join but I also feel YMCA reformer Pilates team gets their recognition they deserve. If there is a 6 stars I will give it!

Fantastic experience: Very enjoyable time in the soft play area with my grandson. Safe environment for kids offering just enough time to enjoy what's on offer.

Fantastic experience: I have discovered this centre few months ago , I come for Pilates with reformer I would say it’s the best place I have even been to, it doesn’t look luxurious but the positivity and the feeling you get from the staff and the warm welcoming atmosphere is all what you need , also i must mention Paula the most amazing teacher of reformer classes , I had 0 experience in Pilates not flexible at all when I started , now I feel a lot more confident walking to the class , I do a lots of mistakes but she is always there to correct us and always makes us feel good , I highly recommend this place Thank you Hawker team

Positive experience: Great place to play sports like Tennis and Football,nice and tidy gym with a lovely little Café

Negative experience: 35kg dumbbell not replaced since before covid (several years) and 10kg dumbbell not replaced for several weeks. No-one seems to care. I would advise others to use the many other gyms in Kingston, as you will at least find a full set of dumbbells, which is the bare minimum for a 'gym'.

Negative experience: No more basketball courts; so much for a "multi-sport" facility.

Negative experience: My kids used to play basketball in the centre for years. So sad that two weeks ago, the basketball court was closed and all the basketball hoops have been removed. Instead, the basketball area has been replaced by a tennis court! What a shame that my kids and the local community cannot enjoy free basketball playing there anymore! They took away our free playing space to build a tennis court for hire!! So frustrated!!!

Fantastic experience: Some excellent class instructors. Always find it a challenge and then music is great

Fantastic experience: Reasonably priced, quite well-equpped gym and activity centre in a nice location by the Thames. I go mainly for mat pilates classes, particularly with the excellent Paula - hard work but she creates a really nice atmosphere, lots of focus on technique and more individual attention/ correction than you would expect in a group class. Facilities are fine but the studio can get a bit tight for space as their popularity means classes are often full - you have to be quick to book when the booking window opens a week ahead.

Fantastic experience: An affordable and friendly gym with excellent class instructors. I have found the Reformer Pilates classes especially beneficial for my core and posture. 3 different levels, working at your own pace and there are always options offered. A great body workout and plenty of availability at an affordable price.

Fantastic experience: Have enjoyed two courses of 10 x Reformer sessions at Hawker Centre at much lower cost than other gyms. The machines are new, the room is quiet and the Instruction is second to none. Zoe and her team of instructors are highly practised and skilled and really know their stuff, providing fantastic instruction. The classes have been engaging, interesting, physically challenging and also lots of fun. I have seen and felt changes in my body which I didn’t expect. I booked a course not really sure what I would think - slightly dubious, if I am honest - but have been surprised at the combined effects of first class instruction and a Reformer machine method that gives great results. Recommend anyone and everyone should try a class at the Hawker Centre in Ham.

Fantastic experience: I absolutely love reformer Pilates at the Hawker Center. All the teachers are so knowledgeable, especially like Zoe Watson's classes... only wish she taught more!

Fantastic experience: Excellent. Cannot fault at all. Love it x All the teachers are so good. X

Fantastic experience: YMCA Hawker's reformer Pilates studio is a true gem in Kingston. The staff are incredibly welcoming, creating a lovely sense of community. The variety of class options and timings cater to everyone, and the teachers are exceptional – knowledgeable and attentive. The studio itself is light, airy, and always spotlessly clean. With popular classes that offer a variety of levels and themes each week, it's a delightful place to practice Pilates. Plus, it's fantastic value for money – one of the cheapest Pilates classes I've found, yet still one of the best! Highly recommend for a wonderful workout experience!

Fantastic experience: Love the dynamic reformer classes in Kingston. Teachers a well versed in the art of Pilates and how to correct and adjust your technique so you get the most out of each class. As an ex-ballerina who has many structural issues and arthritis, these classes are just what my body needs to feel strong and functional.

Fantastic experience: First class teachers - professional, warm and challenging. The reformer Pilates facilities are excellent and I cannot recommend this highly enough.

Fantastic experience: I really enjoy Reformer Pilates with Paula, its hard work, I am definitely pushed to my limits and can already see/feel the improvements.

Negative experience: Open a window!! It stinks in there! I can’t believe people pay for this

Negative experience: Filthy, they never open a window. Too much heat too much sweat and all they care about is the customers to do the cleaning by themselves. You can't even go near men's changing rooms I thought I would faint.

