Pacific Dance Center

My boyfriend and I purchased the $ 79 Groupon for six dance lessons for a couple at this studio. The lessons consisted of 5 private 30 minute lessons, and one semi-​private lesson. Now that I see the new Groupon is for $ 89 for 10 classes, it doesn’t seem like we got a very good deal, but I digress.
Having read the Unilocal reviews beforehand, I had fairly low expectations. It’s important to keep in mind that the reason that that company would sell you 6 lessons for 2 people (12 lessons effectively) for $ 79 is entirely because they want to sell you additional lessons afterwards, so there is definitely a sales pitch aspect to the lessons. Expect this going in! But having said that, we did not in any way feel like we were being scammed out of our time and forced to spend the entire lesson talking about dance instead of actually dancing. Our instructor, Anthony, let us know that any time he spent explaining the way their lessons would work in the future was not charged against our 30 minute instruction time. This did result in some of the lessons lasting over 30 minutes, because maybe 15 was spent on more of the «sales» aspect of the lessons, so we would be at the studio for 45 minutes — not an issue for us, but something to keep in mind!
We loved our lessons with Anthony. He tailored them based on how quickly (or slowly) we were picking up dances, and let us focus on the types of dances we enjoyed doing together more than others. We spent 90% of our lessons laughing and having an absolute blast. Anthony is fabulous.
Now let me tell you about the one part we highly disliked– the manager, I believe her name is Sarah? Sarah comes in and tries to pressure sell you on dance packages that cost a hilarious amount of money — $ 1,800 to be exact. As a 24-​year-​old, do I look like I’m about to give you two grand for dance lessons? She offers three different payment plans, and then instead of asking if you are even interested in lessons, she says, «Which of these payment plans do you prefer?» as if that sales tactic works on anyone. But that wasn’t our main problem. The biggest problem is that Sarah has an incredibly rude demeanor, and treated our instructor Anthony like crap, speaking down to him the entire time we were together. Given that Anthony was our instructor, and the only person in the studio that we had formed a bond with, it irked us to hear the tone in which she spoke to him. It is as if Sarah has no confidence in her instructors, and believes them all to be complete buffoons, but Anthony’s charisma and charm far exceeded Sarah’s.
Although we came into the lessons fairly sure we did not want to purchase additional ones, I think we would have been able to be persuaded if they were offered to us directly from Anthony and not the rude manager, and if the purchase options were more realistic. Starting off a brand new customer by trying to get them to pay $ 1,800 is a horrible sales method. Perhaps a better idea would be to sell us a starter pack of around 10 dance lessons for a more reasonable price. Then, if we found that we continued to enjoy our regular lessons, after THAT would be the time to try and hit us up for $ 1,800 (we would still have refused, but it would be a better sell).
We ended up not finishing all of our lessons. Life got in the way, and we weren’t particularly looking forward to the high-​pressure sales tactics we knew we would face at our last lesson. I guess the fact that we were willing to walk away without finishing goes to show something as well…
tl;dr– Worth the Groupon purchase, but not the additional expensive lessons.

My fiancée and I have been going for a few months now, and we love it. We started with the groupon deal figuring we would just learn a little bit for the wedding, but we had so much fun we kept going with it. Great people, great atmosphere.

