About
Bear Paddle Swim School - Florence, located at 4012 Seligman Dr, Florence, KY, offers year-round, engaging swim lessons for children of all ages and skill levels. The school focuses on teaching water safety and swimming skills in a fun, safe, and supportive environment, often highlighting small class sizes and certified instructors.
The pools at Bear Paddle Swim School are typically heated to a comfortable 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) to ensure a pleasant and warm swimming experience for all students, particularly young children.
What are people saying (AI review summary)? The swim school is highly recommended for beginners and young children, excelling at introducing water basics and teaching essential safety skills like floating and wall-grabbing. Instructors are frequently praised for their patience, understanding, attentiveness, and friendly demeanor. The facility is generally described as well-laid-out and spacious, with staff often appearing to enjoy their work. However, there are mixed reviews regarding the facility's long-term maintenance and cleanliness, with some reporting deterioration over time, inconsistent water temperatures, rust around the pool, and a broken security alarm. While effective for initial learning, some felt progression was limited for more advanced swimmers due to space constraints. A significant concern raised by a long-term customer involved a negative experience with cancellation policy enforcement and communication, leading to unexpected charges and frustration, coupled with mentions of high instructor turnover and classes occasionally starting late or ending early.
Location
Gallery
Amenities
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Accepts Credit Cards
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Accessible Entrance
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Accessible Restroom
Reviews
Listing Reviews
January 8th, 2019Samantha Riley
Started my daughter here at 6 months old (now 17 months old). It's amazing how much she can actually do already as far as swimming. She kicks and paddles with flotation. She loves her time here every week. They actually teach children how to swim and techniques that will come in handy if they were to fall into a pool (swim toward wall, flip to breathe etc.). The staff is great! They are always friendly and ready to answer any questions you have. Highly recommend.
August 5th, 2025Hanna 1
This is a great place to start swim lessons. They do a good job with introduction to water & basics. However, once my kids were beyond the basics, I felt like they didn’t progress much more. We moved to a location that had longer lanes & more space. It’s really great for beginners though & would recommend. The staff is really great and honestly pretty consistent over the 5 months we were there. They pay close attention to how each kid is progressing and move them into classes accordingly. The facility is pretty clean. It’s organized and the staff look to genuinely like working there.
June 3rd, 2025Eve M.
Great packages and staff. They are patient and understanding of the children. Well laid out facility, loud but all Indoor pools are. Clean and spacious
March 10th, 2025Decanus586
My two kids have been students for over two and a half years. We signed a contract at the beginning that stated we would give 30 days notice when we needed to cancel lessons, which we knew about. We have a lot going on this summer and intended to come back in the winter and also get our third child enrolled. However, over the last year, the quality of the facility has deteriorated, the water is frequently off temp, the instructor turnover has been high in these recent months, the classes are frequently started late or wrap up early (which for over $1/minute is ridiculous) and the broken security alarm at the entrance is incredibly annoying. We were fine with all of that, shockingly, but just needed to cancel classes for the summer. We called on Thursday 3/6/25 to officially give notice of the cancel and the manager I spoke to told me about the 30-day notice policy and that she would make a note in our kids profiles and have the paperwork ready to sign when we came in on our regularly scheduled day on Monday. Upon arrival, we were told that would not be the case, that it would be effective from Monday 3/10/25, meaning we would be charged for an additional class. The front desk attendant went and called her manager and said that the phone conversation, although notated, wouldn’t hold up. Even with all of the money we lost in credits that we couldn’t get rescheduled in time — and trying to cancel per contract, it left a bad taste in our mouths and unless we can get this squared away, Bear Paddle has lost a present AND future Bear Paddle family.
March 18th, 2025k rumker
Went to watch grand children learn to swim. All was great, the way the instructors helped the kids was wonderful. Facility is need of a cleaning around the poll. Rust running down walls, ventilation system needs a cleaning.
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Opening Hours
| Sunday | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM |
|---|---|
| Monday | 4:00 – 8:00 PM |
| Tuesday | 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM, 4:00 – 8:00 PM |
| Wednesday | 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM, 4:00 – 8:00 PM |
| Thursday | 4:00 – 8:00 PM |
| Friday | Closed |
| Saturday | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM |
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