AWESOME Place for Swim Lessons

If you have young children and you're anything like me, you're dreading yet another round of $35 a pop swim lessons where 10-15 kids are crammed together into a 40-minute lesson run by a teenager who looks like they'd rather be playing Doom on their X-Box. My kids have been through I don't know how many rounds of lessons like this at rec centers around the city, and they've learned virtually nothing. So this summer I decided to search around for a more private alternative.

That's how I stumbled upon Donna's Dolphins.

The owner, Donna, runs private and semi-private lessons out of an indoor pool attached to her home. She also has other instructors who work for her. We met with Donna last night so that Tyler and Sydney could each have a half-hour trial lesson with her and see if we liked it.

We LOVED it. I don't know how she did it, but in the space of a half-hour, BOTH Tyler and Sydney made more progress than in almost all of the other lessons they've had combined. When Sydney first got in the pool, she didn't even want to put her face in the water to blow bubbles. But by the end of her half-hour, she was launching herself across the width of the pool, head down, kicking and blowing bubbles like she'd been doing it for years. And Tyler was floating on her back and flipping over on her tummy, doing the backstroke, and even starting freestroke at the end of her half hour. I sat at the edge of the pool with my jaw hanging open for the whole hour. "Stunned" doesn't begin to describe my reaction to their progress. I was flabbergasted. When it was Tyler's turn, Sydney wanted to stay in the pool and retrieve toys off the bottom.

Her pool is bright and friendly, with lots of toys and inflatables for kids to play around with (after they've done their lessons, of course). The environment is positive without being wishy-washy on correct swim techniques. And I liked the fact that they got right down to the business of learning swim techniques while still making it fun. One of the things that irritated me about the rec center lessons was it seemed like I was paying $35 to watch the kids play around in the water for the first 20 minutes.

At the end of their lesson, I asked both of them if they wanted to learn to swim at Donna's, and they both screamed, "Yeah!". I signed them up that same night.

Donna's Dolphins is not cheap, but when I added up all the money I've spent on lesson after lesson (sometimes repeating the same class level because the girls didn't pass the first or even second time) I figure I've already spent more than what I would have if I'd just known about Donna's Dolphins in the first place.

Anyway, if you're looking for a good place for your kids to learn solid swim techniques in a friendly environment, I highly recommend Donna's Dolphins. Check them out at www.donnasdolphins.com.

*Disclaimer* I am NOT being paid for this blog entry in any way. I was just so impressed by how well Tyler and Sydney took to it that I had to write something.