Goldfish Swim School - Silver Spring

About

Goldfish Swim School - Silver Spring, located at 11800 Tech Rd, Silver Spring, MD 20904, USA, is a dedicated facility offering learn-to-swim lessons for children of all ages, from infants to pre-teens. The school provides a unique, play-based curriculum in a safe and fun environment, focusing on water safety and stroke development with small class sizes and a tropical-themed setting.

The pools at Goldfish Swim School - Silver Spring are consistently maintained at a comfortable 90 degrees Fahrenheit, ensuring a warm and shiver-free swimming experience for all students, especially infants and young children.

What are people saying (AI review summary)? Goldfish Swim School elicits mixed feedback from customers, with strong praise for its exceptional customer service, welcoming staff, and clean, spacious facilities. Instructors like Alexa S. and Anthony are frequently highlighted for their remarkable talent, patience, enthusiasm, and effectiveness in teaching children, creating an ideal environment for parents and kids. However, significant criticisms emerge regarding the class structure and financial policies. Many reviewers feel that classes offer limited actual swim time (often as little as 15 minutes) due to 'dead time,' slow pacing, and multiple students per lane, leading to slow progress and a perception of classes being a 'waste of time' and overpriced. The most severe complaints center on the school's 'unnecessary and unethical' business practices, including undisclosed cancellation fees for 'free trials,' attempted unauthorized credit card charges, and a rigid cancellation policy that requires paying for an extra month. Customers also express frustration over the difficulty of utilizing accumulated make-up tokens, as they cannot be used to offset future payments or after membership cancellation. These policies lead some to label the institution as a 'corporation' rather than a child-focused 'school,' prompting a recommendation to seek alternatives with more ethical policies despite children often learning to swim successfully.

Location

Gallery

Amenities

• Accepts Credit Cards
• Accessible Entrance

Reviews

Listing Reviews

May 13th, 2025

Gerson Castillo

The customer service here is exceptional, and the instructors are truly remarkable. Alexa S. stands out with her incredible bedside manner, patience, and understanding. She provides an outstanding level of customer care. If you’re looking for a place to unwind after a long day of work and a hectic commute, this is the ideal spot. You can relax knowing your child is well taken care of while you are treated with the utmost consideration.

March 28th, 2025

Andrea Lopez

I recently took my 2 ½-year-old to Goldfish Swim School in Silver Spring, and I had an excellent experience. From the moment we arrived, the staff made us feel right at home. Gaby at the front desk was incredibly welcoming, gave me a thorough tour of the facility, and even assisted me with a purchase. This was our first visit, and I was immediately impressed by the cleanliness and spaciousness of the changing rooms and bathrooms. Yohan, another staff member, was also very friendly and helpful, ensuring we had everything we needed. A huge shoutout to Anthony, the swim instructor. He is truly talented and did an outstanding job leading the class. His enthusiasm and expertise were evident as he engaged the toddlers in a way that was both fun and effective—no easy feat! His ability to capture and maintain the attention of little ones is remarkable. I cannot recommend Anthony enough, and thanks to him, we will definitely be returning.

July 20th, 2025

COURT F

I don’t think we will be returning next Summer. Honestly, while my son enjoys being in the water, the class feels like a waste of time. The Junior level class practices a couple of swim basics (kicking, scooping the water, floating) for 15 minutes followed by lots of dead time during the remaining 10 minutes of class. They slowly drag out the same 4 moves with each student (probably on purpose) to buy time. As I type this, I’m literally watching my son ‘s class cluelessly sit on the wall while the instructors talk and laugh through the last 5 minutes of class. It doesn’t help that the sessions are often cut off 5 minutes for the teachers to “discuss” progress with parents. What’s there to discuss when barely anything happened during the session?? Book this swim class if you are looking to pay $145 a month for a quick 20 minute swim session. #wasteoftime

June 30th, 2025

Kymberly Gondwe

It should be called Goldfish Swim Corporation not School. If there are other options in your area, go with them. Update: No, Christine, it was not shared with me on the app where I booked the free trial that there was a $25 cancellation if my child was unable to attend. Otherwise, I would not have booked the FREE trial in the first place. You also attempted to charge my credit card for "July tuition" although I did not sign up for the class but ONLY a free trial. I was on the fence about the class which is why the free trial interested me in the first place. I called to see if I could have it transferred to another day. I was left on hold while your "customer service rep" went to check. Told no. So when I said I want to cancel it since we cannot attend, I was left on hold again so he could "check". And then told about a cancellation fee for a FREE CLASS. Your response shows you and your teams lack of customer service skills and exactly why I called you a corporation and not a school.

April 22nd, 2025

Michael Shoenthal

Their cancellation policy is very unnecessary and unethical. First the good: the teachers are quite good, and they only move your child up when they have really mastered the skills. The staff is professional and the facilities are clean and well maintained. Both my kids learned to swim well there over the course of 3 years. The mediocre: when there are 4 kids per lane your kid will only be actually swimming for a portion of the 30 min class, which means going once a week and swimming for maybe 15 minutes the progress can be slow. The bad: their cancellation policy forces you to pay for an extra month from the moment you want to cancel. When you complain about this they all say “well that’s our policy! You signed it”. Sure, of course I did, when I sign my kid up for something I usually don’t read the fine print nor do I assume the place is going to take an extra months payment from me for no reason. So they seem to think just because they snuck it in there and I signed it it justifies its existence. There is no reason they need a month to click cancel on their platform. I took my kids there for years and spent thousands and the fact that they are gonna grab an extra $400 from me as we move on is very sleazy. Additionally, if you can’t make your lesson or if the pool has a maintenance issue and they have to close it you will be issued make up tokens. The policy specifies that you can’t cancel your membership and use your make up tokens. For example since we have been going for years I have accumulated 10+ make up tokens for each kid. What would be fair is them allowing me to use those tokens as my last 10 classes thereby giving me 2 months or so where I don’t have to pay the membership fee but I can use the tokens I have accumulated. But you are not allowed to do that you have to use them while you are paying the membership, which is actually quite hard to do. So for some of these make up tokens I paid for the class, they had to close the pool because of maintenance, and I can’t get reimbursed nor use them as a regular class. Not ethical. So overall it’s an ok place, my kids both learned to swim there, and the staff is generally great. But knowing what I know now id search for a place that is more ethical and fair with their policies.