Physical Activities Complex (PAC)

Information about Physical Activities Complex (PAC)
Our comment from FitFit Canada about Physical Activities Complex (PAC):
Welcome to the Physical Activities Complex (PAC) in Waterloo, Canada, a premier destination for fitness and sports enthusiasts. This facility is highlighted for its:
- Cleanliness and well-maintained areas, including a sparkling pool facility.
- A wide range of modern fitness equipment across the first and second floors, perfect for all workout regimens.
- Space that accommodates various activities, from basketball to squash, making it great for individual workouts or team sports.
- Various events held here, such as the OUA 2022 Badminton Championship and Convocations.
- A friendly and professional atmosphere that enhances the workout experience.
However, some users have mentioned that it can be quite busy during exam seasons, with the facility serving multiple functions, including a testing space. Overall, the PAC remains a popular venue for both exercise and events, ensuring a vibrant community atmosphere.
Physical Activities Complex (PAC): Opinions
Fantastic experience: Great place to write final exams!!!
Fantastic experience: Great place!! It's really convenient when living on campus. It's very clean and really nice!
Fantastic experience: Lots of space, I'm talking about the spring term tho ahaha, but a really good gym. I love it.
Positive experience: Spacious
Positive experience: Love coming here for my kids swimming lessons. Just wish parking was a little easier.
Positive experience: Great gym and other facilities. (Pool, basketball court, etc) Lots of room. Gym could use some more equipment.
Positive experience: 1- Long opening time 2- Concentration of equipment in a large building
Negative experience: Many of the athletics staff have been rude and unhelpful in my experience. Whether it is a lack of training or care I am not sure but it promotes unhealthy gym culture for students. This makes me feel unwelcome and I have acquired a membership at an external gym.
Negative experience: Put more pec flies in there jesus christ and fix your showers
Positive experience: It's always PACked
Positive experience: UW need to build a new gym, don't go at 8pm unless u want covid
Fantastic experience: It has been a long time since my visit. What a beautiful facility.
Positive experience: REALLY CROWDED. Also, a lot of the men here have terrible gym etiquette (interrupting sets, being boisterous and loud, not wiping equipment etc). Plenty of platforms and equipment in general, machines are somewhat disorganized. Small freeweights area, but at least there's 2. I only come here because it's conveniently on campus, I have a membership at my gym in my hometown that I would much rather go to.
Positive experience: Good service
Fantastic experience: absolutely beautiful place. total staple for any waterloo student to either get a nice lift or swim in, maybe shoot some hoops or play volleyball or just chill with the guys! this place turned me from a boy to a man, lot of late nights and early mornings pumping iron , setting spikes and tying up the kyrieeeees (he’s a goof now tho )
Positive experience: Busy
Positive experience: The new renovations are a welcome addition. The new equipment and gym layout are top-notch. The main issues are with overcrowding. PAC is always busy with teams, clubs and people working out. It's really hard to consistently find open squat racks and benches. The locker room washrooms are quite rough too
Fantastic experience: Love this gym. 3 floors, always enough equipment. Gets full at peak times like 4-5, but you can use whatever machine you want within 2 mins of waiting. Tons of bars for squats/deadlifts platforms. Tons of benches for bench press and more. Lots of cardio machines. As expected from a university campus, but better than CIF. Only issue is that it closes around 10. I would love for it to be 24 hours.
Positive experience: basketball court was fine to play at ball takeout was easy to do using the watcard lots of nets were available to choose from, even then the court was pretty empty most of the time. often had a net or two side by side for games to play on. court was clean and did not feel dusty nets were clean. very good choice to play at when it is raining outside
Fantastic experience: Clean, new equipment, and a very clean pool facility.
Fantastic experience: 10/10. Best place on campus to write an exam.
Positive experience: Gym is too hot
Fantastic experience: Almost all in one location, a great place to work out.
Fantastic experience: OUA 2022 Badminton Championship at University of Waterloo, waterloo, Ontario.
Fantastic experience: Clean facilities and nice gym, great place unless you're writing an exam there
Positive experience: Where's the yellow guy?
Fantastic experience: I like so mouch, in the gym are profesionals machines, very clean and organize.
Fantastic experience: They have complete set of fitness equipments, first and second floor. Ranging from dumbells to cable machines. They also have olympic size swiming pool, but you need to reserve a spot/lane first on the website.
Negative experience: Nice facility. Directions to the only available entrance unclear. Staff not so welcoming to newcomers. Convenient location on campus.
Fantastic experience: Enjoyed Convocation 2019 here as we cheered on our Engineering grad. It is amazing how many people will actually fit in this space.
Fantastic experience: Good when it's not exam season.
Fantastic experience: 5/5 failing my exams here but at least it's sorta pretty?
Positive experience: Really compact, doesn’t have much equipments. Is usually crowded
Positive experience: Great service and location. Slightly overcrowded due to construction and temporary relocation.
Positive experience: Very nice convocation
Positive experience: I mean its a gym and then you write your exams there so minus one star
Positive experience: Went to my first gathering at University of Waterloo in this building. Lots of construction going on so a bit tough to get around.
