I knew this day would come eventually, but I guess as parents we are never prepared for it. I have a 4-year autistic son, who is very happy, loving, smile all day, and despite his autism he is very affectionate and loves to be hugged and has no problem being around other kids.Since we found out about his condition, we realized that eventually we would face some sort of prejudice, however, during these 4 years we found nothing but wonderful and very accommodating people and venues…. Until today unfortunately.We were invited to a birthday party at Westwood gymnastics. Their parties are based on a circuit, where they take the kids to different parts of the gym accompanied by a coach. However, being autistic and non-verbal, unfortunately I cannot have a conversation with my son yet. Therefore, he is not able to stay with the group, he finds what he likes to play and just stay there. For this venue it is the mountain with the slides. We’ve been to many parties there before, and my son can keep going up and down on those slides for the entire party.As they have multiple parties at the same time, I did my best to avoid him from going there while they had other parties in the mountain. But when I noticed it was empty I took him there as it was a great opportunity for him to enjoy it, needless to mention, I was there the whole time solely to watch him.That’s when an employee came to me and said that he could not stay there, and that he must stay with the coach assigned to our party. I gently explained to her his condition and that he can’t understand the commands of the coach and he would just try to keep going back to the mountain… but to no avail… I explained that I was there watching him, that I had signed the waiver, and that the only alternative was for me to take him home. Yet she said those are the rules and so I had leave with him, crying on my way home.I cannot avoid comparing this situation to a park I went while I was in Brazil, called “Parque da Mônica”. Once they figured out my son was autistic, they first said they wouldn’t charge me, to which I was pleasantly surprise, but I insisted on paying anyhow, after all it’s a business. But they completely refused to take my payment, AND they gave my wife a special lanyard that identified my son as special need. Some rides/toys that are normally busy have a time limit for each kid, but that lanyard meant that special kids were not restricted by their time limit.I acknowledge that it must be hard for people without special need kids to fully understand the hardship that parents in this situation must go through. My review is not meant to disqualify the place, it’s just a warning for any parents with special need kids or someone that might have guests with special conditions or for people that just care about real inclusion.My daughter has been going on their gym for Gymnastics, dance classes and summer camp for years. I will therefore cancel all her participation on this gym as well change the plan to have her birthday party there. Our friends also seemed very annoyed with the situation, and I wouldn’t doubt they’ll ever throw a party over there again.I acknowledge that no business is obliged to be inclusive, but I finish this letter in tears just realizing that I need to prepare myself as most likely I’ll start facing more saddening encounters like this.
Lydia Ni
My son had a good experience here four years ago. And my daughter is taking both gymnastics and ballet class here. The ballet teacher is awesome, gymnastic coach is ok. What drives me crazy is the registration girl is being ridiculous. I made a call on Thursday to change my daughters gymnastics class from Friday to Tuesday and said very clear that this change should start from the next week, so this week, she should still be on Friday class. We missed the Friday class and we should receive a makeup credit, but we didn't. I went to the office and they said the change made immediately and no makeup credit. When a business make a reasonable request unreasonable, means they don't care your business at all. Time to leave.Update: the response from business is even more ridiculous. The so called FREE fifth class is offered to every student and is included in the whole enrollment. They made a mistake messing up my class schedule, and refused to make up because it's free. Seems like they can take back FREE fifth class freely as they want. The way they handle their mistake is very impressive.
Suzanna Lind
Find a different gym! They only care about taking your money and the ratio of coach to children is out of control. I experienced frustration with particularly unfriendly and uncaring coaches during my child’s time in classes, but my final frustration came when I pulled my child from one of their camps. First off, there are not enough personnel managing these camps. There are too many kids, so bullying behavior is frequently overlooked. After deciding to cancel my child’s enrollment in a second camp (because she was begging not to go back!), I called the gym to cancel. I spoke with a manager and was met with aggression and shaming. The manager emphasized that I would not get money back. I didn’t care about the money - what I wanted was for someone to apologize for my child’s poor experience. I received no such apology. I have never had such a horrible interaction with someone so unempathetic. I was offered credits, which I will clearly not be using.
