Puddle Ducks at Everlast Gym
Puddle Ducks runs its 0 to 4 baby and pre-school classes on Saturday mornings only at the Everlast gym pool on Coldhams Lane.
Who it suits
Working parents who need a Saturday slot, and families who want a pool that Puddle Ducks does not have to itself, since Everlast members swim here too.
Why it stands out
- The only Puddle Ducks class times here are four Saturday morning slots, 8.45am to 10.15am
- Pool runs at 1.2 metres deep and around 30 degrees, the same specification as Puddle Ducks' other Cambridge pool
- Free parking at the Beehive Centre, useful for a car full of buggy and swim bags on a Saturday
- Little Dippers and the later Kickers slot were full and on a wait list at the time of writing, so the two earliest slots are your best chance of a space
- Elite Swimming Academy also teaches older children and adults at this same Everlast pool on weekdays, so it is a shared site rather than a Puddle Ducks-only venue
Our verdict
Book this one if Saturday morning is genuinely the only time that works and you can grab one of the two earlier slots, since the later two are already wait listed. It is the cheaper of Puddle Ducks' two Cambridge pools by fifty pence a lesson, but you get a single narrow window rather than a full week of options, so anyone who can do weekday mornings instead should look at Novotel Cambridge North first. Class size is not published here either, so ask before you book if that matters to you.
What it is
This is Puddle Ducks’ Saturday morning outpost, run inside the Everlast gym on Coldhams Lane in east Cambridge, near the Beehive Centre retail park. The same four stages as the rest of the Puddle Ducks network apply, Floaties, Splashers, Kickers and Little Dippers, but here they are squeezed into one morning a week rather than spread across weekdays.
Who should book
If you work Monday to Friday, this is the only Puddle Ducks slot in Cambridge you can actually get to. The pool itself is built to the same spec as Puddle Ducks’ other city venue: shallow enough to stand in, and warm. What is different here is that the gym is a shared building. Everlast members use the wider club, and another swim school, Elite Swimming Academy, teaches older children and adults in the same pool on weekdays, so this is not a space Puddle Ducks has exclusively, unlike its Novotel pool.
What stands out
Four class slots run back to back on Saturday morning, and by the time this was checked the two later ones, the second Kickers class and Little Dippers, were both showing a wait list. If you want any chance of a Saturday space, book early and take one of the two 8.45am or 9.15am slots. Parking is free at the Beehive Centre, which is a small thing until you are the one unloading a car seat and a swim bag before nine in the morning.
The verdict
At seventeen pounds a lesson this is the marginally cheaper of the two Puddle Ducks pools in Cambridge, and for a working parent it may be the only one that fits at all. The catch is choice: one morning, four slots, and two of those already full. If you have any weekday flexibility, Puddle Ducks’ Novotel Cambridge North pool gives you a run of options instead of a single Saturday window, and is worth checking before you settle for a wait list place here.
More Puddle Ducks venues
All Puddle Ducks venuesPuddle Ducks runs its full 0 to 10 pathway at Everlast Fitness in Hartcliffe, from parent and baby classes through eight levels of Swim Academy, in a warm 1.2 metre pool.
Puddle Ducks has sole use of the Novotel Cambridge North pool on weekday mornings for its 0 to 4 baby and pre-school classes.
Puddle Ducks teaches its full birth to 10 programme in the Novotel Cardiff Centre's hotel pool at Atlantic Wharf, with a parent in the water until age 4.