Testimonials

Olivia is a saint and able to get ANY kid in the water. I tried for two years with our son and she did it in less than two minutes.

- Solveig G.

December 7, 2025

A nice facility in Needham , friendly people, easy to schedule , a warm pool and my daughter is learning to swim with good technical instruction given and made fun at same time .. Sybil is one of the best instructors and my 5 year old daughter has improved a lot in her swimming skills and is ready to go from glider 3 to Pro1 soon !

- Srismitha M.

October 30, 2025

Very well run operation, always runs on schedule, and has properly trained and friendly instructors. Occasionally hard to park there and the changing rooms are poorly lit but those are my only criticisms, which are minor.

- Jeff M.

September 9, 2025

My granddaughter has had a very positive experience at Goldfish. She was afraid to go in the water and to get her face wet. Back for a second year because of the individual attention she got to improve her fears.

- Susan S.

September 8, 2025

The staff were very friendly from email, text to face-to-face, especially Ely. The space is big. There's even a play space for the kids. My son went straight for it! It's a very nice space. I love Goldfish Swim!

- T S.

August 2, 2025

Staff is very nice. Manager Olivia is exceptional at her job, especially customer service!!!

- M S.

July 31, 2025

Wonderful at teaching water safety skills!

- Molly K.

July 23, 2025

Everything good but no private shower room

- Nutchanok O.

September 8, 2025

When my son first joined Goldfish Needham, he spent two years stuck at the same level until I requested an assessment from management. Several friends of mine had similar experiences. We eventually left for another swim school. This summer, we decided to give Goldfish another try since it's close by and his current school is undergoing renovations. Unfortunately, we didn't see any improvements. I enrolled him in group lessons, but I noticed little progress and a lack of attention from the instructors. His final lesson this summer was supposed to be two private sessions scheduled back-to-back. Instead, each session started with about 10 minutes wasted as the instructors tried to figure out which lane he should be in, what level he belonged to, and who his private instructor was--even though all of that information was clearly available in my app. I had to step onto the pool deck to help resolve the confusion, and at one point an instructor even argued with me about my son's level because her clipboard didn't match what was in the app. Eventually, another staff member confirmed that I was correct. As a result, I paid $200, but my son only received about 40 minutes of actual instruction out of the 60 I paid for. That was the final straw. I voiced my concerns at the front desk in front of what appeared to be both the location manager and the pool deck supervisor, but neither acknowledged me or attempted to engage. I'm not sure if they truly didn't hear me, but given the small space, it felt dismissive. No one offered to make up for the lost lesson time caused by their disorganization. The whole experience felt like a rip-off and an example of very poor business practices. I had hoped that paying a premium for private lessons would lead to a better experience, but it was actually worse than the group classes. Last year, my son had a great private instructor who was highly experienced, so clearly the quality depends entirely on who you get. In my opinion, only experienced instructors should be assigned to private lessons, especially since the cost is more than double the group rate. Bottom line: If your goal is simply for your child to be comfortable in the water and play around, Goldfish might be fine. But if you care about steady progression, I would not recommend it. They do a poor job of tracking swimmer progress, largely because instructors rotate so frequently. And based on conversations with friends at other locations, this isn't just a Needham issue--it's a franchise-wide problem. One friend told me his daughter learned more in two weeks of summer camp than in two years at Goldfish. From my perspective, their strategy seems clear: keep students at the same level as long as possible to maximize revenue, rather than focusing on progress.

- Big F.

September 6, 2025