Oak Bay Recreation Centre

Positive experience: Need a sport court in Oak Bay? Oak Bay Recreation Ctr is a great choise for drop in badminton games, also the gym is perfect too~

Fantastic experience: Good spot to workout or swim! It can be busy sometimes for sure but the facility is quite nice. Great hot tub, great sauna, friendly staff. Love to come here for an enjoyable fitness experience.

Fantastic experience: Not much parking was available. Indoor tennis was great.

Fantastic experience: Just found out I qualified for Seniors rates! (60+) What's not to like? 25M pool, sauna, steam room, fitness centre, ice rink. Oak Bay Rec!

Fantastic experience: Great facility and gym!

Fantastic experience: Great place where you can hit the gym , sauna , hot tub , swimming pool …. Super friendly and professional staff .

Fantastic experience: Large facility with good selection of equipment.

Fantastic experience: Lots to do here ,swimming pool,arena and gym

Positive experience: Great new cedar sauna, couldn't use the swimming pool as there was meant to be traing but only 2 people attended.. overall ok experience for the price. especially when the pool is almost empty, would be great if one of the staff paid a bit attention to people rinsing their sweat off in the pool after the sauna instead of showering first! There was folks doing that multiple times Every hour the sauna should be ventilated with some fresh air, at least thats done in all European saunas to keep oxigen level healthy. Some people were heaving very loud continuous conversations in the sauna as well. Does not make it very relaxing for others.. Shame as the sauna itself is actually quite nice.

Fantastic experience: Great place to have a work out. Reasonable price per visit. Where I go when in Victoria Nice staff

Fantastic experience: Great gym, a nice community, no music playing in the background, diverse range of people, sauna, steam room and pool available. Solid facility.

Negative experience: They have weird rules about ages 13-15 using the gym. My school gives me a YMCA pass during the year, but during the summer I wanted to workout here, but to do that you have to take a 2 hour course that was basically full the entire summer. The drop in rate is better than the Y but only if you can use it, they are also changing their rules on September 15th on ages 13-16 I believe, I hear the equipment is better but I have never been able to try it.. Luckily I got my YMCA pass back half way through summer, but before that it was bodyweight exercises for me.

Fantastic experience: Always had a great experience here, special shout out to the reception staff this early afternoon for patiently dealing with a horrible, crotchety elderly woman

Fantastic experience: I recommend this place for everyone

Fantastic experience: Great place for kids in the summer. Our kids have probably done three quarters of the camps, and they liked them all

Positive experience: The building is nice, plenty of things to do besides swim (The pool is currently closed) but I found the passes to be a bit pricey even at a student discount; but see for yourself! It might be in your budget, just definitely not mine.

Positive experience: The gym has a huge variety of machines, new treadmills, and a spacious stretching area. The front desk staff are always very welcoming and helpful. The steam room was too hot but I see it's now under renovation. Otherwise, a perfect place to go.

Fantastic experience: Great place to work and play⛳️

Fantastic experience: I've used this rec centre for more than twenty-five years and have nothing but good things to say! The staff are experienced, polite and helpful. The weight and cardio machines are excellent and there's a lot of them so 99% of the time you'll get to use whichever ones you want during a session. The lounge restaurant is great for casual dining, events like birthdays or concerts and watching sports. Other facilities (such as the skating rink and the pools) are great as well. They've even gone the extra mile in terms of lowering their environmental impact (by doing things like replacing the incandescent pool and mezzanine lights with energy-efficient LEDs). Needless to say I have a lot of good memories here. Thanks to all the staff, you're awesome!

Positive experience: Despite being run down, it was okay; but they are closing for 2 months to upgrade the facility - so let's see how it is when it reopens. I like the Seniors over 50+ community time - they are the only ones time do that, so that's a plus.

Positive experience: It is a very fine swimming pool. They have lessons but very compact pool. After starting in the selected pool, it is come to go around looking for another spot as your spot will be raken by another class. For parents to watch their kids has to stand all the time as there is no spot to seat. There are fewer Ryan hand finger chairs to meet kn the main get, but there is no specific designated area to watch or to wait. The building and the surrounding are nice and have space to accommodate but left out as is. Even inside the could make Seatting area instead they I gues rent (?) for Caffè to which give bird view to see the pools. Not to forget the Arena for skates or , which obviously has a designated seat. That's why I gave 3 starts. IT IS OKAY

Positive experience: Been coming here for decades and it has a a good gym, steam room, sauna, pool and lounge. Staff are generally friendly and helpful. It’s a very busy public facility so practice good hygiene (sanitizer and sandals on pool deck) or roll the dice. Price point hasn’t changed much over the years- reasonable admittance fee and 25 cent smaller lockers.

