Pengu Swim School

My son has been swimming at Pengu since 6 months old. We absolutely love it. The facility is super cute, but more importantly, super CLEAN. The staff is extremely friendly. Ms. Sam is the most wonderful instructor and simply incredible with the kids and parents alike. Sometimes I don’t look forward to getting in the water, but I ALWAYS look forward to seeing her. She’s consistently positive and uplifting, exuding a warm and loving energy, but extremely focused and on-​point with accomplishing as much as we can in a 30-​minute class. I’m proud to see that my son has made immense progress since starting the program and he clearly enjoys the experience. It’s also a wonderful and «different» activity for us to do together that breaks up our daily routine.

I love pengu swim! We came across it for my sons 2^nd birthday the prices, the place and the service was wonderful. All the kids and adults had a wonderful time! I then enrolled my son for swimming classes and even though this is his first time in a toddler class without a parent he loves it. He’s always so excited to come and I see him improving his swim techniques. I am very happy we found this place :-)

While this is just the cutest little place ever I’m just completely turned off by what’s behind the cute exterior. The outside of the building is nothing fancy but when you walk through the front door you are hit with bright colors and a very vibrant layout. I knew from the moment I discovered them it was the perfect place to have my daughters birthday pool party.
The day of the party I was excited the day had arrived but I didn’t get that same excitement from the staff and as much as their packages cost I should have received the best customer service ever! I told them what time to order pizza and apparently it came early and instead of asking if we wanted it served upon its arrival my guest was served cold pizza! Not only was the pizza cold but one large pizza was $ 25!!! Yes, you heard my correctly! When I booked the party no one told me the prices would be hiked up. I thought I was receiving regular oh Dominoes pizza at the regular olé price.
Then, I found myself cleaning off the tables to prepare for cake. I in turn had to go tell the attendant that I was ready for cake to be served. There was know smooth flow to my party or great customer service. They advertise a worry free party and that they will do all the work and all I got was a sour lemon.
If the place wasn’t so darn cute I would have given it one star for the party experience alone.

I was recently thinking about enrolling my daughter in swim lessons at Pengu. She was invited to a birthday party there one Saturday. The facility was very clean and the Pengu employees were very informative and friendly. However I later spoke to a women who was the aquatics manager and I couldn’t help but notice she reeked of alcohol and appeared to be intoxicated. Even though the facility was awesome and the hours corresponded with my hectic work schedule, it really bothered me that the aquatics manager of all people would appear to be tipsy. I don’t care if you drink but please be responsible to not do it before work when you are around children! My thoughts about Pengu have changed.

Your first experience was great and the staff there has been more the friendly.
After a little frustration due to flooding I spoke with Charles and they were great at fixing the situation and making it right.
The pool is ice and warm the changing rooms are clean. All the kids had fun and looking forward to continuing our lessons with them.

Terrible experience here. Scarred my four year old with an instructor that basically «dunked» him on the first visit. He couldn’t sleep at night with fears of having to go back to this place. Six months later, he is still scared to get in the water. Maybe there are good instructors out there, but they need to get rid of this particular male instructor who thinks the pool is boot camp.
No refund, no apologies, money down the tube.

Pengu has great installations! I would like to thanks Charlie for his great help and prompt response on the misunderstanding about a cancelled class. We live 1hr far away from Pengu and I’m willing to do it every Saturday morning. For sure I highly recommend it, the intermediate class is very dynamic and it has given more confidence to my daughter, she really enjoy it.

While the facility is beautiful, conveniently located, suitable for children outside the pool area, and the method arguably successful, I found the instructors and staff to be largely lacking in compassion for young children (ages 2 and 4) who are approaching a pool with a healthy dose of fear for water. With the exception of one instructor, who was wonderful to work one on one with my oldest son for two lessons, the other staff who taught my children ignored the tears and fear that they both expressed during their lessons. After watching my 2 year old being repeatedly subjected to swim techniques that he was very clearly scared by, and after 15 minutes of tears and crying out, I decided to pull him out of the pool for the day. I was told instead to leave the observation area so that my already terrified child could no longer see me, at which point I went immediately to the pool area to end his lesson. The instructors tried to block my path and convince me that he was ok, and when I said «no, he’s not ok, he’s terrified and has been crying for half his lesson!» one instructor said, «he’s not been crying that loud. He’s fine.» They continued to argue with me about ending his lesson, saying that his behavior was normal for the first several lessons and that he would get over it, until I said «This is not negotiable. I am not arguing with you. His lesson is over» and I was finally allowed to retrieve my child.
I am an avid swimmer, and have been certified in swim instruction, teaching many children to swim without tears and without fear. We do not have a pool at home, but I can appreciate the need for teaching survival swim skills to children who have regular access to pools at home, though I would personally choose preventative measures over the rigid and, quite frankly, harsh methods used at Pengu. If you are looking for a swim school that will foster a positive attitude about swimming, especially if your child is already a little fearful of the pool, my advice would be to look elsewhere. Heading into swim season, I will be spending a lot of time undoing the fear that Pengu instilled in my children after only three lessons.
Additionally, their 30 day cancellation policy is as rigid and unforgiving as their swim instruction technique. Not only am I completely dissatisfied with our experience at Pengu, but I’m being forced to pay for lessons for 2 children for 30 more days even though we won’t be going back.

