Ken Shannon NORTHWEST Branch Greater Wichita YMCA

★Marina C.

The locker room is dirty. It is the first time in my life that I have felt the need to wear slippers in a gym shower because there are clumps of hair on the floor for days at a time. The pool windows are also dirty, making it difficult to see through them in the lower part. In the lap pool, some boys and even an adult man yesterday were playing football from one lane to another, yet no one says anything to them. There are also fans in the locker room that run constantly, making the area uncomfortably cold, and the pool water itself is often too cold as well. In addition, when I shower after swimming, I sometimes find unidentified particles on my body that appear to come from the pool water. Furthermore, the chlorine levels did not seem to be checked regularly, and I experienced skin irritation for several months as a result.

★★★★★Sarah K

We had my daughter’s 7th birthday party here recently. Even though we booked only two weeks before the party, they were able to accommodate us on the day/timeframe we wanted. Staff made the reservation process super simple. Daughter chose the gymnastics/tumbling party, but they also have swimming and rock climbing. We met in a room for eating cupcakes/gathering for half an hour, then all of the kids moved down the hall to the younger kid’s gymnastics/Ninja Zone room for an hour and a half of play time. All the gymnastics equipment was out and kids had a blast playing on the bars and beams, in the foam pit, and climbing the ninja slide thing. The Y made this the easiest birthday party ever. The super reasonably priced birthday package included 10 kids, chocolate and/or vanilla cake or cupcakes (from a local small business bakery!), decorations in the colors of our choice in the party room, and even gift bags! Then they did all the room cleanup. Extra child guests were $10 each, to be paid after the party was over. We literally only had to bring our daughter. It was amazing! We got quite a few comments from parents on how great the setup was and how much fun their kids had. Highly recommend!

★Colton

Extremely disappointed with the lack of integrity and poor customer service at this YMCA. We were charged a simple $30 fee because our membership payment did not go through due to a fraudulent transaction on the debit card on file. While I understand the automated fee, the way the staff handled it was dishonest. They claimed they had reached out via email and phone call, which was a lie because we received nothing.My wife went to a different YMCA due to the classes they offered for 3 weeks and they did not mention anything to us. We went to this YMCA one day for them to finally let us know about the situation. We were fully willing to change our payment options. We were told that if we change from debit card to our bank account and that this was our first time it would likely be refunded. Instead we got a call from a manager the week after, essentially calling us liars by saying he didn’t believe we didn’t get the emails or calls. Also, telling us that adding our bank account does nothing to the issue. Avoid this location if you value honest communication.

★★★★★Tony Kargbo

Noah, one of the managers, stood out for all the right reasons. He was consistently professional, patient, and even managed to keep things light with humor when the process was getting frustrating. He made the interaction feel welcoming and human, and his customer service was genuinely 5-star. That said, the overall process has some clear friction points. There are QR codes for social media, large screens showing donation campaigns and totals, and tablets for digital waivers—yet signing up for certain programs is still stuck on paper forms. In 2026, that’s a miss. Writing down information only for Noah to re-enter the same details digitally is inefficient and slows everything down. That’s a system issue, not a people issue. Ratings: Customer service: 5/5 (credit to Noah) User experience: 3.5/5 Efficiency: 2/5 YMCA leadership: there’s real opportunity here to modernize the sign up flow and eliminate duplicate data entry. The staff is doing their part—now the process needs to catch up.

★Chelsea Burns

The YMCA is NOT a family gym. We have been members for years and as our kids outgrew the kidzone it has become increasingly clear there are very few options for kids to actually use the facility. They are not even allowed upstairs with supervision until 8 years old (yes, there is kidzone but it is designed for babies and preschoolers). There is no space to exercise downstairs with your kids since you can bring them upstairs. We have tried bringing our kids to open gym where they keep all the basketball goals at 10 ft. There were less than 10 kids there and the six people at the front desk refused to lower one goal for our youngest. They proceeded to lie and tell us they didn’t have smaller goals when we know they do because we’ve seen them used for the youth basketball program we participate in. I have called the sports director and don’t get a response. This is a fine gym for adults. It is not a facility for kids.