Fantastic experience: Amazing facility. Super clean and the instructors are really helpful

Fantastic experience: Great recreation centre. Have to be a bite strategic on when you arrive as it can get busy. Both the pool and gym are well maintained and clean. I look forward to the renovations that are planned , making this great facility even better.

Fantastic experience: I goto the gym here when I come visit in Victoria. Always clean and has good equipment. The staff is friendly and it's not generally too busy when I go.

Fantastic experience: Hockey league here is fun. Two refs and spring ice is okay. Showers are the old box style but no one showers after hockey anymore anyway, apparently.

Positive experience: Very nice facility for hockey and swimming.

Fantastic experience: My favourite pool on the island. Best steam room, best hot tub, usable pool. Needs more lifeguards to accommodate the amazing hours of operation prior to pandemic. 1:00AM at the hot tub with dim lighting and vibe music where else are you getting that? 10/10.

Positive experience: Everything is good except cleanliness... (very dirty... and this is a big minus, they go to the sauna in shoes, where everyone then breathes rubber... People come in dirty shoes and in such shoes enter the jacuzzi and the pool and no one comments , and more attention is paid to other attention ... it's a pity that such a large center does not monitor cleanliness

Fantastic experience: The girls enjoy a lot their tennis clases in the bubble during the winter season. Al coach’s are really good working with kids.

Fantastic experience: Love all their activities and choices for camp! Very friendly and helpful staff!

Positive experience: Not the best in Victoria but the people are nice and the gym is good, pool is also fun!

Negative experience: Come here everyday twice a day. Boxing ran late. Didn’t get here until 9:35 and some kid with glasses I’ve never seen before (weds march 20) said it’s against policy to let anyone in after 9:30…. What the hell does it matter if I wanna pay $7 to sit in the hot tub for 25 minutes? He acted so high and mighty. Waste of a long drive for him to act like he’s a bouncer at a damn club denying me HOT TUB ACCESS Like he was a bouncer at a bar. Go get a job elsewhere bud. Won’t be coming back.

Negative experience: The website is not up to date. The spring break schedule is diff than the daily schedule on the website. Went there with the kids and the kids swim was almost over. So disappointing to have to look in a million places to make sure the pool is open. I'm sure it's great but their fun swim is not for working parents with little kids

Fantastic experience: I'm a little obsessed with sauna, this one's great. Clean change rooms

Positive experience: I like how tidy and clean the gym is. And, the pool is very clean!

Fantastic experience: Great rink and pool. The swim lessons are awesome

Fantastic experience: Boys swim night was a smashing success. This pool has a couple of waterslides, a rope swing, climbing wall, shallow pool, whirlpool, steam room, and cedar infrared sauna. Great way to get some exercise while having a great time. One waterslide has curves and ends in the shallow end of the pool making it easy for smaller kids to quickly exit the pool. The other waterslide is a straight shoot with a drop into the deep end of the pool for older kids and adults. So funny to watch 40+ year olds revert to teenagers as they wait their turn to drop into the pool's deep end out of the waterslide! I laughed out loud, wishing I had my camera ready to catch the hilarity of the moment.

Fantastic experience: It has a very good location and has a parking lot which is usually very busy. There are places to lock bikes and skateboard (indoor). It has swimming pool, good size fitness/weight room, arena for hockey and ice skating, 4 vending machines (drinks and snacks), many activities/lessons for kids, youth and adults, sauna and hot tub… Employees are friendly and helpful. Showers can be used for $3,5 (this info for travellers and people who lives in their vans). Over all rather than it being very busy, it is a great facility, always clean.

Fantastic experience: Great place to grab a hot shower. Open late

Positive experience: Great facility just quite busy and parking lot is always full

Positive experience: I liked a lot the Gym, Swimming pool and Saunas.

Negative experience: Their skating schedules were not updated for Christmas Eve or Boxing Day, and nor was their voicemail. It was very disappointing wasting travel time both days to get here and have the center fully closed during the skate times listed on the website. Hopefully in the future the website, voicemail, and business hours will be updated accordingly. The online schedules have no dates, only days of the week which is not helpful during the holiday season for any exceptions.

