YMCA-YWCA of Guelph

Fantastic experience: I can't say enough good things about our local YMCA! The staff here is absolutely amazing—always friendly, helpful, and genuinely dedicated to making everyone feel welcome. The facility is impeccably clean, making it a pleasure to work out and enjoy the various amenities. My only improvement, as an early bird would be an earlier weekday start for the gym, as it opens at 6am. The children's programs are outstanding! My kids love the activities and swim classes, and I've seen them grow and learn so much since we joined. It's a fantastic environment for families, and I appreciate the focus on health and community. Highly recommend this YMCA to anyone looking for a great place to stay active and engaged!

Negative experience: These people here are prejudice and and liars. I think they forgot that I'm paying for this membership and not being sponsored. If you're a person of color you might want to consider other options for you and your family especially your kids.

Fantastic experience: Just left and signed up with the fiancé and had such a good experience dealing with Arjun! This man deserves a raise! So kind and thoughtful in helping us choose the right membership and helping us get our daughter setup for swimming lessons! And giving us more information on the PCC program! I would recommend anyone to the YMCA after dealing with Arjun! Great customer service!

Fantastic experience: Our home away from home. Friendly, helpful staff. Always clean. Machines in good repair. Locker rooms always clean. Best part is it is not pretentious!! Very friendly atmosphere without the ‘jock mentality’ of other gyms/pools. Great café!!

Positive experience: Facility is clean. Staff are nice and helpful. My biggest issues are in regard to the hours of operation, and swimming lessons. I wish the gym stayed open a little later than 9pm. But most of all, I wish Friday they were opened to at least 9 or 9:30pm. Fridays are great days to sneak in a late work out because you're not worried about being up early the next day for work. As a young dad weekend hours closing by 6pm are impossible to work with, so I have to fit in any exercising from Monday to Thursday. The swimming lessons for kids greatly varies from teacher to teacher - and a lot of time the teacher is overwhelmed by 3 or more kids per teacher. The kids end up doing nothing but jumping in a pool over and over again.

Negative experience: As a valued member of the YMCA community, I wanted to share my feedback regarding the swimming classes provided at your facility. Overall, I appreciate the effort put forth by the instructors and staff to create a positive learning environment. However, there are a few areas where I believe improvements could be made. Firstly, I've noticed that the duration of the swimming classes is quite short, with only 30 minutes allocated per session. While I understand the importance of time management, I feel that this timeframe may be limiting for effective learning. Additionally, a significant portion of each class is dedicated to general discussions, with 5-10 minutes spent at the beginning and end of the session. While communication is essential, I believe that the balance between discussion and practice could be adjusted to maximize the learning experience. Furthermore, I've observed that there is a lack of individualized attention given to each student during the class. It seems that the instructors are unable to focus on the specific needs and abilities of each child, resulting in a one-size-fits-all approach to teaching. In my opinion, grouping children based on their skill level, with separate classes for beginners and those who have already learned some swimming techniques, could greatly enhance the learning process and ensure that each child receives the support they need to progress. In conclusion, I believe that by addressing these issues and making necessary adjustments to the swimming program, the YMCA can continue to be a leading provider of quality swimming education in our community. I remain hopeful that my feedback will be taken into consideration, and I look forward to seeing positive changes implemented in the near future.

Positive experience: The guelph YMCA is very clean but the new sanitizing wipes on the main floor recenty got changed and make my hands itchy

Negative experience: Take your family elsewhere. Customer service is not what it use to be.

Negative experience: Staff have no respect to customer when he ask customer “ you just come for trial and never come back again, right?”

Fantastic experience: I believe as though the hierarchy of male and female dominance is determined by strength levels and compound lifts. The Y has given me the space and community to CRUSH countless goals and become a better person. You may hear complaints about us ego lifting, screaming however I would follow up with a simple and noble question…”well what’s ur bench?”

Fantastic experience: Great stuff and very clean nice place!

Fantastic experience: Nice facility and knowledgeable staff that go out of their way to help you

Fantastic experience: I love going to the Ymca good after school program every night so I recommend here

Negative experience: They don't do credit of debt for a day pass. Time to leave 1992. There are children who run lemonade stands that have figured this out.

Fantastic experience: Signed up today and the service was excellent!! Everyone was so friendly and answered all our silly questions.

Positive experience: Excellent accessible place to work out and socialize. Very friendly members and staff who are also approachable and helpful.

Fantastic experience: It was our first time to visit YMCA today and had an amazing experience,especially thanks to the very sweet and friendly lady , Malissa. She introduced lots of proper activities for my kids enthusiastically and patiently and arranged the perfect time for them.Excellent place for the family having fun especially in the cold winter time!