Negative experience: I have been a member of the hawker centre for many years, its conveniently close to home for me but, despite numerous complaints to the head office and promises of a new cleaning team and new maintenance staff and more generally improved management, the gym is absolutely filthy. Going in at 7am on a Monday morning, you would imagine that things would have been thoroughly cleaned, particularly as they close at 4pm on Sundays, but no, the changing room area is unclean, in the gym there is constantly thick dirt/dust on the floor, old mud marks on the equipment and one machine with cobwebs that have stayed untouched for the last six months. The workout mats are thick with dirt, cracked and clearly never get cleaned, they are utterly disgusting and members generally avoid using them. Paintwork is dirty and chipped, with plaster on walls just cracked and missing. The monthly membership charge is not as high as other centres, however, they offer far less, equipment is limited as are facilities generally, plus the opening hours at the weekends are very limited and as such more designed to suit management over paying members. Overall, this centre is rundown and poorly managed , the fact that head office gets constant complaints yet does nothing to remedy issues, leads members with the impression this business is being run down, possibly prior to complete closure, however, whilst it remains open, members are entitled to expect they are subscribing to a facility that at least provides an acceptable standard of cleanliness and hygiene, this is not the case at present.

Fantastic experience: Great soft play for toddlers/pre-schoolers

Fantastic experience: Excellent party for my son’s 4th Birthday! Thanks to the staff for all their help.

Positive experience: Very poor quality of equipment and really bad service.They don’t answer emails, don’t comply with agreements

Fantastic experience: Great multipurpose youth centre with takeaway cafe

Negative experience: We attended the 11 am soft play session this morning. We had to leave half way through the session. My 19 months old daughter couldn't even play because it was too loud in the baby room. Older kids were jumping in the baby ball pit. My 5 and 7 year old couldn't play well alongside with their friends. So many people left the session early. They definitely let in more people than the capacity even though they denied it.

Fantastic experience: Great place to go to. There's a very good gym that i go there. Football pitches outside of the main building have goals mostly without nets with them but the grass needs someone to take care of and cut because it's too long as a football pitch... They are also available for tutoring and other sports, definitely recommend going there and spending time relaxing or training.

Fantastic experience: Nice place to hang out with kids

Fantastic experience: It's an awesome place providing multi facilities ...spacious and sprawling natural environment.....tennis for kids n adults, gym, cafe, group exercises, kids play room which my grand kids love besides tennis lessons. I simply loved the way the gym trainer Jeeves fully evaluated us before he recommended any exercises....was extremely helpful n inspiring. The body pumping group class by Sarah was equally enthralling and the fellow participants so v helpful to a newcomer. Am lucky to enjoy the various facilities offered here at the YMCA Hawker. Can't forget to mention that the reception and staff are warm and friendly. What more can one ask for. Thanks to YMCA & Management.

Fantastic experience: Great place

Negative experience: if you are looking to join the gym then it is overly priced. The equipment is limited and the size is too small! looks old and not clean. The cardio machines area should be swapped with the gym area, there is no logic to the layout, its rather dangerous to have a small gym area. this organisation is clearly not looking to invest in the gym in the forthcoming years, I would be cautious of your choice to come here

Fantastic experience: Came here to play table tennis on their outside table and had it for hours before anyone came to play, very good experience will be back soon.

Fantastic experience: Great place for kids and adult

Positive experience: A good charity run gym, with decent facilities and a warm, friendly atmosphere. Good for all ages and fitness levels.

Positive experience: This contains "The Pod" which is the nearest soft play to me, but it has always been difficult to find out when it is open to book a time to come. This is because doing parties is their priority. It is a small soft play which is dusty in some accessible areas. However my daughter enjoys it, especially now she is over 3, as there are tunnels she can go through into pods she can wave at me from. I've only been able to get early sessions e.g. 8.15am , 9am so the toilets are clean when we go. However they are designed for adults so unsurprisingly the hand washing gets messy. The only time we wanted something from the snack bar there was no one around so we went to a cafe further into Kingston afterwards to get food.

Negative experience: You should put a note on your website or on the reception desk that weekends are booked for private parties for the pod . Rubbish place , rubbish pod and rude staff . Avoid this place

Fantastic experience: Excellent facility. Well managed. Great staff.

Negative experience: There is only 2 pitches and the ground not level very wet need look after Bad experience

Fantastic experience: Friendly and accessible community gym.

Positive experience: The softplay is good and the kids had fun, but it was so dirty. They probably haven’t cleaned it since they opened.