Fantastic experience: Went for a swim while on holiday in the island. Standard facilities that I've come to expect from similar venues in my own city.

Fantastic experience: They keep everything clean and don't have a foam hotub like the crystal pool.

Fantastic experience: Great facility. I take my kids here for swimming and skating lessons. Parking out front can be a bit of a pain but there is a big parking lot out back off of Goldsmith Street. Easy to miss if you come at it off Fort Street!

Fantastic experience: Good place Regarding people their, so far have met one interesting character but mostly nice people

Positive experience: The hot tub needs to be bigger. Many people just sit on the edge with their feet in the water. There isn't room for those of us who need the hot water jets as a physical therapy

Fantastic experience: Really appreciate the swim lessons for our kid. Instructors are great. My son loves it.

Fantastic experience: Clean facility. Good place to take kids for skating and swimming. Has a good selection of gym equipment. Can be quite busy at times.

Positive experience: Very nice place...except the floors are very dirty everytime I go there

Positive experience: Great place, but finding parking is always tricky.

Fantastic experience: Excellent facilities. Check the schedule before you drop in before swimming.

Positive experience: We went around 7 on a Tuesday and it was jam packed, we went specifically for the sauna and steam room and both were packed like sardines and everyone in there was talking having multiple conversations....not exactly a relaxing moment however it is a rec centre so I suppose socialization and high volume of people is expected. The facilities is very dated. For price it's a very good deal.

Negative experience: Not recommended to the swimmers who want to go lengths swimming. The lane pool for lengths swim isn't observed or watched well. There are sign boards for lanes that indicate continuous/speedo/fast/leisure but the signs are useless as you will be able to find people playing not swimming in continuous lane, slower swimmers in speedo/fast lane. There are people not following the instruction on sign board for lengths swim, neither safe guard nor pool staff controls the mess. They have a sauna and a hot tub, but I have never used them as they are always so crowded and dirty. I could see hairs and dirt floating on water in the hot tub. So disgusting. Very disappointing considering the price I have paid for 25 punch cards.

Negative experience: first off the change rooms are absolutely disgusting it seems no one cleans their EVER, their is hair and dirty eveywhere. poor management as well as rude stuff. pool hours are wrong on the wedsite, it closes at 7 but they don’t seem to care to put that on their wedsite. so many disappointing things about it. will not be going there again

Fantastic experience: Good gym. Generally super busy

Positive experience: My family and I love it and enjoy it alot. For me personally the sauna room is a little small because there's a many people that come and use it and it gets cramped at times. Otherwise it's a very good place

Positive experience: I went here for a school trip and I have also been for lessons when I was like 6 if you like skating this is probably fine for you

Positive experience: If you go to this gym and you’re a woman under 40, be prepared to be BLATANTLY stared at by OLD men who aren’t even exercising (the young guys have been respectful thus far). On too of that, people sit on their phones for forever between sets, which means you end up waiting around for equipment. As far as equipment goes it has everything you need, but the layout is very crowded in the weight area. At least the entry fee is cheap! Next old man I catch staring while I try to work is getting reported to staff, although I barely see any staff around ‍♀️

Fantastic experience: Clean and updated. Great, friendly, helpful staff. A wide variety of activities to choose from. Nice upstairs lounge too

Positive experience: All around it's a good place. Can get quite busy in the gym, which I think could use some updating, but has everything you'll need

Fantastic experience: Nice facility. Neighborhood sports center that hosts concerts and other events. Helpful staff. If you are relying on a can or Uber, it can be a long wait.

Negative experience: The place used to be awesome, now it sorely needs basic maintenance and daily cleaning in the pool and change room areas. For an upscale community it is quite embarrassing that they can’t even the change rooms clean and sanitary.

Fantastic experience: Wow! What a great facility:-) I was on the island for my daughter's tennis tourney and this is where it took place. The tennis courts are new, bright, clean and just excellent. We also used the pool which has slides, swing ropes, steam room and sauna. My daughter and I had a BLAST! We also ate at the cafe upstairs which is staffed by nice people and the food was just what we needed to relax on their patio between tennis matches.

Positive experience: Great pool, decent indoor turf and good hockey rink. Lots of things to do and nice staff.