Fantastic experience: squash is here
Fantastic experience: Nice place
Fantastic experience: Super active
Fantastic experience: Looked good
Fantastic experience: Need more facilities like this
Fantastic experience: Great seating to watch a basketball game
Fantastic experience: It is the place where you screw yourself.
Fantastic experience: Would write exam here again
Fantastic experience: Place where the orientations, final exams are held.
Fantastic experience: Good place to workout other than cif
Fantastic experience: Great sports complex.
Positive experience: Scary exam center
Positive experience: Amazing equipment. Could have more
Fantastic experience: Great sports complex.
Positive experience: I fill trapped under the ground. No fresh air no feeling of light.
Positive experience: Perfect place to work out and play games and swim but exams are also held here so not the best.
Positive experience: I have exam depression from this place
Positive experience: You might get hepatitis from the gym here, but you’ll also make legit gains
Positive experience: The complex map is literally the worst you can imagine. It's like a maze, with doors that are either locked, or too heavy to be opened easily. There are not enough direction signs on the walls of the building and it can be quite confusing to navigate, especially for the new students. The pool doesn't have enough changing rooms with appropriate privacy for ladies, and the lockers are almost only usable when you pay for the locker service in addition to your membership fees. Despite all the negative things about the PAC building, I really enjoy the swimming classes so far and they are the only reason I go to this complex every week.
Negative experience: I hate writing an exam here
Positive experience: Making some major renovations. Would love to come.back in a year or 2 when they are complete.
Fantastic experience: Pump iron get big
Fantastic experience: Here for Waterloo Provincial Competition of Robotics. Awesome experience Al these little ones with so much potentials in them. Best of luck all teams
Fantastic experience: Good place for workout and playing basketball volleyball squash and badminton
Positive experience: The place fight for final...
Positive experience: It's a pretty big complex with a swimming pool, a big court, and an actual gym with workout equipment. There are also squash courts available. The reason for the four star is because this isn't the biggest activity complex available to students. The CIF gym is the biggest at Waterloo, yet PAC is pretty good still.
Negative experience: Good choice for graduate ceremony
Negative experience: Always loud and inconvenient. You either come here to exercise or do exams... and then hopefully you eventually graduate here. But the main issue is the accessability of the building
Positive experience: Under construction right now and difficult to use- I'm sure it will be fantastic when it is finished!
Positive experience: A little outdated, but that should change when the expansion is finished.
Positive experience: Okay gym as far as universities go
Negative experience: Literally just gives me PTSD from first year exams 0/10 would not recommend
Positive experience: Great place to workout also known as the hell of exams
Positive experience: Wow - many ways to get fit.
Positive experience: Desperately needs updated.
Fantastic experience: Can't wait for the renovation!
Fantastic experience: If you wanna workout and know what to do go here
Fantastic experience: Facilities are mostly underground, but they have many squash courts and the gym has a lot of equipment.
Fantastic experience: Hands down the best gym in the area for serious lifting.
Fantastic experience: Regularly visit to keep you fit and fine
Fantastic experience: Great Convocation in Oct.21, 2016
Fantastic experience: A little bit old, but supplies with gains no matter what
Fantastic experience: It does exactly what it was built for.
Fantastic experience: Older gym, but it still has all the necessities you need, not a ton of workout machines but staff is always very friendly.
Positive experience: Old equipment however everything you need for a good workout is available. Decent size. However ceiling is a bit low.
Positive experience: The expansion will be amazing.
Positive experience: The weightlifting gym is like a tomb, but there's sufficient equipment there. Nice basketball court and pool. Squash courts and studios available. They really should be checking watcards to thin out the crowd.
Positive experience: Need to include a map on where things are located as it can be very easy to get lost.
Positive experience: Best gym in UW. Not as much equipment as CIF but far less busy
Positive experience: Decent. The swimming pool is really small though.
Positive experience: Decent facilities, could use a significant update as it feels like the 70's in there most of the time.
Positive experience: Not glamorous but gets the job done
Positive experience: The PAC is the older of the two gyms on campus. It has squash courts, a full gym, a pool, and a bouldering wall to name a few of the features. Most features are open to UW students at no additional cost. Being a member of the outers club will gain you access to the bouldering wall.
Negative experience: Facilities are decent, but quite outdated. The building is dreary and all looks the same so you will get lost. Some staff are quite moody and not very helpful.
Positive experience: Very old building, too enclosed in my opinion since you can't really see outside, except at the entrances. Gym is a good alternative to the usually crowded CIF.
Positive experience: Great gym setup, especially with the HPZ. No AC though, but its not that bad.
Negative experience: Poor facilities, sports are often at bad hours, and they refuse to have drop in volleyball but are willing to set up badminton
Positive experience: Indoor courts, gym, squash and 25 m. swimming pool. Big shower area i/ sauna
Negative experience: Pretty small and always packed. Go to CIF
Positive experience: Great community feeling at the gym, people are very friendly and supportive. Most people will be happy to give a spot or tips if you ask. Only people who don't fit this description are the football team players who occupy the vast majority of the gym some mornings.
Positive experience: Good place to swim and work out.
Positive experience: The complex is old and invokes a lot of stress cuz most finals are here.
Fantastic experience: The PAC.
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