Orinda Park Pool

From the very first time I set foot on the OPP grounds I wanted to become a member. I grew up in the East Bay and have been to a great many community pools over the years, and very few of them have the natural charm and beauty of OPP.
Full disclosure: I’m not only now a member but I’m currently serving on the OPP board.
OPP started out as a natural lake, and was developed over time into the multi-​faceted recreational facility it is today. Nonetheless, it still feels like it belongs where it is: nestled on the hillside surrounded by oaks. It’s a gorgeous place to spend a summer afternoon, as the pictures posted by other Unilocalers clearly demonstrate. It’s become a focal point of our family’s summers, and at this point I can’t imagine life without OPP.
Just like at any large community facility there are challenges from time to time, but in my experience they are few and far between, and the huge positives vastly outweigh the occasional negative. After all, it’s a community pool, not a for-​profit health club.
I think at least one (and possibly two) of the super-​critical reviews below is from a particular ex-​member with an axe to grind. While many of this person’s assertions are overblown, especially ridiculous is the absurd comment about OPP being run by an ultra-​conservative religious group trying to prevent females from wearing bikinis! Not only untrue, but a really weird untrue thing to claim in a Unilocal review, don’t you think?
As for the OPP community (which is not limited to Orinda residents, btw), I’ve rarely met a friendlier group of people. Come on out and join us.

This is a great community pool. Love going here when it’s not too crowded but that usually means chef Dave isn’t there :/​they have adult swim every hour here too. There’s a half court for basketball and a couple of ping pong tables, a playground and a volleyball court. Perfect summer spot up in the Tilden park area

I came here for a swim meet and the place was in a terrible spot, and the place was completely outdated and old DO NOT GO HERE

We have had a family membership since our son was 5 and our twin daughters were 1. We love this place and have celebrated many of our children’s birthdays here. Over the years, our kids joined the swim team and really love it. The coaches are warm, professional, and care about developing your child as a swimmer and good sport. The summer is filled with great workouts and fun activities. I really cannot say enough about how wonderful the pool is and how our foggy summers in Berkeley are now transformed by this sunny little place.

We joined this pool sight unseen because we were desperate to escape the fog in Piedmont. The pool seemed lovely at first… that is until we got to know some of the people. The majority of the people we encountered were rude and downright unfriendly. We stuck around mostly because we didn’t want to pay the fees to join the Claremont and didn’t know of any other private pools. By our second year there, our kids begged to join the swim team.
The pool is actually pretty and ok if you don’t care what the pool managers (rude) or lifeguards are like (unfriendly– always yelling at kids and quite punitive). But swim team is an entirely different beast.
The head coach is very immature and seems to be dialing it in. There is another co-​head coach who actually runs a swim team in Albany who is truly one of the meanest coaches my kids have ever encountered. He would yell at them for the most minor infractions… so much so that my kids began hating swim team and never wanted to go to practice. We did notice that the swim team is run by parent volunteers and if you are the child of one of those parents, then you would absolutely get special treatment and could literally get away with anything. One of the reviewers tried to claim that the pool has become more competitive with more technical coaching… I never actually witnessed this. My wife and I are both swimmers and we thought the coaching was atrocious. There are about 7 – 8 kids per a lane with the coaches barking very rote orders, with no particular attention being paid to any one swimmer. If you care about swimming and your child wants to swim in high school and beyond– this is not the swim team for you.
We had talked about 4 other families into joining the pool at the same time that we did, and they have all since sold their memberships for varying reasons– some simply didn’t use the pool enough to make it worth the while and others simply couldn’t handle all the negatives (unfriendly people. lots of fecal alerts, bad food at the snack shack, dirty bathrooms, bad coaches, mean parent volunteers… i could go on and on) On a beautiful day last summer, I held a barbeque for some work buddies. There were maybe 25 people at the pool. Within an hour of being there, the lifeguard was yelling at the top of his lungs and jumping up and down poolside like a crazy person. We couldn’t figure out what was going on, but it was so disturbing that my friends vowed they would never come back– no matter how much free food I offered them!
One last thing worth noting is that the pool seems to be run by some ultra conservative religious group. We have heard through people in the know, that some members of the parent run board tried to ban bikini’s for girls and speedos for boys! I personally find this outrageous!!! Also, when we did sell our membership– it took a long time to get our money back with a lot of emails having to be sent.
Conclusion: save your money and pay day rates elsewhere– or pony up and join one of the country clubs or the Claremont!