Fantastic experience: Clean, well organized, excellent recreation facility for classes, exercise, entertainment, relaxation and fun. Been my go to rec centre since 1985!

Positive experience: I recently attended a music performance at the Upstairs Lounge. There are some nice things about this venue. Lots of free parking. Meals and drinks are available. Good table seating. Not overly crowded. You need to be comfortable sharing a table if seats are required. We met a nice couple!

Negative experience: They close the pool itself at 10 PM and dont let people in the pool starting at 9:30 (i.e no more people can enter then but people already in the pool can stay til 10), make it make sense. ps please hire more staff so it can stay open later

Positive experience: It is really nice! The gym is pretty busy and sometimes feels too warm in there. There is also lots of equipment and machines.

Fantastic experience: It's a beautiful place, with several activities also they have safeguards for the kids

Positive experience: Perfect place for couples get away. The outdoor heated pool was fantastic. They also have two outdoor hot tubs. I was not impressed so much by their food, I think it a bit overpriced. Other than that, my wife and I enjoyed our stay on our fifth anniversary.

Fantastic experience: Pretty fantastic facility. Gym is well equipped if you aren't focused on free weights. Expect 60+ gym goers to monopolize everything and not have common courtesy to put things away, but that's just how it works in this facility, I guess.

Positive experience: Great neighborhood rec center , swimming , hot tub sauna , ice skating rink Also a cafe and event rental space upstairs My son luvs coming here to swim :)

Fantastic experience: Great place to take you kids or just relax on the hot tub sauna or steam room

Fantastic experience: Great sitting in lounge and being able to watch my son, have a beer, and a sandwich..love it

Positive experience: Parking, parking, parking. The parking here is out of control. Maybe if they started to charge for parking it would convince more people to carpool? They gym is clean and maintained, but almost always packed. You really have to get a feel for the quiet and busy times. The pool is fine, although I hear a lot of people comment on the low temperature in the sauna.

Negative experience: Absolutely disgusting. Pieces of toilet paper/debris floating in the hot tub, showers covered in hair. Over all dingy gross vibes. Went home and scrubbed myself in the shower and still feel dirty.

Fantastic experience: Only there to watch the swimming lessons, but judging by the variety of sports offered and the number of people there I would say it is an excellent neighbourhood recreational facility.

Negative experience: They have great tennis lessons here. BUT HERE’S THE THING THERE IS A REALLY USELESS TEACHER THERE THAT WORKS THERE ON SATURDAY AND HE HAS THIS USELESS ASSISTANT THAT CANT EVEN HIT A TENNIS BALL! (What the heck!) He wasted my money and they play Abba music during the tennis lessons WHICH makes me wonder why do they even get paid lots for making themselves at home and not even TEACHING LESSONS PROPERLY!! They even take so long to explain how the game works and it doesn’t even make any sense when you play it so it seems the guy only cares about the money and they also don’t know how to stop people from talking and I literally wasted 30 minutes of my tennis lessons with that useless dude talking to another person. Another incident was when they advertised FREE TENNIS LESSONS ON NEW YEAR BUT THERE WAS NOBODY NOT A SINGLE PERSON ON THE TENNIS COURTS. There wasn’t any staff at all which was pretty disappointing. Otherwise if you have the right teachers you can actually learn something.

Positive experience: Pools are very warm, staff are friendly and helpful, I don’t remember any of the staff names (that’s a good thing). The water slides are very fun, but they only ran the water slides for 13 minutes of the advertised two hours. So, a bit disappointing on that end. Also did not have rock wall or climbing ropes open as advertised.

Positive experience: Excellent facility. Went with family to watch them during skating session. Nice cafeteria.

Fantastic experience: Excellent facility with excellent equipment and staff. The steam room and sauna are awesome the hottub is genuinely hot and there is plenty of friendly concious conversation to be had.

Fantastic experience: A fun fun fun place year round. Done hockey, skating, swimming, indoor soccer, birthday laser tag either the family over the years. The upstairs restaurant is reasonably priced. Only thing I haven't done here is the weight room.

Fantastic experience: Great place to work out. Has an ice skating rink, pool (with slides!) and a decent gym. Worth it for the membership fees.

Negative experience: Dismissive and somewhat rude front desk. I got off work and a showed up at 9:00 when the last entries are allowed, and the front desk refused to let me use pool facilities when the pool closes at 930. I use pools consistently for physio and back pain issues that I struggle with. It is advertised that the pool closes at 12, not 930. This was a very frustrating experience.