If our rating was solely for Lainey, our dance instructor, she would get 4 ½ stars. Unfortunately, everything else about this place is a 1 star. Like so many Unilocalers before us, we bought a Groupon $ 89 for 10 lessons: 2 social practice dances, 6 private lessons, 2 semi private lessons. The studio itself is in rough shape. Parts of the floor are patched with duct tape. Our first lesson was on a Friday night which coincided with their weekly social dance. It was crowded, but fun. The website is clear as to what students can expect; no focus is put on a particular style of dance. It is a crash course to the basic steps of several styles. We were introduced to the waltz that first session. We’ve never taken dance lessons before. It was great exercise, and fun. Our second session began with the instructor asking us to fill out a form. After we were done, she asked us some questions, one being what we would like to get out of dance. We told her were were just looking for fun activities to do together. She gave us a tour of the facility (really unnecessary given how tiny the place is), and talked at length about creating a custom dance program for us free of charge. Like a previous reviewer stated, it felt «scammy». The third session went fine, it was 30 minutes of dancing to salsa, tango, and fox trot. The fourth lesson is when the experience really soured. At the end of the half hour session, Lainey told us the next 30 minutes would be spent talking about what we’d like to get out of dance. My husband and I looked at each other in confusion. It had been a few weeks since the second lesson, but I remembered her asking us this already. Also, there is nothing in the description of the Groupon, that states we would be subject to 30 minutes of… dance discussion after our 30 minute dance lesson. She led us into a little room with a round table and a few chairs. We weren’t given a choice in this. She asked us again what we hoped to get out of dance; why did we come to Pacific Dance Center? I pointed out she already asked us this and we already answered. At first she said she hadn’t asked us this before. My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I’m not senile just yet. I was insistent that she indeed already asked us these questions. She backpedaled a bit, saying that it has been some time since she asked us these questions. After having a few lessons, perhaps our goals have changed. Lainey is such a nice person, completely professional, and an attentive instructor. For this reason, I found it difficult to be my normally blunt, no nonsense self. I repeated our answers from the first time she asked us these questions. It’s like our words didn’t register. She told us about the different levels of social dancers, gold star taking 5 – 7 years, blah, blah, blah. When people ignore what I say, I typically return the favor. We told her in so many words we were not committing to any packages, and that we were on a budget. Next thing we know, she is bringing in a financial consultant who repeated the exact same statements Lainey made. She also pitched pricing which is very pricy. I tuned out most of what they were saying, but I do remember being quoted $ 200 per lesson. The situation grew increasingly awkward and uncomfortable. How many different ways are there to say, «we are not committing to any packages»? The financial consultant told us she would watch us dance during our fifth lesson, then create a custom dance program for us to review. You have got to be f*cking kidding me. I cancelled our subsequent lessons due to illness. After talking with my husband tonight, we decided not to bother rescheduling at all. If I could answer their questions differently, I would have told them, «We already got exactly what we hoped from the lessons. We are trying out new activities to keep our marriage fun, exciting and strong. Mission accomplished.» I have no doubt that poor instructor has to double as a pushy salesperson in order to teach at this facility. It really is a shame Pacific Dance Center engages in such sleazy tactics. We would have been interested in occasional, no-​commitment dance lessons, but after this experience, we won’t be back.

I got a deal on Groupon for 10 total lessons at a really good price. Having never danced before but wanting to learn, I was more nervous than excited. A couple hours before leaving for my first lesson, I decided to check Unilocal so I could get an idea of what to expect. The impression I got was that for the first, and each subsequent lesson, I would have to endure a high-​pressure sales pitch. I thought about saying screw it and not going to my lesson, but decided to check them out despite the reviews.
Talk about a disappointment. After the first lesson, which was an hour, I didn’t get pitched at at all. What, am I not good enough for your high-​pressure schemes, Pacific Dance Center?! It turns out that the old manager has left and been replaced by a woman named Kristina, or something like that (I’m not really sure of her name, I can’t understand a word she says)
Don’t let Kristina’s awesome attitude and passion for dance fool you. I’m sure she’s a wolf-in-sheep’s clothing, waiting for the right time to spring her trap and steal all my money. I got that feeling when she invited me to their free Valentine’s day ball. That’s why whenever I go in for my lesson, which is a really awesome time of the week now, I leave my wallet, phone, jewelry, watch, and car at home, just so they don’t use any Jedi mind tricks to take them from me.
You’ve been warned. If you want to experience that high-​pressure sales environment that we all know and love, then don’t come here. But, if you want to learn to dance in a great environment with nice teachers, then this is the place.

great place, highly underrated i was worried at first because of the bad reviews (check the filterd reviewstoo) but i went anyway and iam really glad i did. it was really helpful learning the basics of all the dances and getting to choose what ones i wanted to focus on. great place for social dancing and making friends

I’ve been taking lessons there for a while;
my teacher is Grant — he is amazing! very talented and fun!
don’t know much about other teachers;
the new studio is pretty big and nice

Same groupon complain like everyone else. Waste of time. If I am getting 10 lessons why learn basics of ALL the different dances and not pick one kind to learn for 10 lessons.
Here is the classic — «lets do this again, this time with music» plays random music that absolutely doesn’t go with the steps she outlined. Its a marketing scam to get people into their tiny studio.
That said, $ 89 for 10 basic couple lessons, is OK. Not a total ripoff but they did WAY over sell it. My wife and I enjoy our time together irrespective of whatever.
I wouldnt recommend or buy it again though. No thanks!

Had a groupon for private lessons and enjoyed learning style and better body posture plus a few new moves from John. Then, John quit and they switched me to Grant. Also a good guy, fun to work with. However, I quit Arthur Murray because they are very expensive and work very hard to commit you to spend your entire paycheck learning to dance at a higher level than most of us amateurs want or need. I found the same to be true here, except their current location in Bellevue is pretty small, sometimes crowded dance floor, and they are also very, very expensive. I am sticking to just paying for group classes elsewhere (try Harmony Ballroom) and keep looking for a consistent instructor who doesn’t charge a total fortune for private lessons. If I was wealthy and had 4+ hours a week to devote to it, I’d consider this place.

