Verdugo Park Recreation Center

This is by far the nicest, cleanest park I’ve been to in the Valley. It’s sort of hidden if you don’t live in the area. It’s not visible on any main street. They have a playground, tennis courts, recreation center with a basketball GYM, and a aquatic center with a water playground for summers. (Not sure if is operational due to California drought though)

This is a beautiful facility for lap swimming! They have great hours and although I have only been there twice, I have always had a lane to myself. I usually swim at VNSO pool, but that pool is sometimes closed for repairs and I usually have trouble finding a pool in the valley that is open during the day. The locker room and shower area are very clean. I like the fact that you can use a locker for $.25 and get your quarter back! I usually bring my bag out to the pool and they don’t seem to have a problem with that.
Two complaints about this pool:
1. It is VERY warm. If you swim laps you have your own ideal temperature for swimming. For me this is about 78 degrees. This pool feels like swimming in bath water!
2. The life guards are terrible. They are friendly enough, they are just disinterested. On my second visit I checked to see if the life guard was watching the swimmers. I must have glanced up about 20 times. ONE TIME he was looking at the pool! He was in a very animated conversation with two young girls. They were also employees. I was there about 40 minutes. Now, I’m sure that lap swimmers are a bit more experienced swimmers than 5 year olds. But, come on! Do your job. The other two pools I swim at do not seem to have this problem. The life guard’s eyes are on the pool…
I also wish the cost was a bit less. I usually swim three times a week and being a non-​resident of Burbank the cost is $ 5−7/swim.

Brand New Pool area my nephews loved it

Two words: beautiful disaster! The pool that all of Burbank (myself included) have been waiting for for years looks great but is a total dump. Literally! There are candy wrappers in the outside showers every day, bulging trash cans outside that sit undumped for days and the pool staff is even worse. Lazy, inattentive and often times downright rude, no one I’ve talked to there has any sense of ownership and it shows.
My 4 yo daughter and I have been there everyday for the past four weeks for swim lessons and the conditions have only gotten worse. We’ve actually started to make a game of the filth in the men’s room. I don’t want to get too graphic, but the toilet in the handicapped stall has obviously never been scrubbed with any sort of real effort. Let’s just say there are things inside that bowl that have been there for weeks. Nobody sweeps the floors on any sort of regular basis and the doors are sticky with suntan lotion hand and arm prints. It’s disgusting!
Last year, before Verdugo opened, we had lessons at the Pacific Pool in Glendale and they were awesome and clean. And one of the reasons they stayed clean is because the lifeguards had to do a sweep of the area before they went on break. They dumped trash, swept and actually cared what their locker rooms and pool looked like and it showed.
On top of all that, the classes themselves at Verdugo are overcrowded and taught by the greenest lifeguards I’ve ever seen. It’s basically a half hour free for all for the kids. That said, my daughter still loves the classes but I can’t help but wonder how much further along she’d be in her progress if we’d stuck to Glendale again this year.
All I can say is that Verdugo better shape up fast because people talk, and I am not the only parent that thinks the place needs help. At the very least, they should use some of the money that’s pouring in every day (don’t get me started on the recreational swim fees!) to hire a full-​time janitor. If Verdugo looks this dirty after a month, just imagine what it will look like after a few years. Yikes!