Kennedy Shriver Aquatic Center

They have a nice indoor lap pool, however, the front counter employees (Steve) could use a refresher course on customer service — terrible. It makes me think twice about coming back here.

I took my four-​year-​old son here last weekend and we had a great time. Looking at some of the negative reviews, it would seem that the customer service is not the greatest. I didn’t have much to do with the customer service when i came aside from when I paid coming in. The lifeguards didn’t seem overly assertive with their whistle-​blowing though they did call out a couple kids for doing things that they obviously considered a no-​no.
There are several pools with one, in particular, to accommodate the kids and their parents. It’s around 3 to 4 feet deep. The water is a good temperature and there’s this neat mushroom hood on a pole built into the pool with water falling on top of it, so it cascades in a waterfall all around which the kids love jumping into. Well, truth me told, I did too. :)
With all the thrashing and swimming and jumping around of kids, you might figure there would be families bumping into each other, and yes that did inevitably happen. But no one got upset or ornery about it and everyone seemed to be in a good mood.
The water slide was closed that day, which is why I gave this four instead of five stars. That’s probably not fair and I don’t know if I would have gone down the slide with my son – I think he would have had to be a certain height. In any case, I would have had to personally judge whether I thought it was safe or not.
But we spent more time in the water and having a good time than I thought we would. Then we took a shower (I didn’t care, per another reviewer’s comment, that there were naked men in the shower… that’s what happens in a locker room), we got dressed and left the facility in a very good mood. My son conked out in the child seat heading home so I knew he had invested a lot of good energy swimming around. When we got home, I just read a book in the driver’s seat while he slept close to an hour. He definitely deserved the nap.
We’ll definitely come back. It was a great afternoon.

I just finished a water babies class here and I WILL NOT GO BACK. The teacher, Mary Kate, could clearly have cared less. She was not hands on. The class was not that much fun. The strap on the baby changing table was broken, so for a Mom trying to get a wiggling little monster dressed (and get myself undressed/​redressed) it was a real pain. The facility is old and dirrrrty.

I had a HORRIBLE time with my son swimming here today. If you want your children to Love swimming, STAY AWAY from this pool. The staff here are abusive and rude. They have no consideration for your experience. My son was traumatized by the lifeguard today. My son innocently went up to the pool bank to check out a sprinkler. The lifeguard YELLED at the top of his lung even though we were only 10 feet away. The tone he used to reprimand my son, who is only 5, was beyond description. My son was so traumatized that he clung to me the rest of the time. I also did not hear my son laugh the rest of the time in the pool.
I confronted the lifeguard and suggested that he becareful with his tone when talking to young kids. He was rude, defensive and dismissive. 2 other staff members acted the same way.
Therefore, if you want your children to continue to love swimming, do not come to this pool. The horribleness of the staff is beyond comprehension.

The staff is HORRIFIC! They don’t answer their phone or return phone calls.
We were asking why they schedule young children for the late evening time slot while adults get 3:30 — 7:30 time slots at the pool.
We were told that this is the policy because it always has been the policy. Staff responses include commenting that kids don’t need to swim (who knew that adults are legally required to do so!)
Other pools (like Rockville City pool) allow kids but it is a 40 minute drive. So I’m supposed to pay a non resident fee (since I don’t live in the city of Rockville) and drive my young child 45 minutes away to use a pool when the county pool is 15 minutes away?
Shriver and the Montgomery County Parks and Recreation group seems to be run by a group of slow bureaucrats who refuse to perk up and actually do their jobs.
We also got responses that we weren’t allowed equal access because it is for citizens. Not sure if they define «citizen» purely based on how someone looks but we are citizens (born in NY). Citizenship isn’t a requirement of course but it’s a way to hide behind some other reason they don’t want to change their antiquated policy. Residency is the only requirement to use the facility and even then a non resident can use the pool and pay more.
Shame on Montgomery County for having such a clueless and lazy Department of Parks and Recreation.
I was told there is no way they will ever change anything and it is a waste of my time to try. Statements like that prove my point that there is no reason for the policy other than laziness and just inspire me to fight harder for these kids who want to use the pool that their parents’ tax money paid for!

I’ve only been here for lap swimming, so I only consider my review if you’re planning to use this pool for that purpose.
Let me start by saying that the pools are great. There is a shallow pool and a deep pool. Either one can serve for the purpose of lap swimming, but I think you move a little faster in the shallow one. My only issue with the pool is that at certain times there are only one or two lanes open for the public because the rest are being used for swim and diving practice. During this time, you’re sharing that lane with like 4 or 5 other people and some of them just move S-​L-​O-​W.
As for the rest of the facilities, I don’t have any issues. There are showers and lockers that you can use. They may not be 5-​star locker rooms, but they’re clean and they do the job.
My biggest issue with this pool that led me to stop using it is the schedule. It is only open for an hour or two at a time, at different times during the day, for lap swimming. And it closes several times a year for swim meets, so you have to make sure to check the website for scheduled closings before you head over there.

The facility is great. Huge pool with lots of lap swimming, and lots of space to work out. My only complaint about the facility is the layout of the men’s locker room, which requires patrons to walk past the row of open shower stalls (where naked men are taking showers) in order to get to the pool area.
However, the staff and scheduling for this facility gets on my nerves. The staff is a little too uptight, however, as they have in the past acted as though they were doing the lap swimmers a favor by letting us start lap swimming during a period where the pool was normally reserved for swim lessons (this on days when lessons were not being held). Compare to at my regular pool in Olney (another county facility), if a space is not being used as indicated on the printed schedule, it’s barely even a question — a friendly «go for it!» is usually the answer. I believe that the experience here would be much better if the pool staff were more laid back about things. Everyone working there was just very uptight, and this made the facility seem less welcoming.
The scheduling is, to put it nicely, a bit odd. There is no long, continuous period of lap swimming in the evenings. Rather, there is a relatively short block of lap swimming, a period where the entire pool is being used for various lessons, and then a second lap swim block. For those of us who swim an hour-​long workout, it is insufficient to get a complete workout. Certainly there has to be a way to accommodate a continuous block of lap swimming time in the evenings, but they don’t do this.

One of my favorite public indoor swimming pools in Montgomery County. It is relatively clean for a public pool, has plenty of parking, small wallet/​key lockers available by recption if you forgot to bring a lock, fitness room, dry sauna, TWO whirpool hot tubs, spacious swimming pool with lap lanes, a waterslide, mushroom, and children’s pool. Pricing is around 6 – 7 for adults and lower for kids. My only complaint is that some, not all, of the teen lifeguards that work there are rude to pool guests. Call before you go because they often close some ammenities for a few hours when they have classes. Overall, it’s a nice escape from the everyday grind.

Wow, what a large swimming pool and high ceiling!!! This place has a large parking lot too. You can buy a pass or visit by the day.