HydroKidz Swim School Reviews 

Lovely experience for my 8 year old. A crash course really helped his confidence and a lovely warm environment. Both in the staff and the warm air at Blue Coat School.

Lessons were led by a great instructor Melanie who treated all the kids as individuals even if a group lesson setting.

Thanks, we will be back.

My son did the 1 week crash course and going from just splashing around in a pool and not able to really swim, to being able to start to do back and front crawl without a float was incredible
Teacher was super patient and engaging with him, especially as he struggles to focus normally.
Fantastic! And definitely considering signing him up for another one!

Hydrokidz Slough team are awesome. The staff are wonderful and very friendly. The number of kids per teacher also helped the kids to learn quickly. The only downside is the toilet. I hope you can make it cleaner.

What was outstanding about our experience at Hydrokidz Farnham was my daughter's teacher Katherine Dudley. There was a bit of teacher rotation when we first started going which I found incredibly annoying because there was no continuity in the lessons and also no familiarity which is very important with small children (4y). However, even though most of the teachers my daughter had where really good, when my daugther landed on Kate's class, she really stood out. Her dedication and patience towards my daughter and all the children in the class was admirable, including her skills and knowledge. You can tell how much she really does love swimming and teach. She knows how to connect with the children so they can listen and progress; and of the couple of conversations I was able to have with her, she took on board our concerns along with the lead teacher Marius, at some point. Overall, who deserves 5 stars is Kate. I am giving a 4 star on Truspilot, because there should be a better way to have a guarantee for a weekly class on weeks when there are bank holidays or cancellations due to school events, which in my opinion where too many if you also consider all the half terms and easter breaks, etc.

My daughter swims at their Ascot venue and we are delighted with her progress. Instructors are friendly and the admin team at Hydrokidz are very helpful!

My 2 boys have been going here for the last 3 years now. They are wonderful and were absolutely so patient when my youngest started at the age of 3. Absolutely recommend this place.

Could not be happier with HydroKidz. Our little girl has absolutely love and looks forward to her lessons. She has made heaps of progress thanks our teacher Rico!

I would not recommend this provider based on my experience.
The biggest issue has been their handling of payments and refunds. Classes were cancelled, yet I did not receive the refund that I was expecting. Instead of resolving the matter promptly, I had to spend considerable time following up for clarification and support.
Customer service has been particularly disappointing. Communication has been slow, unhelpful, and lacking in accountability. Rather than addressing concerns professionally, I felt that my queries were not taken seriously and that resolving issues was unnecessarily difficult.
The quality of the lessons was also below my expectations. The sessions were not consistently delivered to the standard that was promised, and overall I did not feel that the service provided good value for money.
What has frustrated me most is the combination of cancelled classes, refund issues, and poor customer support. When customers are paying for a service, they should be able to trust that cancelled sessions will be handled fairly and that refunds, where applicable, will be processed without unnecessary delays.
Overall, this has been one of the worst service experiences I have had. Poor payment management, unresolved refund concerns, substandard lessons, and inadequate customer care have left me extremely dissatisfied. I would strongly encourage prospective customers to carefully consider these issues before signing up

100% would recommend! Amazing team that caters to each child classes are never overbooked with each swim coach having up to 4 kids usually. Finn and Charlie are absolutely great, can see a massive improvement in both my girls swimming only after a few sessions. Compared to our previous place the difference is night and day!

We can’t praise HydroKids enough! Our daughter has progressed amazingly well in the last 5 weeks since starting swimming lessons at Barfield School with Ashley! Ashley is super encouraging and is a fab teacher! Highly recommend! It’s a lovely pool too and always a nice temperature.

Unfortunately, our experience has been really disappointing.

The biggest issue for us has been the lack of communication between the swim school and head office. It often felt like the concerns being raised by teachers and parents simply weren't being heard or acted upon.

There has also been a high turnover of teachers, meaning the children were regularly taught by someone new. That lack of consistency makes it much harder for children to build confidence and progress.