Fantastic experience: I love this place! The main reason I am excited about this particular YMCA is that parents can exercise with their kids ages 10-12 in the gym, as long as they take a short 1-2 hour session together with a personal trainer at the YMCA! ♥️ They also require that a parent is always within arm's length of the child when the child (10-12) is working out. My child loves working out with me! Other parents are respectful of the rules as well, and their children are always at an arm's length. Also, this location has a huge teen presence! It is great to see so many teens excited to workout! This gym definitely has a positive vibe. It is also regularly quite busy with people, which adds to the energy of the room. They also have super thick gym mats for doing stretches on; I have never seen ones this thick! ♥️ Family change room: It is enormous and well maintained! It is wonderful to have so many individual stalls for kids to get changed in! Equipment/Gym: See my pics for some of the equipment. They have the main gym room and many rooms throughout the building with gym equipment. They also have a basketball court that is always filled with teens and sometimes men. There are squash courts. The weight machines have holders for your water bottle! ♥️ They have a water bottle filling station. Lockers: You need to bring your own locks, and your lock can't be too thick to fit through the locker hole if you are using the lockers across from the gym. Staff: The custodian went out of his way to help me with something for my child -- really wonderful person! One of the personal trainers is particularly friendly (the really tall guy). The girls at the front desk are friendly. The swim instructors have been lovely people as well. Bathrooms: They are kept incredibly clean! Wow! Food: They have vending machines and a cafe. The cafe has limited hours. They have tables and chairs in front of the pool to eat and watch your kids. Pool: It is smaller than the Cambridge YMCA's pool, but it is adequate. Hours: See my pic. Wheelchair accessibility: The bathrooms and doors have wheelchair buttons. See my pic. There are a ton of wheelchair parking spots. I have never seen this many in one area! Parking: There is a shocking amount of parking in their massive parking lot. YMCA amalgamation: You can use your membership here or at any other YMCA in the Waterloo or Stratford/Perth regions. However, each YMCA has different policies, so that may affect your experience. For example, the Cambridge YMCA has a minimum age of 15 or 16 to use their weight machines. At the Guelph YMCA, it is 13 with no training. See my first pic: "Fitness Age Policies." *I took the indoor pics on an unusually quiet bad weather afternoon, so don't judge the foot traffic by the pics.

Negative experience: Pool experience is good. However Gym experience is the worst. Reasons are: 1- You’ll see that 2-3 trade mills (out of total 6-7) are always either under maintenance or not working. 2- water fountain wasn’t working today. 3- A bunch of 5-6 guys highjack entire gym equipments every day from 6 PM to closing time. They create nuisance by shouting , screaming (which they might think is a way of motivating each other), making loud sounds, banging weights on the floor (due to ego lifting ), spending hrs on one single equipment. Also, a gym staff spends his entire shift with them in the gym during his work hours which could be used more efficiently otherwise. 4- People don’t wipe the equipment after use. 5 - Area near weight and dumbbells stinks always which means there’s no proper cleaning. I hope they’ll improve after seeing this review. Don’t bother going to this place for gym.

Fantastic experience: staff is soooo good with the kids, gave us peace of mind to go and workout, take a few laps in the pool knowing we didn't have to worry about them! Also always clean, never had an issue with this YMCA.

Negative experience: Rude customer service

Negative experience: Worse facility ever!! I canceled my membership after one snow day and no kids program! I had my daughter 6 year old with me and they insist to leave and made her very upset and didn’t know why! Some Angela girl works there and the supervisor started yelling made my daughter cry! So I cancelled my membership

Negative experience: The staff that I engaged with were friendly and courteous. That said, I joined a Diabetes program through them only to find out that certain advertised benefits were not available to all. They recieved the funding for the program but failed honour the program detailes and lacked online and communication transparency. Too bad because like I said, the staff seemed great.

Fantastic experience: Good

Fantastic experience: I love ymca. Its best for family and kids to entertain.

Fantastic experience: Great equipment and spacious rooms great staff good classes lots of light plenty of parking

Fantastic experience: Great staff at the daycare

Fantastic experience: Glad that they kept the Strive equipment. I always have a great workout.

Fantastic experience: Couldn't possibly happier with the customer service here. It's a fantastic (somewhat massive) modern facility that's kept well and clean yet the staff putting so much effort communicating with me whether for membership or information reasons, is what really stood out for me here.

