it's not you, it's me
so our year-long membership is up (we got an extra 6 weeks because of the pool being closed for so long last spring) and J looks at me and says 'i think we should see other pools'. he's sommat displeased with our current pool, for a number of reasons: during the summer the youth swim teams take up most of the pool, either by reserving the space, and sometimes by actually using it, for most of the morning, and at an indoor pool, that's an awful lot of bodies and noise; and the locker rooms aren't cleaned...well, not nearly often enough, a problem exacerbated by the floors not being level, and not having drains - and there's nothing appealing about trying to get dressed while standing in a muddy puddle. (there used to be rubber mats, but those were removed because they grew mold and lots of it. we've complained, and were told that the floors were recently put in, to code. no drains in a locker room at a pool is code? ew?)
i fished up a couple other candidates on the intarweb, and went down to have a look. first up: the Y downtown, about which i can say nothing exciting. it's a Y, it's downtown, and it doesn't have an olympic size pool. it also runs youth swim camps and whatnot. theres a join fee for the Y, and a monthly fee, but no apparent way to bundle up several months or say, a year, for a discount. second, i had a look at a place that's loosely affiliated with one of the local hospital networks. it's adult oriented, the locker rooms are carpeted, the showers have actual doors, and a little gizmo called a suitmate to spin dry your wet suits, two floors loaded up with various exercise machines and classrooms for yoga and aerobics and spinning and whatnot. and a little mini-track for people who like to walk or jog in circles instead of in place. they offer personal trainers and regular free screening days for joints and hearts, physical therapy and so on, coordinated with your physician if you need. they fall down in two places. they're oh, twice the cost of the Y, four times what we pay at our current pool; and their pool is the size of a postage stamp, 25 yards i can deal with, but they only have 5 lanes, with up to 4 being coopted by aqua classes at any given time. that gets awfully crowded awfully fast.
all of which confirms that we're already at the biggest cheapest pool in town. looks like we just grin and bear it, but looking around a bit hasn't hurt.
i fished up a couple other candidates on the intarweb, and went down to have a look. first up: the Y downtown, about which i can say nothing exciting. it's a Y, it's downtown, and it doesn't have an olympic size pool. it also runs youth swim camps and whatnot. theres a join fee for the Y, and a monthly fee, but no apparent way to bundle up several months or say, a year, for a discount. second, i had a look at a place that's loosely affiliated with one of the local hospital networks. it's adult oriented, the locker rooms are carpeted, the showers have actual doors, and a little gizmo called a suitmate to spin dry your wet suits, two floors loaded up with various exercise machines and classrooms for yoga and aerobics and spinning and whatnot. and a little mini-track for people who like to walk or jog in circles instead of in place. they offer personal trainers and regular free screening days for joints and hearts, physical therapy and so on, coordinated with your physician if you need. they fall down in two places. they're oh, twice the cost of the Y, four times what we pay at our current pool; and their pool is the size of a postage stamp, 25 yards i can deal with, but they only have 5 lanes, with up to 4 being coopted by aqua classes at any given time. that gets awfully crowded awfully fast.
all of which confirms that we're already at the biggest cheapest pool in town. looks like we just grin and bear it, but looking around a bit hasn't hurt.