To wish you could still just turn up & swim

[Haveli]

All of the pools local to me used to have smaller children's pools where you could just rock up, pay and swim. Now you have to book a session at specific times. Dd was desperate to go swimming today but nowhere has a session. There was one 2-3 but it was already gone 2 at this point.

I get that they have lessons on at certain times but I've checked and there's none this afternoon so just whyyyy.

AIBU to think this is just stupid and annoying that you cant just decide to go swimming anymore or am I missing something?

I hate having these one hour sessions. The pools used to just give you a coloured band and when it reached capacity they would call out the first colour. You used to be able to swim all day or even for two hours when it was busy. I have a disabled child and we found that by the time we've got ready to swim we've lost a large part of our swim time. And you can't always get there for a set time. We used to swim after school and do 15:30 until 17:00 but now we can't because there's only a 15:00 session or a 16:15 one.

This annoys me in every aspect of life. I use to drop into places that I now don't because I don't know if I'm going to be free. A group I used to go to stop taking Eventbrite bookings the night before, but with two children who have school issues I don't always know if I'm going to be free the next morning. I go swimming with my daughter every weekend, but they only have three one-hour slots a day and we sometimes miss the slots if something comes up. Really low capacity too. I wish we could go back to turning up to some things, where bookings get priority but if there's space we could just go in.

I tend to agree really. Obviously the ability to book is brilliant as it avoids wasted time/disappointment etc., BUT the inability to at least randomly turn up and take the risk is a massive loss. I do wish we could get a middle ground of a certain percentage of slots being compulsory to book and a certain percentage being held back only to be available for "walk ups". I fully understand why organisations do it, but I also think they could be risky losing business by people simply not bothering, especially for a few organisations who automatically close their online bookings on the day itself, giving the impression it's full, when they still have available spaces.

I've just been on a heritage railway. Pleased to see when I looked at their website a few days again that they no longer do the compulsory advance booking so we turned up on spec, bought tickets and had a good day on it. We holidayed in the same place last year and their website was all "advance bookings essential, no walks up tickets available", which put us off and we decided not to go on it then. But as it was local, we still went to the station as we had an hour or two to kill and thought it would be good for a photo, look at the gift shop and have a coffee and cake, and pretty annoyed to see the booking office open, people buying tickets and a half empty train at the platform! At least they saw sense and stopped that stupidity eventually and updated their website! Compulsory bookings and seating plans etc may have been essential during the lockdowns, but a lot of places seem to have kept the restrictions when there's simply no need.

Not sure where you are at but all the swimming around d here is turn up and swim during general swim times. No need to book. We're in County Durham

It’s an absolute pain. You used to be able to swim any time. Now they constantly have lessons so you can only go and swim in the kids pool on Saturdays. Also you could go in the big or small pool as you liked - now you have to pick one pool and stay in it. And my local pool now has 45 minute sessions so it’s hardly worth going swimming! We spend more time travelling and changing than we spend in the water.

In the good old days we used to go swimming and stay in as long as we felt like it, at least an hour and a half. Who on earth bothers going swimming for 45 minutes?

You just turn up at ours. They have bands if it's busy. Just like when I was young.

I swim outdoors now in a reservoir
5ft ish deep across the whole way, huge, sand on the bottom and no drains/pipes/anything dangerous
No booking

I hate it too. 50 minutes is a stupidly short session with kids. And I swim lanes as well and the timed sessions have the effect of bunching everyone up- so everyone gets in the pool at the same time, making the lanes much more congested. If you staggered times it would relieve the pressure as most people don't swim lanes for more than 45 minutes ish.

The other thing which I think has come in since covid is lifeguards making the DC do a swim test every single time. I get they don't just want to take parents' word for it but it involves loads of hanging about at the start of each session which are already short. They should be able to put it on the system somehow so when you check in they get a band or something.

Oh, and also, lidos. There is literally no point going to a lido for 50 minutes. The point is to be able to hang out all day. Pre covid you got there early, or you waited for someone to come out. People took picnics. 50 minutes is the most depressing thing ever, especially as they haven't reduced the prices at most of them.

Agree, 50 minutes is not worth going for. By the time you’ve got the kids in it’s time to get out and they get annoyed and it’s really expensive now.