Jennifer Canik
Kiddos attended a bday party here last night and they had such a fantastic time! As a parent I was impressed with the coaches, cleanliness and organization. I hope/plan to have a trial class for my kids in the future! Maybe even a bday party as well! Thank y’all so much!
Mohmed H.K. Abdelfatah
A good place to see your kiddos learning new skills. Haley is very supportive for the kids and bringing positive energy. Thanks for the coaches for making my kids experience enjoyable and effective!
Yuushi U.
We were only here for birthday parties. In that, the staff interaction with the kids at the different stations went pretty well. My kid had fun each time she went. It's a great way to have the kids burn off some energy especially after eating cake!
Lilly P.
The place is so bad we stopped going there because of a couple reasons 1: the place is so dirty I found a tooth in the water Fountain with rust 2:the couches aren't really doing much only a couple couches are like watching the kids and helping if they get hurt 3:they were making the kids do dangers things at a low level like I saw in gymnastics the couches wanting kids to do a frunt walkovers on the beam 4:they play inappropriate music like they were playing Dona cats new songs paint the town red and niki bad songs with very bad words in it So I stopped going to Westwood with my kid
Max Texan
Our child attended dance summer camps here, and we did not like them. It ended up with tears and bad memories for my child. We signed up our child (in advance) for all summer camps at this place. What we didn't know is that they give "medals" at the end of each of their camps.It seems like half of the medals were given to insiders, i.e. kids who signed up for the year-round dance school. The rest of medals seem to be given pretty randomly, with a lot of emphasis on minorities and youngest kids, and with little correlation to their skills. For example, one girl who got a medal was not dancing at all during the graduation show and was standing all the time.As much as I don't care about a "medal", I paid money for several camps, and each time I had unhappy child at the end.
Elan Mazziotta
My daughter has been coming here since she was 3 and is almost 6 now. We love Westwood so much. She’s tried most of the classes but has been in tumbling and gymnastics for years now. There are tons ofCoaches with different teaching styles and they make it easy to move around coaches/days/class times so you can find who works best for your child. They have the easiest make up policy and tons of special events for holidays, when school is closed or even just extra practice clinics and open gyms. They keep the facility clean and maintain all of their equipment really well. Highly recommend!
Attaching the email reporting my interaction with the manager Jennifer so that you guys are aware of how she handles situations. I have had no issues until today. "Good Afternoon,I am reaching out to you today in regards to a conversation I had with someone named Jennifer from your office this morning. I would like to start by mentioning that my daughter has been coming to Westwood consistently with no complains for almost 10 months now. I called this morning to ask a very simple question, Jennifer did not listen to a single word that was coming out of my mouth. During our conversation, I would ask additional questions and instead of addressing the question I was asking she was repeating the same answer over and over again. She continued to cut me off as I spoke. She was jumping down my throat for a simple conversation. She was rushing me off the phone and provided NO help whatsoever. She was extremely short, impatient, rude, and unhelpful. She has absolutely ZERO customer service skills and this is coming from someone who has worked in customer service for over a decade. If this is the type of person you all have running your business, I am extremely concerned for your business. I'd like to also note that I have never been treated this way by anybody else in the office as everybody is normally very happy and helpful. I am not sure if she woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, but her attitude and tone of voice was unbelievably unprofessional.Now, the question I had was in regards to my credits. We currently have 5 credits on my daughters account. I was wondering if it is possible to pause my payment for next month to give me a chance to use the class credits I already paid for. I am not asking to exchange my credits for money (as Jennifer kept implying). The class credits on my account have already been paid for and I am not able to take my daughter multiple times a week due to my schedule. It would be more convenient if I could use up her class credits first then resume payments. If this is not the case, a simple, friendly response would do but instead Jennifer continued to be very hostile and rude in answering any questions. She stated that I cannot use the credits as money multiple times, which I am not trying to do, however, technically the credits are money because I have already paid in full for this class credits. Class credits shouldn't be offered if you guys are not going to make them available the way I need to use them. In this instance, you guys are technically holding my money and telling me I cannot use it for this months classes. That is not something that was outlined or told to me ahead of time, I was only told that if I missed a class, it would be available as a make up credit for up to a year. So I should be able to use my credits as a please."