Positive experience: We frequent the ice skating rink and swimming pool at this rec centre, and have taken our almost two year old to her first swimming lessons! I love the community and accessibility of this location. Lots of humans of all ages flock to this space and there are programs for all ages. The family/accessible change room facilities for the pool could use some updating, they feel cramped. Panorama rec has a much better change room especially for mobility aids. but the location is way farther away from us and our needs are not specific to space for mobility aids. Overall we do love this centre.

Fantastic experience: Very kind staff, nice facilities and fun slides! Changerooms are in my experience always taken care of & there are always different activities on the schedule!

Fantastic experience: I have no need to go to this recreation center because I don't live in Oak bay however, when I went in for the first time I was impressed. It has a pool, a gym, tennis courts (in doors), ice rink etc. The staff are super friendly and helpful.

Negative experience: First time visiting the pool facility with my 6 year old. My impression is that the change room tile floors, walls, shower areas are never deep cleaned, not even lightly cleaned every day, and it's visibly grubby, stained and gritty everywhere you turn, leaving me wondering if I will get athlete's foot from the floor. The tile flooring in the pool area looks stained too, and the wall above the hot tub has black spots all over it that I hope to God are not from black mould, but could be. The place needs a renovation, it's showing its age, but in meantime more attention needs to be given to cleaning before I come back. There are tools that they should already know about which clean tiles and grout effectively. This all has come to a surprise to me in this post-covid era, that there appears to be no regular process to clean tiles and grout. I mean, I spray diluted bleach on my shower tile grout at home, and 20 minutes later it comes up clean, can they not do that here? I just felt icky everywhere I walked, and I also worried for my daughter. I'm no neat freak at home, but the the dirty floors and surfaces of this shared space with a lot of other humans packed in, walking over it, has grossed me out. Sorry Oak Bay Rec, I want to come back, but I don't want myself and my child to get sick from your grubby floors, the moist and warm surfaces in a pool facility are a prime breeding ground for disease. Please tell me you clean them every night?

Fantastic experience: Favourite gym and pool in town. Love the late night cheap workout and the cool off in the pool afterwards.

Positive experience: I have only used the aquatic facilities here but the pool and hot tubs are pretty standard. With that being said, I like the late night swim and go here to beat the heat during the day.

Fantastic experience: Absolutely fantastic centre. Oak Bay Rec is pretty much open all the time, even on stat holidays, and the fact that they have such long hours makes working out super convenient. (The fitness studio is open until midnight on weekdays, and eleven on weekends!) They're constantly upgrading their equipment and their fitness studio is very well-stocked. The staff are extremely friendly and very helpful and I've never had a bad experience with them. Of course it can get a little crowded at peak times, but generally the number of people using the facilities is pretty good for their size. If they ever get a full juice bar it'll be absolutely perfect!

Fantastic experience: An excellent recreation centre for all ages! Many computer general interest courses available. In the same complex as the Oak Bay Public Library. A friendly place to visit and spend an afternoon!

Fantastic experience: First class gym with lots of machines and equipment. You can even tune your FM headphones to match one of five different TV screens while riding an exercise bike. Really nice pool as well with sauna, steam room, hot tub, waterslides, and kiddie pool. The main pool is not very big though, so if you want to do lots of lengths try Commonwealth Place or Crystal Pool. Also has skating rink, indoor playing field, lounge overlooking the pool with good food and drinks (including beer), etc. Note re: the review just before this one - I think the reviewer was taking about Monterey Recreation Centre, a nice center primarily for seniors. It's in Oak Bay as well, but not near Oak Bay Rec.

Negative experience: I sign my kids up for 30-minute skating lessons but it takes 5 min just to get out on the ice and they stop skating 3 min early so they only skate 22 minutes sometimes. The supervisors are responsive when I complain (thank you!) but I’ve had to complain in each session we’ve done.

Fantastic experience: It is a perfect place to have fun with your family and also have a good gym!

Fantastic experience: We went there just for the showers, $2 per person, but we loved everything about this place. Super friendly staff.

Fantastic experience: My kid has been taking swimming lessons here for years and he enjoys it.

Positive experience: There's quite a lot of people not wiping down their equipment. 3 weeks later and the gym is way more busy than it usually is and the younger people are not wiping down after they're done.