Positive experience: The Pod was really good fun for the kids. Probably the best softplay I have been to in terms of variety. However it lost points for cleanliness. The toilets were fairly revolting and the whole building has a grubby feel about it.

Negative experience: Took my 19mo son. Greeted by a foul stench from open door of changing facility/disabled toilet. Nearly gagged. 3 or 4 ppl at desk didn’t seem bothered. Playroom had no air con, & absolutely no staff in control, kids basically running wild. The main area - 90% - looked ok, tunnels, obstacles, swings, bridges, nets, etc. Tiny corner allotted to young ‘uns was a few big cushions/obstacles & a sort of swing. The “Sensory Room”, (special needs & babies - 2yrs max.), was a dark sweat box with some toys, more cushiony obstacles, a teeny ball pond & a few pretty lights. Bigger kids often crashing in & out, completely ignoring age limit/needs of any1 else. Left after about 30 mins, back through the now less pungent & breezy reception that seemed 2 b prioritised over the kids/parents/reason it was there. On top of it all, next day my son was sick. As u may have figured by now, we won’t b returning.

Negative experience: Why do they make it so difficult to book!? Took me a good 30 minutes with a baby wriggling on my lap just to try and book us in for a session! In the end i gave up and called the reception to ask if they could book me in but no! ‘Dont have access too our own booking system’. Given up and will be going somewhere else!

Fantastic experience: Great staff, great hospitality, great location for your little 9nes irthday party! Will definately be booking again!

Positive experience: everything you would expect, playing fields, tennis & childrens softplay.

Positive experience: Great for birthday parties

Positive experience: Great instructors and full of equipment. However I think that the cleanliness is the downside for this leisure centre. Especially on weekends the main studio floor is so dirty!

Negative experience: The soft play is good for the price, things need updating but most of all needs to be cleaned. Never seen so much dust and dirt, cannot believe how filthy it was. When we were on lockdown they should've used that opportunity to do a deep clean. Won't be returning. The kids don't go to the parts in the photos but not reassuring their hygiene levels are priority

Fantastic experience: Fantastic soft play area for kids, for the price I don’t think you can get a better soft play in the area. They do not allow the soft play to be over crowed with children as they only let a reasonable amount of children in, in one session so never over crowed. You get the perfect amount of time for your child or children to run wild and burn off lots of energy. Very clean and well managed. Free parking and lots of it on site too!

Negative experience: Would not recomended.very cold,not baby friendly at all,no toys for the little ones.not a good place to entertain todlers

Negative experience: A nasty experience, off-putting place and staff.

Fantastic experience: One our best places for Aerolatino classes,very friendly people,Will give you a nice welcome to class Simply love this place Come and join Us

Negative experience: Good softplay area but the parties are not a great. The two hours is actually only one hour of softplay followed by an hour in an old dirty gym workout room with no windows, natural light, music or anything for children. So it is £300 for 1 hour softplay hire and some basic kids food. Not allowed to bring in outside food or drink for adults and they started cleaning up the table with 25 minutes still left. Not impressed by the service and definitely not good value for money. Wouldn't recommend.

Negative experience: So agree with previous comments. The place is dirty, dust everywhere, rude and not motivated staff. Where is the manager?

Fantastic experience: Great Pilates class every 18.30 Mondays

Positive experience: Always full))

Negative experience: Insanely dirty...I like the idea, but the pod is too dirty week after week. Won't return again. I've also added some pictures

Positive experience: ymca

Negative experience: Very dirty. Spillages, stains everywhere, dust and sticky on the slides. The person on reception absent minded and uninterested in her job. How do they manage to get regular clients is beyond me, there must be many parents in Kingston who don't care where their kids play. The comment below about recent deep clean is rediculous as deep clean should be done at least on weekly basis.

Fantastic experience: We had my son's 5th birthday party here last weekend and it was absolutely brilliant. The children loved the soft play. The staff were very helpful and friendly. It was laid back and stress free. The food was really good too. Thank you!

Positive experience: Although the soft pod can be very dusty, it is a great indoor play space for kids. The 1 star is really because it's impossible to find out when it's open or closed for a private party. I called 4 times today, held the line for 5 minutes each time and no one picked up. Such a shame I have changed my review score to 3 stars because YMCA has made it much easier since to see the opening timings. 3 stars because it's stll really rather dirty

Fantastic experience: I dont Make use myself of these facilities However my Friends play spoets and use Gym facilities here and Have only the best words to say about it

Fantastic experience: Welcoming cafe which is great when you have walked up from Richmond. Lovely staff, beautiful setting :)

Fantastic experience: Great gym, with excellent facilities and friendly crowd.

