Vecova's Aquatics, Health and Fitness

Positive experience: Good aquatic center for the family

Fantastic experience: Real shame this spot is closing next year, we have been taking swimming lessons here for years and it's always been a fantastic experience.

Fantastic experience: A great pool with children's swimming lessons

Fantastic experience: Excellent facility and more importantly fantastic staff. Kind, helpful, respectful.

Negative experience: Please please please update your registration experience. It is ridiculous to have your website go down for ages prior to registration opening.

Fantastic experience: Very good service and experience

Positive experience: The swim abilities program was good. It would be SUPER if the child was assigned with one instructor, rather than changing everytime, so that instructor knows the learning pace of the child. We also expected to hear on how much our child had learned during 5 day lessons either verbally or written. Unfortunately, none of the instructor spoke to us. Anyways, Thank you for wonderful lesson for our son.

Fantastic experience: The staff is amazing, everyone is kind, polite, helpful. The water is one even temperature and the swimmers are fun to be around.

Fantastic experience: Nice and clean. Warm pool!

Negative experience: We have been going to Vecova for the public swim in the evenings for about a year with our son. We were very disappointed today when we showed up at the regular time and we're told there is no longer public swims anymore in the evening. I work m-f 9-5 and all the weekend times are during nap time for my 2 year old. We left with a screaming toddler and sad that we can longer enjoy the warm pool close to us. I really hope they reconsider the public swim times.

Positive experience: Lovely water temperature. Aesthetically grungy

Positive experience: Very warm pool that nice to swim in. The organisation's of the free swim times is not that great. Don't forget to register your licence plate so you don't get towed.

Fantastic experience: Great swim center for young kids. Temperature is always warm and the staff is amazing.

Fantastic experience: Shout-out to Vecova in Calgary for adding playpens to their female change rooms. Come for the warm water, but stay for the excellent service from the staff and the playpens in the change rooms. No need to worry about getting changed with your baby now, can just get them dressed and plunk into the playpen while you get ready. Bonus points if they add one to the men's change rooms too, to be inclusive of all parents.

Positive experience: This is an older facility with a nicely heated pool, decent other features and friendly staff.

Fantastic experience: Love this place for mommy and baby classes! I've done aquasize and the toddler + mommy exercise classes. Love them all.

Fantastic experience: We just finished the parent and tot 1 session and the instructor Aidan was AWESOME!! He was so engaging, encouraging to the babies, patient and enthusiastic! I will be enrolling my son in the fall session as he’s a bit too young to go to the next phase and I really hope we get Aidan again. He’s a superstar and I hope this gets back to him.

Fantastic experience: We just finished the Parent & Tot 1 swimming lessons. Our son had a great time, pool temperature is nice especially for babies and Becca was a great instructor. Highly recommended.

Positive experience: Been here for adult swimming lessions for several seasons (I am a slow learner). They have some really great instructors, but when they added an additional children's swimming class the pool became very tight and there wasn't enough room to practice without crashing into others who are also still learning how to swim. Just something to think about if you are signing up for adult swimming classes on Monday evenings.

Fantastic experience: Very friendly staff, pool is very warm with many little thing to play, girls are having a lot of fun there! 5 star!

Fantastic experience: Great warm pool for swimming lessons for my 9 month old

Fantastic experience: Nice warm pool!

Positive experience: Great place for swimming lessons. The pool is at a more comfortable temperature than normal swimming pools.

Fantastic experience: Love Vecova pool! So awesome for young kids. The warm water is lovely!

Fantastic experience: Wonderful pool and amazing staff! Excellent instruction for kids

Fantastic experience: Very warm salt water pool. Bring your own lock for lockers. Glad that showers don't run on a timer. Moderately crowded, but enough room to practice without lanes.

Fantastic experience: Great place to have a swim if need warm water. Too warm to do laps. Great ramp for Walker or wheelchair. Great for babies and toddlers or standing around in water supervising a swimmer. Cost is ver reasonable. Bring lock. Have warm showers. Nice viewing bleachers on pool deck.