Purchased the same Groupon as other fellow Unilocalers and completed about 75% of starter dance lesson package then the hard closing began at 2500 bucks to continue dance lessons! My wife and I were brought into a tight office off the dance floor and pressured into continuing at a large amount of money. When we politely declined, our dance instructor had to have a more experienced dance instructor come in and hard close us on dance lessons! Unbelievable! These hard close sales tactics don’t work past the 70’s! Dear Pacific Dance Center, wouldn’t it be very easy just to schedule the next weeks lesson like a professional office does to keep you coming back?
I apologize for assigning a one star review to PDC and expressing my disgust, but it is well deserved.

This place is amazing. I got a groupon here for 5 lessons. I used them for learning our first dance for our wedding. Sarah was very helpful and showed us different styles of dances. We gave her feedback on the direction we wanted to go towards, and she was able to work towards that. We gave her our song and she listened to it herself and helped us choreographed our entire first dance.

I moved from a now defunct dance studio in Seattle to here, and I coudln’t be happier. The staff is friendly, casual and fosters an enviorment of fun and learning combined. I can’t recomend them enough.

I love it here, I started with the groupon and just kept signing up for more! I feel comfortable and not just a number or lost in the crowd. I started going here soon after my divorce, I am fairly young and of course by myself, I not only felt welcome but part of something. It is a very welcoming and encouraging community that also pushes you to be a good dancer.
I adore all of the instructors! They always say hello and greet me by name, as well as challenge my dancing in different ways… I could not recommend it more!

I also was excited to try out the studio with an $ 89 groupon for six private 30 minute lessons and 4 other group/​practice sessions. But, as others have pointed out, it is actually six hour long sessions with half the time spent trying to sell you hard on a multi-​thousand dollar package of lessons.
Our instructor simply told us to leave if we were not willing to sit through a thirty minute lecture on the medical and social benefits of dancing. I contacted groupon for guidance and they issued a partial refund which was great as there was no way we were going to go back there anyway after being treated so rude… let alone… receiving a vastly different program than what was advertised.
The instructors are perfectly good dancers and we would have learned a lot, but were not in the mood then, nor ever, to have someone «hard sell «us anything… felt like what a time-​share weekend must be like for one of those «free weekend» deals.
The sessions were painfully slow, covering things that we already knew how to do, as if we were complete beginners.
Seems like a place with a poor business model and poor management. Felt bad for the instructors as they are simply executing the orders, not the ones crafting the sales pitch and marketing.

TERRIBLE. Bought a Groupon here. Thought we were getting a deal, but got a complete bait and switch. Most of the lessons were spent trying to upsell us a bunch of lessons that cost $ 4,000-$ 5,000.
During the time where we actually got instruction, the pace of lessons was painstakingly slow.
At the end of the day, we spent hundreds of dollars to get a sales pitch, not dance instruction. Not getting our money’s worth was bad, but wasting hours of time was infinitely worse.

My boyfriend and I started going to the Pacific Dance Center initially because of an awesome Groupon deal we came across. I love to dance and learn new dancing, and my boyfriend agreed to come initially because of that. We began working with Asani at the studio and thoroughly enjoy his teaching style and quirky sense of humor. The studio is very comfortable and unassuming, which is great for those new to the studio. Overall we have had an excellent experience and are excited to continue dancing!

I haven’t been here in over a year and I live in constant fear of running into my instructor (Sarah) for fear that she’d expect me to use brain cells to remember my lessons. Brain cells I’ve destroyed via a cocktail of alcohol, stds, and various other substances.
Everyone who was here when I was here was pretty cool. I was at a very awkward stage in my life then and some of my best times were spent at this studio. Being sentimental makes me feel gross.
Anyway, Sarah’s awesome. I’d prob go back if I weren’t so fucking poor. Well, not poor. Poor in comparison to how NOT poor I used to be. The end.

If you are really serious about dancing, then yes that’s the place you were looking for. I joined here one and half months ago, at that time I was newbie in dance arena, but the time I’ve spent here has been best so far. I have been taking private lessons from Arielle. I think she’s best in her business. She knows how to teach steps, moves, posture, frame everything. She does her home work very well. Other trainers like Sarah, Corey, Grant, Johny, OCL. everyone is really awesome and ready to help you every time. Recommended place for CHA CHA, Salsa, Waltz, Tango, Rumba.