Over the last week or so I have been trying to find a swimming pool to train in. 30 odd years ago I used to do a fair bit of swimming and as a result developed an aversion to it. I pretty much detest swimming and all the things that are related to it. But mostly I cannot abide dirty changing rooms that I have to tiptoe around for the fear of treading in something unpleasant, cold showers and cold water in the pools themselves.
Unfortunately this means that the local council pool is a no go area, even though things may have improved over the years, they haven’t improved enough for me!
For triathlon training I think the minimum length of the pool I need has got to be 20 metres, anything less than that and I’ll be forever pushing off the ends. This narrows down what’s available locally quite dramatically and I’m left with DW Fitness.
I applied for a free day pass on their website, a week later I still hadn’t heard from then so I sent an e-mail to their customer service department. Initial impressions of DW Fitness, NOT good! I had a look on their Facebook page and just about every post is someone complaining about broken equipment, air conditioning, cutting of classes and staff attitudes. What I also find strange is generally these posts have been ignored by DW Fitness, they don’t seem to want to address the complaints on their Facebook page which isn’t good.
I’m guessing Dave Whelan isn’t too bothered about his reputation being dragged through the mire as long as there is a new paying member to replace each one that cancels their membership. I always find this a strange management approach, I’d want to build my customer base, increase revenue, invest more, have the best gyms and therefore attract more customers increasing profit. Oh dear, finding a pool might be an issue!
Eventually someone from the local DW Fitness phones me up and asks me what they can do for me. Considering I filled in an on-line form for a free day pass and also e-mailed customer services with the same request, really they should know what they can do to help! I have to explain that I want to come and check out the club and have a swim using a free day pass. At which point I’m told they don’t do free day passes, I have to come in with a paying member. I explain that this is not the case as per their offer on their website. This falls on deaf ears and I give up as I’m not 100% sure what I’m saying is correct.
Ten minutes later the phone rings again and it is DW Fitness, the girl had gone and checked and yes I’m right I can come in with a free day pass. Nobody had informed her about this offer apparently which again doesn’t create a very good impression but the girl herself was lovely and I have to give her lots of credit for going to check with management about the offer and then having the courage to phone me back and apologise for getting it wrong. It’s not all bad it seems.
Off I go to DW Fitness having persuaded my husband who also hates swimming to come with me. We arrive at reception and our names are on the list for the day to come in and try out the facilities. Another tick for DW Fitness.
The club seems pretty nice, I stick my head in the gym for a quick look. Pretty big, clean and not too busy. I then venture into the changing rooms, I didn’t see the toilets so can’t comment on them but the changing area again was clean and ship shape. The pool area is clean and tidy, there aren’t any chairs or anything like that but that’s not particularly important. There are quite a lot of people in the pool area for 10am during the week but I can still swim up and down without anyone getting in my way. We both swim 500 metres which is enough for our first swim in years and then venture back into the changing rooms.
The showers were reasonably clean but the water pressure was terrible!
I thought we should check out the coffee bar while we were there, I’m always up for a latte! The coffee was good but while we were having our drink there was someone complaining to the manager the whole time which sort of disturbed the peace.
I then inquired about secure bike storage, Dunstable DW Fitness is massive and there is a lot of available space where secure bike storage could be accommodated. But no, bikes have to be left outside which probably means that if you have a semi-decent bike it would be gone by the time you came back out, not ideal. But overall a pretty good impression created and for £29.99 for Off-Peak membership it’s not cost prohibitive either.
Now for a comparison ……. I opt for David Lloyd at Milton Keynes. We spend a lot of time in MK these days so it might work for us. Within 24hrs of requesting a free day pass on the DL website I receive a call from the club. Wow, they are obviously well organised!
I arrange our passes over the phone and within a couple of days we are at DL. It’s a huge complex near Willen Lake, housing an indoor and outdoor pool, tennis, badminton and squash courts as well as the obvious gym.
The changing rooms themselves are clean but the toilets aren’t great. There are about six, one is out of order. I go in another one and someone has left it in a mess so I flush it and retreat into the cubicle next to it. Not a good start considering my aversion to filth! The showers need a bit of refurbishment as well, they are hot with decent water pressure but the ceiling tiles are covered in mold and a lot of them aren’t sat properly in the ceiling frame.
The swimming pool complex is amazing, the indoor pool is 25 metres long with three lanes roped off for lane swimming. Although in the medium speed lane there are a couple of old dears just walking up and down in it. Considering there is a life guard on duty why doesn’t he ask them to move into the section that isn’t specifically for lane swimming. This bugs me straight away! If you’re not swimming please don’t go in the swimming lanes! Despite this the pool is great.
We then decide to brave the cold and try the outdoor pool which was empty of people. The outdoor pool is 20 metres in length and currently not open to children which is great if you want to swim. Although it was cold outside once we started swimming we soon warmed up and in no time had covered 1000 metres. I loved being outdoors, watching the steam rising from the pool ……. I could get used to this!
We met up with the membership chap after our swim and had a coffee and the hard membership sell. To be fair DL has everything you could wish for in a club but at around £1000 each for the year you’ve got to get your monies worth. As I’m only really going to use the swimming pool £1000 is a bit steep, I could almost build one in the back garden for the price of our two memberships! The other problem is that in reality I think it is too far from home, I can’t just pop out for a quick swim, it would probably take up two hours of my day with the commute.
So although a shame and if I lived in MK it might be different, it looks like DW Fitness is going to have to suffice for the time being and I’ll have to put up with how they run their clubs. Dunstable might be well run, fingers crossed.
Fat lass to triathlete 