Fantastic experience: Probably the best fitness facility in Guelph for the membership cost. Very friendly and helpful staff, even with all of the COVID restrictions that they are obligated to follow. The app for booking a workout time works really well. My son and I really look forward to our workouts there especially since most of our regular fitness activities have been canceled for the last year.

Fantastic experience: Great location, great gym for weightlifting, and really phenomenal staff. Very friendly & sociable. I've been to every gym in Guelph and never received the same friendliness as at the Y!

Fantastic experience: Teaching outside is so awesome! It was truly beautiful today. Thanks to all the participants who joined me today!

Negative experience: Another pool fouling on a Friday afternoon

Negative experience: Missed at least 4 swimming lessons due to pool fouling in the past two months. Staff says there is nothing that can be done about it. Friday night is not a good time for swimming.

Fantastic experience: Great community gym with above average amenities. Support your local Y!

Negative experience: YMCA customer feedback needs imprivement. Have given them feedback many times asking to be contacted. YMCA never acted on my feedback or bothered to call me. They have had months and have received numerous requests for feedback. Canceled membership. I Was reached out to after cancellation. Overpriced gym, limited workout space, screaming kids all summer long...terrible unless you sign up as a family YMCA has addressed my cancelation fee concerns after incident review.

Negative experience: Worse facility ever.. too small, too expensive and not enough weights. Also, too many rules which no feasible! I had and experience with one of the managers which she yelled at my kid and now I cancelled my membership!!

Positive experience: I went with my cousin today and a lifeguard started to yell at us without warning! Then when he talked to other people who acctually DID do something he would act so nice to them! But other than that it was so much fun!

Fantastic experience: LOVE THIS PLACE! I love all the classes they have. The instructors are excellent, high energy, there is no way you won’t be motivated to work out.

Fantastic experience: Good community center

Fantastic experience: Newly renoed gym looks great

Fantastic experience: Amazing place for all walks of life. Offers so many different programs. Very friendly and welcoming. Would recommend joining.

Fantastic experience: Staff are friendly and great.

Fantastic experience: Love the YMCA. Fantastic facility.

Fantastic experience: Swimming pool small

Fantastic experience: Place was excellent the staff treating me great ! My daughter's had lot's of fun i got a 2 week free membership . We went swimmimg the life' gaurd's where the coolest ever they ran the slide my daughters had so much fun . Thanks YMCA We going to the Y-M-C-A lol

Fantastic experience: Such an awesome facility. The staff are extremely accommodating and seem to enjoy what they do (makes a HUGE difference). My kids have benefited greatly from the small class sizes in their swimming programs. This is also an ideal place for those who can not afford regular gym memberships, from what I hear they offer financial assistance to help cover the cost of membership for those in low income families.

Fantastic experience: Great facility and staff!

Fantastic experience: Staff are friendly and great.

Positive experience: Staff are friendly and helpful.

Positive experience: Very nice place, great staff

Positive experience: Nice staff, programs expensive only well to do can aford them.

Positive experience: Nice community spot. Need more lounge chairs.

Positive experience: Good space to host a kids birthday.

Positive experience: Went to a kids bday party here, seemed nice enough! Courteous staff and loads of parking.

Positive experience: Great facility with very friendly staff. All gym amenities available.

Positive experience: Friendly staff and clean facilities. The equipment room is small but I've never had to wait for any machines. Some fitness instructors seem to be inexperienced but are all friendly.

Fantastic experience: Amazing place for all walks of life. Offers so many different programs. Very friendly and welcoming. Would recommend joining.

Negative experience: *Employee* Review- (Lifeguard and Swim Instructor) The place itself is very nice and there is always great customer satisfaction. However, the YMCA-YWCA Guelph does not value it's employees' in aquatics, no matter the amount of time put in by the guards. The YMCA-YWCA Guelph continues to pay minimum wage to the lifeguards despite it being a qualified position, and pay's slightly over for teaching. The excuse is brought up that we receive free memberships, the thing is they are basic memberships to there own staff and not plus (they insist you pay extra). As well, it is unfair to pay minimum wage they complain about low staff when other facilitates give free memberships and understand that lifeguarding *is not* an entry level position and give more than min.

Positive experience: Has good parking but is a little out of the way in Guelph. It is not easily accessible unless you have a car. The actual facility is quite appealing and has a strong feeling of community. Great place for families. This particular facility has a fantastic on-demand "play care" program, kind of like on-demand babysitting. They don't have the best selection of registered programs but they are adding more. They also have schedule fitness classes for adults, free with membership. Premium membership gets you access to their steam room, hot tub and towel service.