Our oldest daughter has attended Pengu since they opened, so for over a year now, and our younger daughter started a couple months after.
We have had great experiences at Pengu particularly regarding their responsiveness. Our older daughter became anxious about swimming after 7 – 8 months, when she moved up classes to Intermediate and had to do more independently. Shelby, the manager worked with us and we ended up switching instructors. After a few months, our daughter became anxious again and the owner, Lothar, immediately returned my call around my concerns (on a Saturday morning too)! He met my daughter at her class that day & ensured that we were all on the same page around increasing her comfort in the water before having her do more.
Additionally, any time I’ve called to get a progress report for my kids it’s been emailed immediately which I appreciate. They also worked with us to get our kids into class at the same time.
The facilities are great and consistently clean. There are plenty of lifeguards on duty who are very focused on pool safety and the students.
Overall I highly recommend it.

Pros: great facility, good atmosphere, friendly staff, clean
Julie has been my son’s instructor for almost 6 months and she is amazing. She is great with babies and truly cares about teaching the proper methods of water safety. Not only does she guide your child, she will give the parents detailed explanations about the Pengu method.
Cons:
Its a young business so they are still working out some kinks with service– I did have a service issue here, but once the manager, Charlie, became aware of my issue, he promptly apologized and resolved everything.
I’ve read many of the reviews, and having some issues myself here, I realized its all about asking for the right person to handle any problem that may occur. Since the business is so young, not everyone there knows how to handle issues. Charlie is a great manager with the business skills to resolve whatever issue you may have and keep you happy.
I do think some instructors are better than others– some really want to teach your child proper water safety and swimming methods while others over assist in your child’s tasks
Overall this is a great place and my son loves coming here

My 2 ½ year old loves her weekly class taught by an exceptional staff. The facility is so clean. I see the premises being cleaned every time we are there.
As far as the chlorine issue, which was mentioned by a fellow Unilocaler is something that cannot really be helped. Chlorine and the amount used is within regulations which is why showers are provided to rinse off immediately after class.
Near the beginning of enrollment we missed a class and did not know the cancellation policy of calling in 30 min prior to class. They were understanding and made a one time exception to allow a future makeup.
I look forward to taking our daughter each week and will definitely be signing up our baby girl when the time comes.
The environment here is happy, positive and wonderful for children and parents to mingle before and after class.
We love Pengu!!!

To say this place makes attending swim lessons pleasant for the adults would be an understatement. They really thought through the layout of the place when they built it and how to run the lessons themselves. You can sit in chairs or at a table to watch your kids’ lesson in the air-​conditioned comfort unlike some other places around town where you’ll be melting during the summer months. My kids love the instructors, and I have seen significant improvement in their skills all through the summer (we’re continuing through the Fall as well). You receive an email when your child has attained a certain skill so you always know where they stand in terms of moving to a new level. There are changing rooms, 4 or 5 bathrooms, and we’ve never had a problem with the chlorine (and I’ve swam in the pool, too).
We had my daughter’s 5yo birthday party here and it was a blast. The kids all take a short little swim test to see if they can swim across the short side of the pool and back unassisted. If they can’t, then for parties they need to swim with an adult or wear a Pengu life jacket. Easy. They also have these really large floating «toys» like canoes, a race car, an airplane, rafts. They provide lifeguards for the party as well (huge benefit in my book). Swim time is an hour an 20 mins for a party. They also set up the tables and provide some plates, forks, and balloons. You can order pizza or Chik fil A through Pengu but we chose to bring our own food (we’re sick of pizza and chicken nuggets at kids’ bday parties). The guys running the place during the parties were wonderfully helpful.
The reason they get 4 stars instead of 5 stars is because of their account management. It would be extremely helpful to be able to cancel via phone or online, rather than physically in person. Granted, you have to give 30 days’ notice so you’ll still be going there, but sometimes you just want to get it done. We also had a problem signing up when we were told that two spots were available for a particular time and when we called to register at the time they said to call the spots had been taken the day before by someone who had wanted to start that week rather than the week after. I would have gladly paid for a missed week (or done a single class absence) had I known as that meant we ended up at a much earlier class than we wanted and I had to leave work super-​early 1x/​week. I cancelled classes after a month because I couldn’t keep leaving early, but told them if something later opened up to call me. They did, and we’re back. I think some of this is just working out the kinks of a new business. If it’s still happening a year from now then there are other problems.