Negative experience: Very dirty. I have seen a pile of dust behind the toddler’s area which it looks like no clean for last 6months.

Positive experience: Great for the kids they always want to come and the coffee is good too!!

Fantastic experience: Nice friendly Scottish guy at reception, made me feel very welcome and answered all my questions very professionally. Thank you.

Fantastic experience: I have been member of YMCA’s hackers centre since 2015. I never had any bad experience. I’m happy with the service, friendly staff, nice food up to the mark

Fantastic experience: I was looking for tap dance classes for a very long time since moving from Moscow permanently to London. Having had musical theatre experience I wanted it to be somewhat challenging and fun. I tried many tap classes elsewhere, it was disappointing and I given up and was practicing on my own until I was just near by the Hawker Centre I popped in and a very friendly manager welcomed me and told me how brilliant their classes are and I went for a free trial and I go there ever since. Jill is a very inspiring tap tutor she also does other classes too. Her energy is contagious and we do new routine every time. I learned so much and I try not to miss a week which can be tricky with the new baby but looking forward to carry on and maybe become a member upcoming year. Highly recommend!

Fantastic experience: My husband and I have been members of the Hawker Centre for a few months now and are delighted with the classes and the service. The classes are varied and suit all abilities, the teachers are excellent and the staff is friendly. The gym is well equipped and the gym instructors are great. Toilets and showers are always clean; we've never used the cafe but it is always clean and well stocked. I guess the only downside is that you have to book all classes in person but we live locally so fo us that's not an issue. We definitely recommend the Hawker Centre as a super local gym and friendly atmosphere, oh! and it has free parking!

Fantastic experience: Nice cafe for after gym/cycling etc. Personally rate the bacon sandwich.

Positive experience: Nice place for childern

Fantastic experience: Excellent facilities. Very friendly helpful staff. Coffee shop and food very nice and quite reasonably priced. Excellent position for relaxing after a workout

Negative experience: My experience of the Hawker Gym is so so. The Staff members are mostly rude and abrupt and condescending at the reception area, especially a particular large African lady - my God how how rude she is when you ask a simple polite gym related question. The regular gym goers tend to be ok but there is a core circle of 18-25 year olds which are always there and act like the own the bloody gym and some of the trainers are like this too....its as though you are not welcome and its like you are walking into a wild west saloon as an outsider. The place is dirty and never cleaned properly. It really is the worst experience and Im shocked that in this country such a place is not shut-down as its really is an awful experience and something that can be compared to something you would expect in a 3rd world country.

Positive experience: The pod softplay is really good for under 5's. Nice location and gym is cheap. Front desk staff can be a bit abrupt/inattentive

Positive experience: Pain as you need to go there in person to book!!

Positive experience: I have two major gripes with YMCA Hawker, to which I have belonged off and on since 2006, if memory serves. First, it is the only gym to which I've ever belonged that didn't provide drinking water, which strikes me as outrageously penurious. Second, there's just no persuading them to play decent music in the cardio room, in which I spend most of my time. If your idea of really terrific music is Justin Bieber and Drake, you'll hear an awful lot of both, though neither is a tenth as annoying as the dentist-drill-voiced DJ of the afternoon radio programme to which the gym radio is customarily tuned. It's as though they imagine the average age of cardio room habitues to be around 14.

Fantastic experience: Fantastic soft play area for kids. As well as generally a nice fitness centre. Many classes too. Free parking

Positive experience: A useful stop for a tea or coffee etc if walking the thames path.

Fantastic experience: Great night

Positive experience: The Pod soft play is great place for children to play, excellent location, car parking facilities, cafe etc but human factor has huge scope for improvement. My advice always call before turning with a child to avoid disappointment. They sometimes have private parties during the week days and during the half-term there are time slots for entering and leaving the place. The place could be fantastic if staff was efficient. We were misinformed by members of the staff that the soft play is always open on weekdays for public. Often receptionists do not make a note of clients coming continuing chatting or using their mobile phones. They hardly smile or being polite. Their badges are turned in a way you can't read the name. If questions arise you could expect a reply:' It's all on the website'. (While it's not). So if you don't have high expectations from the staff and plan your visit in advance your time with a child could be fantastic.

Positive experience: The kids play area is place of utter insanity. Great facility and a million things for them to do. Burns calories for the parents chasing after them as well!

Fantastic experience: this place is epic

Fantastic experience: Lots of activities for families. Also a great location on the river for a cool drink on a summer evening! I know I am biased but I would thoroughly recommend it!