To wish you could still just turn up & swim

I hate how short the sessions are, 45 mins isn't enough time and then in our local pool there's often only one family swim/free swim a day - literally 2/3 of most weekdays you can't access the pool as it's being used by swim club or some other private use which feels wrong when it is supposed to be a public amenity.

@Haveli Try your local hotels with pools. See if they have sessions for the public to use

It’s a very selfish attitude too, to want to be able to “stay as long as the children want” at the expense of others.

This! At least this way there’s certainty - you’ve either booked and can go, or you haven’t so you can’t.

Much worse to have no booking facility and have to “turn up” and queue, or be turned away because it’s full once the kids have got excited about the idea.

That isn't new though.
I remember the 'red bands' 'blue bands' in/out system from when I was going swimming as a child back in the 70s and 80s.

I much prefer booking as, as a PP has pointed out, turning up with excited DC who have their costumes on under their clothes, holding their swim rings etc, only to be turned away.

If your DC has Autism like mine - you're doomed! Trust me

They used to be open for a whole morning or afternoon and if it was busy you got a coloured band giving you an amount of time you could stay, then they would announce all red bands get out now and everyone else could stay in.
Nowadays they have set timed sessions with a 15 minute empty gap in between each one.

I prefer to book a swim using the app to book. I can see how many lane slots are already booked and avoid those times lanes are busy as I need the slow lane due to a knee injury. Separate bookable family swim sessions are great too.

Loads of pools have closed down while the population has probably doubled in many suburban areas. Since the 80s that is.

We had to book precovid. The council pool always full. It’s nothing new. I think it depends on where you live.

I went to a pool a while ago. You used to be able to just swap between the big and small pools. They are a few feet apart with no barrier. It’s really annoying with mixed ages having to choose, the little one gets too cold in one, the bigger one gets bored in the small pool.
Last time I went I booked the small pool, we were the only 3 in there. Another woman booked the big pool, she and her kids were the only three in there. Her two were getting cold, I suggested we switch.
The lifeguard went mad, shouted at us. I tried to ask why. He said it was about capacity. I pointed out that between a full size pool and a large training pool we were the only six people in the entire building, also neither pool would have a capacity of 3! Plus it was like for like numbers wise.
I was told he’d ban us if we even swapped kids to supervise and stayed in the pools ourselves as the named booking person + 2 children. Really fucking petty.
I also hate the fact sessions are 45 min, they run at awkward time for me. Say I have an hour free, I end up having to choose twenty min at the end of one session, or the twenty min at the beginning of the next. For an extortionate price too.

Booking systems are awful! I can't plan my life in advance!

I was a lifeguard back in the 80s. The pool was open from 8am to 6pm on a Saturday. Parents would drop their kids in the morning with the entry fee and 10p for the hot chocolate machine. Pick up would be late afternoon.

Unsurprisingly the pool would end up rammed and it wasnt unusual for an ambulance to be called for unsupervised kids taking a tumble and needing stitches.

They were not the good old days.

A hangover from COVID restrictions. Also, I live in quite a big touristy town and there is only ONE swimming pool. They have also a booking system, as well as higher prices and the gala pool is still always overcrowded (due to swimming lessons and kids being crowded out the fun pool) which leads to aggressive men hogging the only 3 lanes available. No wonder people don't go swimming

I agree OP, and I don't think it is due to COVID because it happened before COVID.

In the old days you could just turn up, pay cash, and walk in. Now you can only pay online and to do that you have to set up a membership, and how much it costs depends on the tier of membership, and you have to give lots of personal information just for one 45 minute swim, and they really don't care how long it takes you because it takes them no time at all. And the same is true for everything from a cinema ticket to paying to park your car for an hour in a town you won't be visiting again.

More people because of population increase and fewer pools so its' obvious they're going to be busier.

In our town, there used to be 3 public pools, one was a huge council one and two were school pools open to the public evenings and weekends. All three closed down and now we have a new, inferior/small council leisure centre pool. Hardly surprising it gets too busy and people are turned away!

Sounds like a horrid system. I was over in the UK a couple of summers ago and thought I'd take the children swimming and then discovered the whole booking malarky and couldn't take them.
Thankfully not like that where I am, even in covid times (once the pool re-opened after lockdown) it was still the normal way where you just turn up whenever you want during opening hours and swim. Time limit is technically 90 minutes I think but as there's no sessions as such, there's no feeling that you have to get out after 90 minutes, usually stay for 2 hours including sauna time. They keep the special stuff like aqua aerobics for Mondays when the pool isn't open to the general public so no need to worry about other groups using it except for during half term when there's special events on for children.

Totally agree with this. There are hardly any sessions during the weekday morning where we live so on my days off we can't go. Weekends are more relaxed but dd is little and I'd prefer to take her when it's quieter. It's always booked out for lessons or lanes.

It was an issue at my local leisure centre pool in the 90s and 00s. On Saturdays and some school holidays you could be queuing for up to an hour to get in. It was a popular attraction and due to safety couldn't be a free for all.

Yes, pre Covid you could turn up at our pool. Also you could buy a batch of 10 swim tickets which worked out about £2.80 for children and £4.50 for adults, and then use them whenever you went. Kids over 8 were allowed to swim without an adult and there wasn't a time restriction unless there was a aqua class or similar scheduled.

During Covid they stopped acccepting these and you had to book through a useless app which only allowed you to book a family swim which cost £8 per adult and £4 per child and no possibility of booking a child on their own. It took a big argument to persuade them to eventually let me use the tickets I paid for in 2019, in 2022. Since then I've not been swimming. I went in the other day and I see it now costs £6 per child for a 45 min session you have to book. No thanks.

I swear years ago when I was a child/teenager going swimming was a whole day event where we spent hours there. I can't be arsed to get dressed and then swim for an hour and come out again because the session ended.

As I say, it was never an issue at any of the pools we went to (and there were several, all run by different local authorities).

I haven't bothered to go swimming since COVID as I don't want to have to plan so far in advance and pre-book a set time.

Yes for weekends and holidays you have to book a few weeks in advance in our area. Annoying as sometimes we might want to be spontaneous

Totally agree. I hate having to prebook everything all the time.

that said, I do remember in the 1990s occasionally having to wait around at the pool reception as they were running a one in one out system on super busy days. I guess pre booking avoids that.

Also agree it has become insanely expensive.

There's a national shortage of lifeguards, plus all costs associated with running a pool - chlorine and power - have gone up enormously. It's a cost saving.