Negative experience: I would give a 0 if I could. All the staff are very nice except the staff that do the children's programs. The staff that do the youth programs always end 5 minutes before the program is actually done. This wouldn't normally be a huge deal, but the staff always gets annoyed and wouldn't let the kids do anything if the children even said a single word while they talk or accidentally do something bad like whip a dodge ball at someones head. They staff that does youth programs like dodge ball, are horrible. They always waste the kids time by not letting them play, they think they're top notch and act like it, and overall don't play fair.

Fantastic experience: Amazing facility with outstanding staff

Fantastic experience: We have relied on and benefitted from myriad services here for 10+ years. Excellent overall.

Fantastic experience: Great place. Clean. Staff great.

Fantastic experience: Fabulous facility and staff. Great for families.

Fantastic experience: This is by far one of the best gyms I have ever been to. The facility is beautiful and modern. There high end change rooms and hot tub is amazing and is worth the extra coin. The equipment is excellent and clean. But by far the best feature of this YMCA is people who work there! They make this Gym what it is. They genuinely care about you and helping you become the best version of you!. The staff working at the front are professional, helpful and friendly. The trainers who run the fitness classes are knowledgeable, funny, caring, and help push you at a level that works for you. Even the people who frequent the gym are friendly and help. I cant say enough good things about them or this gym so if you have the chance to come check it out I assure you that you will not be disappointed.

Fantastic experience: Well maintained swimming pool. Lots of fun activities every week. Must visit.

Fantastic experience: I love this place. You can do workout, play sports , swim and pool and other activities. I like the fancy locker room +18. You need to pay a bit more($14/mo) but I think it's worth it

Fantastic experience: Great place

Fantastic experience: It's so big and amazing

Fantastic experience: Great kids programming. Some different things from the other YMCAs

Fantastic experience: Great place

Fantastic experience: Great pool, friendly staff, and nice change rooms

Fantastic experience: Amazing facilities! Clean, spacious, many different activities and equipment, and lits if natural light!

Fantastic experience: This location has the best deal in town for a child's birthday party (up to about age 7, depending on maturity/interests.) The price for the XYZ room party includes juice, pizza, cake, (plates, cups, utensils) a craft, and use of the party room for 2 hours. There's a play structure similar to McDonalds, a small climbing wall, foosball, air hockey and toys. The cost covers 15 children. We had a staff member helping with the craft, clean up, distributing food and cutting the cake. All you need are your own invitations and loot bags. You don't have to be a member to book a party here, but they do book several weeks in advance.

Fantastic experience: Awesome place

Fantastic experience: Nice clean gym, Staff is always helpful if needed Never over crowded Lots of different equipment and classes Very kid friendly Pool is never packed

Fantastic experience: I'm a bit biased because I've worked here for almost 8 years. I've got small children and make full use of the family programs and swimming lessons. I also get the benefit of working out at lunch and tapping into a wealth of knowledge with all of the personal trainers.

Fantastic experience: Great Staff, (Cali, James, Charles, Moira etc.) nothing fancy and the equipment you need for a proper workout

Fantastic experience: It is rarely busy relative to other YMCAs that I have frequented. The staff are friendly and professional. The facility is clean and the equipment is well maintained. The online system used for booking a squash court is outstanding. It is a great place!

Fantastic experience: Awesome facility with a great variety of programs. Would definitely recommend!

Fantastic experience: Awesome place, amazing people☺

Positive experience: swimming pool is not that big for elders

Negative experience: The worst place on earth. Managed by staff have nothing to do with administration protocols.

Positive experience: Decent equipment in the gym, not too busy usually

Positive experience: Great relaxed vibe with great staff running relaxed but rewarding classes for all skill levels.

Positive experience: The equipment is always clean and the staff are friendly and very helpful.

Positive experience: Great facility with great staff, wonderful for families and they do great community services also.

Positive experience: Very clean with great facilities and staff. Was here for a children's birthday party.

Positive experience: Modern and clean, well equipped and never overcrowded. Luxury change rooms with towel service. Staff is welcoming and informative. I was expecting to pay alot more for this level of quality. I am impressed.

Fantastic experience: I joined the YMCA about a year ago. The gym is very clean and the change rooms are well maintained. There is a lot of classes available and a very active squash community. The staff are all very friendly and always willing g to help.

Fantastic experience: Very quiet and nice pool for the kids.

Fantastic experience: Great staff, programs and community

Fantastic experience: Great facility, great programs for families with kids

Fantastic experience: Clean facilities, lots of equipment and programs

Fantastic experience: Everything is nice here