Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre

Sunday afternoon isn’t the best time to visit Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre. Half the lanes are reserved for swimming lessons, three are for lappies, leaving one for the everyone else that includes us.The Harry Seidler architecture is still enchanting, but the whole place is feeling a bit overused and suffering for it. The chlorine levels are hectic, making the place smell awful. You definitely need a shower immediately after a dip here. Temperature is wrong in the therapy pool making it too cold to enjoy sitting in the jets. Maybe we’re just out of the indoor pool groove, after so many ocean versions, but I doubt we’ll hurry back.

Pool facilities are good however, the provider they choose to use for baby swim lessons is horrible to deal with. I cannot recommend it to anyone, better you go to the private baby swim pools in the area. The knowledge of instructors varies greatly, some have clearly never thought babies before. It’s exactly the same activities every week unless a new instructor happens to run the class. Together with most parents from our group I have canceled but do their processes are so inefficient that nobody looks at the cancellation form which you need to submit online. Not worth the hassle, go elsewhere for swimming lessons, especially for babies.

My favourite swimming hole. Staff always welcoming and engaging. Facilities clean, tidy and in good order. Parking is easy and not to expensive.

Great facility- my opinion, the best aquatic complex in the city. Warm showers that are not on timer buttons… Steam and sauna! And a great weight room.

Simply the worst admin I have ever experienced or you could imagine.Zero stars.Expensive, no waiting list for kids lessons, unhelpful and inept.Only two kids can fit on a family membership.Strongly recommend using any other pool in Sydney.

Good pool, best to get in early, if your an experienced swimmer you’ll need to stick to medium / fast lanes as too many floaters in the slow lane. Kids pool is good, good temp too, seems to attract grandparents though who mysteriously like to hover over the fountain jets.. anyway it’s a very well lit and ventilated space, the design promotes a really nice openness and it is actually quite pleasant. . Change rooms are reasonably clean and maintained.The cafe has been closed for a while now, would be great if they opened it, even if just for coffee and juice.Swimming programs are pretty decent, all the coaches we have had thus far for the kids- learn to swim and squads - have been great and I highly recommend them.On the admin side, not super responsive, I’ve tried calling a few times and just get a voicemail, email responses are not super great. Your best method is administer your account via the portal.

I love swimming here. The pool is fantastic, the facilities are clean, the water is warm and the showers are hot, staff are friendly and welcoming, parking underground if needed and public transportation nearby. They can be a bit behind on maintenance sometimes with the sauna going down often but otherwise 5 stars

Great 50m pool with lanes dedicated to fast, medium, and slow swimmers. They usually have classes for kids going on and will only leave the center lanes for the general public. A casual pool visit is 6$ (concession) and a casual gym, pool, and sauna visit is roughly $11 (concession). I personally liked the fact that they had two saunas. My only criticism would be the lockers and not having a proper changing room. Otherwise, a positive experience.

I have made so many attempts to swim here but more often than not you can't get more than a few laps out because every lane is chock full of slow swimmers. Attempts to raise it with staff are met with incomprehension. For over 8 dollars a session it's just not good enough. Another example of how Sydney's great facilities, full of paying customers, become dysfunctional because of lacklustre management.

My daughter has been swimming in this swimming pool for years. Generally good facility and friendly staff, but tonight I had one of my worst experience. Upon exiting the car park, the machine can’t read my parking ticket. So I pressed the help button and hoping they will let me out as the lift is broken and it’s quite a climb also the parking fee is only 3 dollars. But I was told by Jonko I have to go up and pay for the ticket as it’s their procedure they can’t just let me out. So I walked all the way up and paid my 3 dollars. Then just before I’m driving out. The driver in front of me also had problem with the machine, but was immediately let out by the female staff after pressing help. I asked her why this driver was let out, she stammered and told me that driver only had Amex which is clearly a lie. I have no problem walking all the steps and pay 3 dollars as it’s the procedure. And I also understand the staff sometimes let a customer out in some circumstances to make customers’ life easier. But I’m disgusted by how different staffs treat customers so differently!