We love it! My wife and I joined Park Pool in 2000 before kids and the big upgrade. It isn’t nearly as crowded now that there is a gate, but it is on a beautiful wooded hillside so there is not a mall like parking lot. Our kids joined the swim team a few years ago, and it has been a wonderful social experience. It’s got to be the tied for if not the most social pool in Orinda. The kids always find there friends there from both sides of the tunnel. It’s always a great place to hang out and even more so with kids. Of course over the years, we have run into the occasional grumpy individual or fecal alert, but we don’t exclude people and I am glad to know their monitoring for contamination!

OPP is a great place for families and swim team for the kids. We’ve been members for 5 years and our daughter loves and looks forward to every summer as part of the Stingrays.

Our family has been memebrs for the pool for 5 years, and we are ready to switch! This is not the friendly family pool any more!
The pool hired new guard team this year. The manager of the guard raises his voices often when discussing issues, safety rules are inconsistent on daily basis, and not professional! In addition, he often chating with girl coaches while on duty and «take» lost and found items for his own use. What does pool management do? Nothing!
Parking is awful. Daily parking is very challenging. If you don’t want you young kids walking in the sun when you park far, or worry about dropping off kids while go find a parking space, this is not your pool!

«Not your friendly neighborhood pool.»
After moving off El Toyonal our family joined OPP with the expectation of having a delightful sun-​soaked swim filled summer. After just a few visits to the pool, however, and we were disappointed and left with sour tastes in our mouths. Here are a few examples.
1. During my wife’s third visit to OPP, we struck up a conversation with an elderly woman who stated that she’d been a member of the pool for forty-​five years. The woman proceeded to question my wife about «where was she from?» When my wife replied that she’d been born in Berkeley, the woman said, «No. Where are your parent from?» When my beautiful wife told her where her father had been born, the woman actually stuck her nose up, turned her back on us and refused to say anything else! It was beyond shocking. My precious 2 y/​o son was there! I had heard remarks about Orinda being stuck in the 50s, but this was like a slap in our family’s face. After that, my wife didn’t really feel like going back to the pool again.
2. The pool was closed too often because of fecal contaminants.
3. We had a very difficult time getting our deposit returned after we decided another year of the pool wasn’t worth it. Although we promptly supplied OPP with an address change, the pool sent the check to our old address and then asked our family to go there and pick it up. We had to email OPP too many times before our deposit was returned. Lastly, too much attitude from a «volunteer» staff member when we were just trying to exit OPP.
We wanted to like OPP. Honestly, we wanted to love it! Well, so much for expectations. I’m giving OPP the two-​stars because of its chill pre-​season and the nice pool manager who has the moving company.

Our family has been members for 6 years and we are a «Park Pool For Life» swimming family. Pool and grounds are the best in Orinda and a causal and the family-​friendly atmosphere is a welcomed respite from the chaos of life. Stringrays swim team has become more competitive over the past couple of years with the addition of strong technical coaching staff. OPP finished 4^th overall out of the 9 pool OMPA league. If you are interested in great technical swim team opportunities balanced with family-​friendly social environment, OPP is your pool!

This is the best pool to join in Orinda, especially if you have little kids. Ignore all comments from resentful, self-​important Au Pairs, who feel like they just wasting time until they become stars or something and who are probably using their cell phone to text when they are supposed to be watching kids. If you can get into the pool, (there is usually a wait list) you are lucky. The sides of the pool are shallow and stepped making it the perfect way to spend your summer afternoons and weekends with your children and create wonderful memories for your family!

talk about childhood memories. the membership demographics have changed a bit since the pool was recently remodeled (more irresponsible parents with annoying kids – but hey, maybe i’m just older), but overall Park Pool’s remained the same awesome place with the same awesome people. amazingly beautiful area, great swim team, just be prepared to deal with bitchy au pair’s who fail to keep their babysat kids from peeing in the kiddie pool

Welcome to the circle of Hell: the Orinda Park Pool Parking Lot
Aggressive, self important, stick up their asses moms double parking on a hot July afternoon. It took me 25 minutes to get out of the parking lot, since I had no idea that stopping your car to talk with other bitchy moms on the narrow street leading out of the place is not considered a faux pas in these parts.
Since my alter ego doubles as an Au Pair, she has to shuttle the progeny of the affluent to such places. I personally find nothing wrong with the kids; E. E Cummings said it best «You shall above all things be glad and young». Ahh the summers of the youth should only be spent in places like this. The pool itself and the facilities are pretty wonderful but I always have my qualms about «private» establishments and their negative correlation with people of color.
Despite the splashing playfulness of the little kiddies, I couldn’t get over my own disgust with the place. What happened to the old days of hopping the fence at the public pool like they did in «The Sandlot»?
Squints and Wendy Peffercorn would have never gone to a place like this.