Positive experience: Very warm water. Unfortunately no shallow areas for little babes to hang out.

Fantastic experience: The kids love the warm water pool for lessons or just family swim!

Fantastic experience: A feel good, cost effective, well-run place to come swimming and also play court sports like basketball or badminton! The staff here are well-organized and have pride in knowing that this facility supports members of our society that need extra help. Not only can you play sports in the main gym or go swimming, there are meeting rooms, atriums, smaller gyms that are perfect for classes, seminars and get togethers. The cost of renting these rooms out is quite low and well worth an enquiry. Located on the North side of U of C there is plenty of Parking and easy accessibility. I am very pleased to have discovered this Centre and plan to find ways to frequent and support it.

Fantastic experience: Came today with my family for the first time for a drop in at the pool. Both the front desk and the person on the phone were very helpful with information which made everything pleasant. Even though the facilities were a bit older, it was still probably one of the most cleanest I've seen. The pool was the perfect temperature and lots of pool floaties etc which was great for my toddler. Looking forward to many more swims here.

Fantastic experience: The pool is warm and the instructors help make it approachable for littles. If you're able to get into a class, it's a great experience for parents & kids.

Fantastic experience: Excellent

Positive experience: Great staff and instructors.

Positive experience: Warm salt water! Even my grandkids love this pool. Just check the temperature of the water before you go.

Negative experience: Try updating your website like you clame you have and maybe put the days your closed on there to and maybe get better reviews

Fantastic experience: Great facility

Fantastic experience: Ample parking & change rooms in the pool. Heated salted water, can't beat that.

Fantastic experience: Perfect for the disabled

Fantastic experience: Thanks to Alex, Caden and the whole Vecova team for making my daughter's birthday awesome!!! You guys are all magic and it is so amazing to see so many young people running the show. You guys do a great job from booking to set up to gymastics and play to take down. Thank you!!

Fantastic experience: Reasonable to swim. About half price compared to ymca. Water warm which is great for little kids. Once u are more advanced swimming or lane swim it will be too warm for that. Facilites a bit small and so busy sometimes its hard to keep floors clean. Thx for great staff and facility

Positive experience: Great services, important contribution to community!

Fantastic experience: Great facility

Fantastic experience: The chilli cook off was amazing! $5 for a ton of delicious chilli

Fantastic experience: Be covalent recreation Centre

Fantastic experience: Good programs for the whole family, could use some updating but a nice plan with great swimming lessons for kids.

Fantastic experience: Amazing pool! Warm which is perfect for injured muscles!!! Will be visiting weekly.

Fantastic experience: Great places for my daughter who is special needs....we have been swimming there for years...staff is wonderful and the facility is great..love the warm water pool...

Fantastic experience: We come here for swim lessons regularly and my boys enjoy their teachers. The swim instructors are patient and attentive. They give the children turns receiving individual attention while the others watch and splash. My kids look forward to their half hour lesson each week. When we come for family swim, there are toys, big floaters, kick boards and life jackets available. There is a little slide for younger children. The water is such a comfortable temperature. The showers are hot (but not enough to burn).

Fantastic experience: Best facilities in town! My kids like to hangout at the break room when waiting from one another. Snacks, water, heating, and especially teachers, top notch!!

Fantastic experience: Amazing pool! Warm which is perfect for injured muscles!!! Will be visiting weekly.

Positive experience: A decent recreation and aquatic centre. The facility is a bit old. Includes many programs such as yoga, air cadets, and fencing. The pool is not the standard size. Some food options in the snack bar. Offers many multi- use conference rooms and break out rooms. Located close to the university and bus stops.