One situation really highlighted the problems. The lead teacher apologised to me and said she couldn't effectively teach two groups with very different abilities at the same time. She explained that she had already raised this with head office but the same situation happened again the following week. I contacted head office myself and explained that this wasn't fair on the children and that the teacher was doing her absolute best in a difficult situation, but it didn't feel like anyone was listening. I also made it clear that she was a fantastic teacher and that my children really enjoyed her lessons. Surprisingly, she wasn't there the following week. I have no idea if the two things were connected, but it added to the feeling of instability that we'd experienced throughout the year.

It also felt like a decision based on commercial reasons rather than what was best for the children. It was only after I complained that the decision was reversed.

The ability gap within some of the classes is simply too wide, so children aren't progressing as they should.

There was also very little communication about what the children were actually learning, what they needed to achieve next, or when badges would be awarded. As parents, we were left in the dark about their progress.

We've used several swim schools over the years and this is the first time we've finished a year feeling that our children have made very little progress.

To top it all off, when I cancelled our membership, I received nothing more than an automated email. After raising concerns throughout the year, it was disappointing that nobody reached out to ask why we were leaving or to listen to our feedback. It left us feeling that our custom and experience weren't really valued.

This week, head office have distributed leaflets encouraging parents to leave reviews. It’s interesting to see so much effort going into boosting online ratings rather than addressing the concerns at hand.

I have two daughters who swim with Hydro Kidz at Mary Hare school in Newbury on Mondays 6pm The elder one is swimming for 7 years already, currently with Charlie. She’s happy with him and his lessons are provided in a calmly and peacuful manner. My daughter never complains.

Younger one is swimming for 2 years and she’s currently with Finley.
Finley is a good teacher and the little kids are always chatting with him. He can handle well each situation and always finds a solution if someone cries ;)
The only suggestion I can make is he could try to practice with each kid at the time the swimming technique as I’ve seen other teachers do, because that gives the childrdn more attention at the time and enough rest between tasks.

Shambles of a company avoid this place

Cain is a superb teacher, my boy has really improved in the short time we have been coming here. Cain is brilliant with the kids, keeps them engaged & entertained, he’s doing a brilliant job.

The swim teachers are really good in my opinion but the lead teacher is very rude. No manners.

My son has had wonderful, caring lessons with every teacher he has had in his years with hydrokidz. Special thanks go to Lauren and Jess, who have been so wonderful and patient. He has made great progress!

I don’t like leaving bad reviews but our experience with Hydrokidz definitely warrants one.

We had a number of concerns, notably that most weeks it seemed to be a new teacher, we counted at least 9 different teachers in just over a year there which meant a total lack of consistency week to week. On top of this we found that that you get so few lessons for your money, with long breaks taken for school holidays plus a few lesson cancellations due to pool issues (which I accept happens sometimes). Nonetheless you will pay week in week out even during the summer when there is no lessons.

We have since moved to a leisure centre and our child has made so much more progress, has the same teacher each week and the lessons continue through the holidays which makes it much better value. Just wished we’d moved sooner.

We are very happy with the lessons provided by Hydrokidz at Farnham. The classes are small, the instructors are friendly and enthusiastic, with good pool facilities. My children really enjoy their lessons with Amy.

My daughter has been swimming in Farnham with Ashley and Kate since Easter. I’ve really seen her swimming develop during this period compared to her old swim school.

Actually a very awful company with horrid customer service.

AVOID at all costs because it'll Costs you... way more than you expected.

Very disappointed with the way cancellations and payments are handled. Advertising “cancel anytime with 1 month’s notice” gives the impression parents can stop lessons when they choose, but in reality you seem tied into paying until the end of the following month depending on timing. I cancelled in May and am still expected to pay while lessons continue until the end of June.

I also felt the classes had become overcrowded, which impacts the quality of the lessons and attention each child receives. Parents should be made fully aware of both the cancellation structure and class sizes before signing up. Transparency goes a long way