Does anyone have experience with YMCA camps in Alexandria or Arlington?

[Anonymous]

We are trying to figure out what to do with our 5 & 7 year old girls in August, after their school camp ends and before regular school starts again. The YMCA seems to be one of the few local options for that period in August. Has anyone used their summer day camps for young children? Our kids had a great time in weekly ballet classes at the YMCA, but my impression of their gap camp and afterschool programs is that they're pretty chaotic (meaning maybe okay for self-confident older kids, but not so great for little ones). Please share experience/info if you have any- thanks!

[Anonymous]

We had a good experience last summer with the Arlington YMCA gymnastics camp at the Woodmont Center. It is far more organized than the regular YMCA camp.

[Anonymous]

As a former employee of these camps, I recommend against them. I would never put my child in them. Make sure you ask a lot of questions before you decide to enroll a child there.

[Anonymous]

bump

[Anonymous]

Last summer my daughter was 6 and she was in the YMCA camps in Reston. The crafty camps were fine, but we did one at the end of summer (it was a sport camp for Girls) and it was awful. The others weren't fabulous, but she didn't mind them. She still talks about how much she hated the last camp. It was very chaotic and noisy. Plus from what we can tell, the counselors would bully the girls if they weren't good at the sports. I think it would have been fine if she had been older, but she was too young.

[Anonymous]

Hi- Check out www.noodleclass.com

There are openings for the week of August 17th and the week of August 31st.

[Anonymous]

My son went to the Alexandria location last year for the first time, he's 11. He has a good time and enjoyed it so much that he wants to go back again this year.

My only complaint was that they had outside field trips weekly which was not included with the regular fee of the camp and they would tell us the day before the trip. I would have preferred to know at least day(s) in advance.

There was another incident that happened where someone off the street came into the camp and talked to the children, he was not a part of the staff. I complained about it and they claimed that the camp is safe and would do anything possible to keep the children safe.

I would prefer for them to have the children a little more space out as far as age groups because some of the older kids do interact with the younger kids and there was an incident that I heard about that involved a few older boys and a little girl, nothing tramactic happened but I would think they would be more careful about how the older and younger children interact.