Positive experience: All three of our children have learned to swim here. Very warm pool which is excellent with young kids (can't move fast enough to stay warm). There are stands inside the pool to watch your kids in lessons once they are unparented. Showers are ice cold on existing from lessons on cold days so we have to bath at home. On cold weekends for public swims the pool sometimes has it's capacity exceeded and people are turned away or wait. A great problem to have for a pool!

Positive experience: Update: Vecova did follow up as indicated below and refunded our swim lessons. The guy I talked to on the phone was very easy to talk to and professional. It sounds like they will be talking to the instructors about how to handle kids who don't want to put their face in the water. This review is based on the Sea Otter (preschool) swim lessons for my 4 year old. The instructors were terrible with my son.. so terrible that I'm not even going to finish his last 3 swim lessons. It appeared that the ratio for the 3-5 year old swim lesson was 6:1, but the class typically had a 4:1 ratio. The last class was only 20 minutes of lessons and 10 minutes of playtime. My son may have received 3 minutes of instruction. The class was typically 25 minutes with no or 5 minutes of play time. The rest of the time was spent sitting on the stairs waiting (which he seemed to enjoy). This was my son's first un-parented swim lesson. The first male instructor powerfully dunked my son after my son repeatedly told him not to... it left a lasting negative impression with my son and the first instructor destroyed any trust. The next class we had a different instructor. I told her what happened and that my son was nervous about putting his face in the water. She didn't push him or dunk him, but he was still upset about the first lesson and was nervous doing things that he previously LOVED to do with me (i.e. float on his back, swim with a pool noddle, etc...). My son is vocal and every time she told the kids to put there face in the water, he very vocally said he did not want to do that. When she went to get him he would walk out of the pool. She angrily asked me very loudly "DOES HE HAVE ANXIETY?!?" She wasn't as mean to the other 3 year old (not vocal) who kept getting out of the pool also. The next class and our last class, she was mean, snippy and impatient with my son. "YOUR IN SWIM LESSONS, BUD!!!" "RELAX!!!" she angrily shouted. The instructors have very short fuses. He did end up putting his face in the water but it had to be on his terms. Apparently children are supposed to OBEY strangers all the time even when they are scared or perhaps the instructors don't think children are human and have real feelings. Regardless, both instructors were horrible with my son. Two of the other non vocal, obedient, and not scared kids seemed to do fine. The nervous kids did not. The instructors are not good at teaching kids in this age group. The other challenge I have with this place is it takes more time to drive there than the actual lesson and there is no way to extend the lesson as the pool was occupied after the swim lessons. My son loves water and wants to actually swim so a half an hour is too short. The only pro to this place is that the water is warm.

Fantastic experience: Great swimming experience!

Fantastic experience: Great place for swimming class...warm pool no crowds

Fantastic experience: Acceessable building and swimming pool, good services.

Fantastic experience: Great place for swimming lessons, birthday parties and more! Wonderful staff!

Fantastic experience: The pool is bath water warm and great for introducing children to swimming. The summer camp is well organized and the camp leaders are friendly. The children also get the opportunity to go swimming everyday that they attend camp.

Fantastic experience: Great pool for lil ones. The water is nice and warm. The staff all seem great with babies. I am always greeted with a smile.

Negative experience: the water is filthy. the chane rooms are dirty. i don't recommend it.

Negative experience: As someone who hasnt even dealt with services from this place, the communication alone is just horrible trying to plan an appt. Ive never dealt with a service like this before but i hope itll change my mind in terms of rating.

Positive experience: free parking at night

Fantastic experience: The pool is bath water warm and great for introducing children to swimming. The summer camp is well organized and the camp leaders are friendly. The children also get the opportunity to go swimming everyday that they attend camp.

Fantastic experience: Pool is warm

Fantastic experience: Great dancing

Fantastic experience: Great warm water pool.

Fantastic experience: Great swimming pool and other programming to look into.

Fantastic experience: best kids pool in Calgary

Fantastic experience: Great place to swim

Fantastic experience: A great place to have parties. Very affordable. A warm swimming pool. Great swimming instructors. Clean facilities. Good customer service.

