Good swimming pool for family of 4?

December2012

Can anybody recommend a suitable (or even warn against an unsuitable) swimming pool in Dublin 15 for our needs:

Parent 1 - overweight but can swim, wants to swim to complement other work outs, increase stamina and swimming ability. Works very long hours on other side of city.

Parent 2 - nervous adult swimmer with a drowned relative, don't want to pass fears onto kids, stay at home parent presently.

Children (1 and 4) never swam, parents want them to swim, be confident in water and not have fear of drowning like parent 2 does.

There are lots near us but I'd love to hear from personal experience before I financially commit.

Gaspode

The National Aquatic centre is excellent, with a range of pools, and a good children's area. Lessons available afaik. Coolmine is small but also very good, and has some really good trainers.
Overall, I'd recommend the NAC of the 2.

Morag

http://www.nationalaquaticcentre.ie/NAC_TimesPrices.php

The NAC can be a bit costly to go there as the kids will want to do the aqua zone.

The Finglas swimming pool on Mellows road is not that far away and does a family swim for 12 euros.

http://www.dublincity.ie/RecreationandCulture/SportsFacilities/LeisureCentres/Locations/pages/finglasleisurecentre.aspx

iMADEtheBBC

Agreed on the costs with NAC - too expensive for families. If the kids are young and get bored after 30-40 minutes or you can't re-enter after a break.

We had a lot of success with the swimming classes in the Coolmine Sports Center. All 3 of our kids (including 1 very nervous beginner) learned to swim there. They do adult classes also. Much more reasonable price too.

JupiterKid

I would recommend Coolmine swimming pool as the National Aquatic Centre is obscenely expensive.

The SVP pool on the Navan Road was also good but sadly it's been closed a couple of years now.:(

BostonB

+1 on Coolmine. Old and tatty, but probably the best value regardless. Ours do lessons there and on the Navan rd. They've moved the lessons on the Navan rd, to the pool in the deaf school btw. I've heard Fingal pool is decent, and newer than coolmine, never been there, so I have no experience of that.

I would suggest send the kids to lessons, then the adult do their own thing at different times. Its impossible to do anything except watch the kids when they are on the pool with you.

Turbulent Bill

Gaspode wrote: »

The National Aquatic centre is excellent, with a range of pools, and a good children's area. Lessons available afaik. Coolmine is small but also very good, and has some really good trainers.
Overall, I'd recommend the NAC of the 2.

I'd recommend the NAC also. Our daughter (18 months) does a weekend parent-and-baby class in the AquaZone, though at that age it's just familiarisation rather than swimming teaching. Think it is €70 for 8 or 10 lessons, so excellent value. Our class starts before the AquaZone opens to the public, so it's quiet too. Would be perfect for the OP's 1 year-old and Parent 2, as the water is shallow. Probably too baby-ish for the 4 year-old though. There are classes for older kids in the main pool too but I'm not familiar with them.

For Parent 1, I think most pools (including the NAC) have off-peak memberships if you're working odd hours.

December2012

What do you think of castleknock hotel / golf club or wesrmanstown?

BostonB

Castleknock hotel pool is quite small. Depends if you actually want to swim or just play I guess. Westmanstown is a decent size, see below. But I think you have to join the gym to use it. I could be wrong.

http://www.crunchfitness.ie/hiwestpool.html