Alexis R.
We joined a few weeks ago and already put in a 30 day notice. The coaches are great however the front staff is not. I called in to ask if my daughter can attend a later session today because I was caught in traffic. She told me no, when I mentioned someone was able to accommodate me before she quickly transferred me. The next person refused to accommodate me saying I had to wait 3 days to make up the class. I just wanted to push back the class one hour but they refused. Maybe they don't like to be flexible, but accommodating me and offering me switch to a later class permanently would've been a better solution. I will take my business elsewhere as they lack customer service.
Jamie Fitzjarrell
Love this place for my active 5 year old. We do the play dates and parent's day out programs and he's excited to go every time. Great coaches and staff that really watch out for the kids and make sure they have a fun time.
Jessi Sellers
We went in for a 5:40 trial class on a Monday. Staff was not welcoming at all and coaches are worse. You can tell they are not fond of new students in their class. Only paid attention to their students and didn’t bother to explain anything to us on how the facility works or the class. I tried getting the coaches attention a couple of times to ask a question and was blown off. Will be looking for a different facility for my children.
Linda Marz
I’d post the details of my experience but it’s too much for anyone to read through because at this point the lack of decent communication is maddening! I will comment the most disrespectful conversation I had was with a person named Edna who was identified as a manager (wow, I’ve been in customer service management for 25+ years and If I treated my customers the way she treated me, I would not have any)My situation for my granddaughter was not complicated at all yet Westwood Gymnastics made it ridiculously stressful. All from my asking a very simple question regarding makeup classes. WE WON’T BE BACK! There are many other options in Katy where I’m certain our participation will be appreciated.
Amazing place!!
I knew this day would come eventually, but I guess as parents we are never prepared for it. I have a 4-year autistic son, who is very happy, loving, smile all day, and despite his autism he is very affectionate and loves to be hugged and has no problem being around other kids.Since we found out about his condition, we realized that eventually we would face some sort of prejudice, however, during these 4 years we found nothing but wonderful and very accommodating people and venues…. Until today unfortunately.We were invited to a birthday party at Westwood gymnastics. Their parties are based on a circuit, where they take the kids to different parts of the gym accompanied by a coach. However, being autistic and non-verbal, unfortunately I cannot have a conversation with my son yet. Therefore, he is not able to stay with the group, he finds what he likes to play and just stay there. For this venue it is the mountain with the slides. We’ve been to many parties there before, and my son can keep going up and down on those slides for the entire party.As they have multiple parties at the same time, I did my best to avoid him from going there while they had other parties in the mountain. But when I noticed it was empty I took him there as it was a great opportunity for him to enjoy it, needless to mention, I was there the whole time solely to watch him.That’s when an employee came to me and said that he could not stay there, and that he must stay with the coach assigned to our party. I gently explained to her his condition and that he can’t understand the commands of the coach and he would just try to keep going back to the mountain… but to no avail… I explained that I was there watching him, that I had signed the waiver, and that the only alternative was for me to take him home. Yet she said those are the rules and so I had leave with him, crying on my way home.I cannot avoid comparing this situation to a park I went while I was in Brazil, called “Parque da Mônica”. Once they figured out my son was autistic, they first said they wouldn’t charge me, to which I was pleasantly surprise, but I insisted on paying anyhow, after all it’s a business. But they completely refused to take my payment, AND they gave my wife a special lanyard that identified my son as special need. Some rides/toys that are normally busy have a time limit for each kid, but that lanyard meant that special kids were not restricted by their time limit.I acknowledge that it must be hard for people without special need kids to fully understand the hardship that parents in this situation must go through. My review is not meant to disqualify the place, it’s just a warning for any parents with special need kids or someone that might have guests with special conditions or for people that just care about real inclusion.My daughter has been going on their gym for Gymnastics, dance classes and summer camp for years. I will therefore cancel all her participation on this gym as well change the plan to have her birthday party there. Our friends also seemed very annoyed with the situation, and I wouldn’t doubt they’ll ever throw a party over there again.I acknowledge that no business is obliged to be inclusive, but I finish this letter in tears just realizing that I need to prepare myself as most likely I’ll start facing more saddening encounters like this.
