Marian Gibbons

Review of Royal City Soccer Club

I registered my children for the Calgary location ...

I registered my children for the Calgary location last year for 3 weeks in total. As part of the advertisement, free before and after care was offered. On the first morning I dropped off my children, I was told by the Camp Leader that I should pick the kids up straight away upon the end of the camp and that whilst aftercare camp was offered, the camp attendees were not paid for this time and had other commitments. I felt extremely frustrated as I work full time and was planning to rely on the aftercare. I stood my ground and said I would be requiring the aftercare. On one of the evenings in the first week, both myself and husband received a phonecall 30 minutes prior to pickup to give us a warning that the aftercare would close in 30 minutes and should we be late we would be charged. I felt this was extremely unprofessional.

After the second week we removed the kids completely from the summer camp. There happened to be a freak storm in Calgary mid-summer that resulted in large hail, torrential rain, and lightning - it was not forecasted. I left work straight away upon hearing off the storm, and it took me 30 minutes to get to the camp. Upon arriving, I found my children along with a camp attendee standing under a tree branch. My children were both soaked, scared, and my daughter actually had marks on her skin from the large hailstones. I was furious. The attendee had not taken the kids indoors, and when I pressed for the reason for this, I was advised that the indoor facilities were only rented until 2 p.m. and thereafter no indoor shelter was available. As the camp was operated from a High School field, I felt they could have at least made their way to shelter at the High School door under the porch, but this common sense appeared to lack in the attendee.

I called the head office in Burlington, and the experience I had was nothing short of disgusting. The attitude and manner I was spoken to was appalling. When I asked to speak with a Manager, I was told my the receptionist that she was simply not going to facilitate that to happen. It was only when I sent an email to the general info e-mail address that I finally got a response as regards the situation and an apology.

Nonetheless, this camp has a serious issue with their staff. Not only is the customer service awful, the teenage staff in charge of the children strongly do not appear to have the capacity to make decisions as regards safety.