Pro’s — facility is great. Staff is abundant and helpful.
Con’s — there is enough chlorine in that pool to peel your skin. Our kid wouldn’t stay in. His first word was water. He LOVES swimming. Cancellation policies are just dumb. You need to physically drive to the location to cancel in person.
Given the train wreck of a first class, and the tremendously inconvenient cancellation policies, we cancelled on the spot and left. Won’t bother going back.

My family loves Pengu swim school for the instructors and the facility. They are both top notch and we look forward to many years of continuing to use the facility. My daughter loves her instructors and we are very impressed with the build quality and convenience of the new building and pools.
The problem I have with Pengu comes down to their billing practices and management decisions. Our daughter was signed up for $ 78/​month swimming lessons that took place each Friday at 10:00am. She has attended this class regularly since Pengu opened last year.
Recently, we decided to enroll her in a new two week summer class for $ 200 that meets every day in early June. We signed up a couple weeks before the class started and intended to replace the first class and cancel it since the two meet at the same time and she obviously cannot attend both at once. We were not anticipating this to be a problem for Pengu, especially since we had essentially «upgraded» and replaced the lower cost class with the more expensive one.
Unfortunately, the $ 78 for the June weekly classes had already debited a day earlier and by the time we discussed the conflict with the manager, he refused to issue a refund, citing their 30-​day cancellation notice policy. Considering the circumstances and what was very obviously a simple mistake, I asked him to make an exception, especially since we already paid $ 200 for the replacement class and would not use any of the services for the $ 78 class. After a long back and forth, he offered only to give us $ 60 worth of credit towards family swim days. Family swim days are not lessons… basically you pay just to swim around in the pool. So, this is a no-​cost option for the manager to avoid giving us a refund. He wouldn’t even consider crediting our account so we could use the $ 78 towards future lessons. Essentially, we just donated $ 78 to Pengu thanks to a fine print, and heavily enforced, technicality.
I guess a policy is a policy, and Pengu feels from a customer service perspective that they cannot make exceptions to their billing practices, regardless of individual circumstances or even of their own level of accountability. At this point, I hold them at least partially responsible for not informing us when we signed up for the second class that they run concurrently and that a refund on the first class would not be given. If they had, we could have addressed the issue at that point, before paying the additional $ 200.
Like I said above, we really like the school and instructors, but I do think that it is important to alert consumers of this situation. As I told the manager, I understand this policy very clearly, but he should not expect every single case to be the same or for everyone to read and perpetually remember the massive amount of fine print they have you sign, as we very obviously would not have intentionally signed up and paid for two classes that occur at the same time.
Pengu has only been in business for a few months, and I can see just from Unilocal that I am not the first to have this issue… hopefully, I am the last, and they will adjust from an unwavering static policy to more of a «common sense» approach as they get more settled into the realities of customer service and good business practices. We’ll keep our fingers crossed as we continue to enjoy the aspects of the business that do not require interaction with management.
BOTTOM LINE: At the end of the day, and beyond all of the excuses and fine print, Pengu took $ 78 from my family budget and invested it into their business without having to provide a service. Pay strict attention to the fine print (there’s a lot) and understand that when they say «NO EXCEPTIONS,» they deviously mean under any and all circumstances.

We love this swim school. After attending another swim school in the loop, we are so thankful to have found Pengu. It is everything we could want in a swim school. I have never experienced anything described by Camille below. In fact, the owner of the school substitute taught our class today and I was blown away. He was so hands on and was wonderful with my 20 month old. Love this place!

My experience at Pengu over the last few months have been negative after negative after negative. Their swim instructors are great, but the staff and management is just poor. I hope that they can afford to treat their members the way they have treated me and my family because they are so fully booked that they don’t need any more happy members. I am ending my membership as soon as possible. Of course they refuse to mail or e-​mail me the cancellation form and require that I come in to cancel (like I have so much time. Plus, they require 30 days notice to cancel so I’ll be charged a month of lessons with no value. After not being able to come to our classes for a month because they refuse to call me to confirm whether my babies can move up to a toddler class, and refuse to work with me to find a class for them. Ridiculous.

We absolutely love this facility! Really cute, very clean and super great for kids of all ages. Staff is so incredibly friendly. This has been such a great experience for us. Can’t recommend it enough.

Love this place. It’s a perfect environment for kids to learn how to swim. They have thought of everything, from abundant changing areas to automatic hot showers when they get out of the pool. My son is almost 2 and we started lessons when they opened. I’ve been really impressed with the quality of each lesson and at how quickly my son is picking up swimming.