My son had a good experience here four years ago. And my daughter is taking both gymnastics and ballet class here. The ballet teacher is awesome, gymnastic coach is ok. What drives me crazy is the registration girl is being ridiculous. I made a call on Thursday to change my daughters gymnastics class from Friday to Tuesday and said very clear that this change should start from the next week, so this week, she should still be on Friday class. We missed the Friday class and we should receive a makeup credit, but we didn't. I went to the office and they said the change made immediately and no makeup credit. When a business make a reasonable request unreasonable, means they don't care your business at all. Time to leave.Update: the response from business is even more ridiculous. The so called FREE fifth class is offered to every student and is included in the whole enrollment. They made a mistake messing up my class schedule, and refused to make up because it's free. Seems like they can take back FREE fifth class freely as they want. The way they handle their mistake is very impressive.
Find a different gym! They only care about taking your money and the ratio of coach to children is out of control. I experienced frustration with particularly unfriendly and uncaring coaches during my child’s time in classes, but my final frustration came when I pulled my child from one of their camps. First off, there are not enough personnel managing these camps. There are too many kids, so bullying behavior is frequently overlooked. After deciding to cancel my child’s enrollment in a second camp (because she was begging not to go back!), I called the gym to cancel. I spoke with a manager and was met with aggression and shaming. The manager emphasized that I would not get money back. I didn’t care about the money - what I wanted was for someone to apologize for my child’s poor experience. I received no such apology. I have never had such a horrible interaction with someone so unempathetic. I was offered credits, which I will clearly not be using.
Kiddos attended a bday party here last night and they had such a fantastic time! As a parent I was impressed with the coaches, cleanliness and organization. I hope/plan to have a trial class for my kids in the future! Maybe even a bday party as well! Thank y’all so much!
A good place to see your kiddos learning new skills. Haley is very supportive for the kids and bringing positive energy. Thanks for the coaches for making my kids experience enjoyable and effective!
We were only here for birthday parties. In that, the staff interaction with the kids at the different stations went pretty well. My kid had fun each time she went. It's a great way to have the kids burn off some energy especially after eating cake!
The place is so bad we stopped going there because of a couple reasons 1: the place is so dirty I found a tooth in the water Fountain with rust 2:the couches aren't really doing much only a couple couches are like watching the kids and helping if they get hurt 3:they were making the kids do dangers things at a low level like I saw in gymnastics the couches wanting kids to do a frunt walkovers on the beam 4:they play inappropriate music like they were playing Dona cats new songs paint the town red and niki bad songs with very bad words in it So I stopped going to Westwood with my kid
Our child attended dance summer camps here, and we did not like them. It ended up with tears and bad memories for my child. We signed up our child (in advance) for all summer camps at this place. What we didn't know is that they give "medals" at the end of each of their camps.It seems like half of the medals were given to insiders, i.e. kids who signed up for the year-round dance school. The rest of medals seem to be given pretty randomly, with a lot of emphasis on minorities and youngest kids, and with little correlation to their skills. For example, one girl who got a medal was not dancing at all during the graduation show and was standing all the time.As much as I don't care about a "medal", I paid money for several camps, and each time I had unhappy child at the end.