Fantastic experience: Great facility

Fantastic experience: Fast service. Hard working people.

Positive experience: Just love the warm salty water here, great for young babies and of people

Positive experience: The pool here is the warmest in the city.

Fantastic experience: Warmest swimming pool I have been to. Great place to take your kids.

Fantastic experience: Awesome Place. Very warm pool friendly staff. Lots going on at Vecova everything from elderly dance to fencing...

Fantastic experience: Best pool to take your kid too. One of the greatest things about this place is the fact that it uses sea salt in the pool instead of chlorine. The swimming pool is also heated it's by far the warmest water of all swimming pools in the city. The only minus is the short window of hours for public swims, but that can be easily over looked. I try to take my 3 year old here every other Sunday, she absolutely loves it one of her favorite places.

Fantastic experience: The pool is heated 34.5 degrees perfect for little ones, they have floating for babies and infant life jackets. We love going here!

Positive experience: A nice place for recreational activities like swimming, Gymnasium and studios

Positive experience: The pool is heated!!!!! (though the building looks dated)

Positive experience: Heated pool, kids love it!

Positive experience: Water is so warm but it's pretty busy because of it

Positive experience: Good place for swimming lessons

Positive experience: Wonderful rec center. Nice pool great facilities. Well kept up.

Positive experience: Warm salt pool. Great for babies and for those that can stand chlorine. Building a little dated and no family change rooms. Good facility

Positive experience: Warm swimming pool

Positive experience: Great temperature for young kids. Change rooms and bathrooms could use a bit of updating.

Positive experience: over crowded with short family swim times and not very often so there can be a long line to even get into the pool . but it's warm and wheel chair accessible with a ramp. the swim classes are pretty great for the little kids. but the staff is underpaid and over worked with literally not even a second between classes to even use the washroom or grab a drink of water or breathe and working for a few hours straight this way and there are no other benefits or ways that they take care of their staff yet the swim classes are always booked full and the facility hasn't been properly upgraded since it was built. I like the drop in gym time for kids.

Positive experience: A nice local indoor pool and recreation place. The pool is pretty small, but very warm. I nice place to be on a cold winter's day. A lot of community organizations call this place home.

Negative experience: Poor Facilities, Terrible Policies, and Worse Service I took my four-year-old daughter to her swimming lesson because my wife was sick. When we got there we found out they don't have any family rooms for changing and showering, so I asked if we could use the handicapped washroom to shower her after her swimming lesson. I asked the front-line staff and the management and explained that my daughter cannot shower, dry, and change herself without help, and I am not comfortable bringing her into the communal shower with all the men (they don't have closed shower stalls) because I don't want her to see them naked and the other way around. The staff and management said that even though she is not capable of showering and changing without help she is not handicapped, and she would have to shower with the men. So we went home.

Positive experience: Great place to take the little ones swimming. There should be more showers though. Swimming lessons are OK, nothing to brag about.

Positive experience: I really enjoy the pool here. The water is really warm. The only downside is the size and their hours. I feel like there isnt much public swim time.

Negative experience: The bottle depot staff are ignorant of people who are handicapped and say rude things.

Negative experience: Disappointed in the quality of swim instructor we had. Have heard good things, but our experience was not the best.

Fantastic experience: Great pool for kids. Super warm, lots of toys, ramps, slides, etc.

Fantastic experience: Nice warm pool.

Negative experience: Swimming lessons are crowded. With so many happening at once, it's confusing. Didn't like staff

Negative experience: Warmer swimming pool is nice, but not much for the swimming classes. The lack of motivation and commitment, these are the qualities of some swimming instructors. Very Disappointed.

Positive experience: We take our 6 month daughter swimming here because it has a heated pool. Great warm temperature. It can be busy though. The change rooms are a bit dated and showers can get really hot so sometimes can't shower baby after being in the pool