My daughter has been coming here since she was 3 and is almost 6 now. We love Westwood so much. She’s tried most of the classes but has been in tumbling and gymnastics for years now. There are tons ofCoaches with different teaching styles and they make it easy to move around coaches/days/class times so you can find who works best for your child. They have the easiest make up policy and tons of special events for holidays, when school is closed or even just extra practice clinics and open gyms. They keep the facility clean and maintain all of their equipment really well. Highly recommend!
Restaurantji Recommends
Attaching the email reporting my interaction with the manager Jennifer so that you guys are aware of how she handles situations. I have had no issues until today. "Good Afternoon,I am reaching out to you today in regards to a conversation I had with someone named Jennifer from your office this morning. I would like to start by mentioning that my daughter has been coming to Westwood consistently with no complains for almost 10 months now. I called this morning to ask a very simple question, Jennifer did not listen to a single word that was coming out of my mouth. During our conversation, I would ask additional questions and instead of addressing the question I was asking she was repeating the same answer over and over again. She continued to cut me off as I spoke. She was jumping down my throat for a simple conversation. She was rushing me off the phone and provided NO help whatsoever. She was extremely short, impatient, rude, and unhelpful. She has absolutely ZERO customer service skills and this is coming from someone who has worked in customer service for over a decade. If this is the type of person you all have running your business, I am extremely concerned for your business. I'd like to also note that I have never been treated this way by anybody else in the office as everybody is normally very happy and helpful. I am not sure if she woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, but her attitude and tone of voice was unbelievably unprofessional.Now, the question I had was in regards to my credits. We currently have 5 credits on my daughters account. I was wondering if it is possible to pause my payment for next month to give me a chance to use the class credits I already paid for. I am not asking to exchange my credits for money (as Jennifer kept implying). The class credits on my account have already been paid for and I am not able to take my daughter multiple times a week due to my schedule. It would be more convenient if I could use up her class credits first then resume payments. If this is not the case, a simple, friendly response would do but instead Jennifer continued to be very hostile and rude in answering any questions. She stated that I cannot use the credits as money multiple times, which I am not trying to do, however, technically the credits are money because I have already paid in full for this class credits. Class credits shouldn't be offered if you guys are not going to make them available the way I need to use them. In this instance, you guys are technically holding my money and telling me I cannot use it for this months classes. That is not something that was outlined or told to me ahead of time, I was only told that if I missed a class, it would be available as a make up credit for up to a year. So I should be able to use my credits as a please."
We joined a few weeks ago and already put in a 30 day notice. The coaches are great however the front staff is not. I called in to ask if my daughter can attend a later session today because I was caught in traffic. She told me no, when I mentioned someone was able to accommodate me before she quickly transferred me. The next person refused to accommodate me saying I had to wait 3 days to make up the class. I just wanted to push back the class one hour but they refused. Maybe they don't like to be flexible, but accommodating me and offering me switch to a later class permanently would've been a better solution. I will take my business elsewhere as they lack customer service.
Love this place for my active 5 year old. We do the play dates and parent's day out programs and he's excited to go every time. Great coaches and staff that really watch out for the kids and make sure they have a fun time.
We went in for a 5:40 trial class on a Monday. Staff was not welcoming at all and coaches are worse. You can tell they are not fond of new students in their class. Only paid attention to their students and didn’t bother to explain anything to us on how the facility works or the class. I tried getting the coaches attention a couple of times to ask a question and was blown off. Will be looking for a different facility for my children.
I’d post the details of my experience but it’s too much for anyone to read through because at this point the lack of decent communication is maddening! I will comment the most disrespectful conversation I had was with a person named Edna who was identified as a manager (wow, I’ve been in customer service management for 25+ years and If I treated my customers the way she treated me, I would not have any)My situation for my granddaughter was not complicated at all yet Westwood Gymnastics made it ridiculously stressful. All from my asking a very simple question regarding makeup classes. WE WON’T BE BACK! There are many other options in Katy where I’m certain our participation will be appreciated.