Hoffman Estates Park District

UPDATE: (I’d again give 0 stars if I could). After continuing to complain I was finally given the contact info for a Kyle Thomas, who is the supervisor for the kids programs I was told. Kyle was the guy who I had dealt with that created the issues. He was very unprofessional and defensive, so I was given the contact info for his boss Nicole Chesak. Nicole had a manager title, I’m guessing over kids programs. I spoke with her once briefly because she was leaving for the day at 2:30pm on a Thesday. She was going to call me back. I hadn’t received a call in 2 weeks so I called her back. TWICE MORE. I have still not heard back about a refund. I HAVE NO IDEA WHO /​Where TO COMPLAIN. Folks I have 2 neighbors with similar issues. Be aware if you use the Hoffman Estates park district. We’re going to Schaumburg or Rolling Meadows even though we live a block from the Rec center.

We enrolled our 4 year old son in the all day daycare and it was HORRIBLE. The art activities were a joke, stamp pads and white printer paper, the play time was barely supervised and the teachers are lazy. When I asked for updates on how he was adjusting to the school atmosphere all the ever told me was that he didn’t nap. They regularly shamed him for his lack of nap and he was coming home with unexplained bruises, from their lack of supervision.
They over charged me twice.
When I spoke to the director of it, she did not care. I was assured I would get more helpful feedback… Which then turned into everything my son did wrong. «Did not complete circle time. Did not this. Did not that.» When my husband asked what he does well… The crabby lady had no response.
Supervision was a joke and I didn’t feel like he was safe there.
I pulled him after 5 weeks of trying to work with these inept people. Do not bring your children here. They will not be safe, career for, out even supervised… Unless they nap for 6 hours, I would not recommend to anyone who loves their children.

I used to work out at this park district. Had a membership there through all of high school. After highschool I joined the Marine Corps and when I got home from my first deployment to Afghanistan I went home on 2 weeks of leave. Now, obviously i didnt have a membership there anymore because I no longer lived in Hoffman Estates but I figured they would let me lift some weights while I was home. Went there once and explained my situation but some grumpy old man said, «ok…it’s still 8 bucks.» So esentially, if I wanted to work out there on leave it would cost me 112 $ for 2weeks. Never went back. Pretty much every gym and park district will let active duty military work out for free considering how little they will be home, it’s not practical to maintain a gym membership back at your home of record. Most Americans want their service members physically fit. Anyways… I ended up going to Elk Grove’s park district for the remainder of my post deployment leave and they had no problem writing me a free pass. That place is wayyy nicer anyways.

In regards to Hoffman Estates Day Camp for kids ages 6 to 12, keep your children safe and keep them away. I enrolled two of my daughters for the summer day camp when they were ages 6 and 9. One day when my husband and I picked them up after camp, we noticed that our nine year old seemed to have been crying. That happens. In fact, there were several kids sitting to the side crying. We all got into the car. I asked how their day was. In the midst of the story, my husband turned the car around and drove towards the school we picked them up from. In telling us how their day was, our daughters inadvertently revealed that the counselors all decided to have a game of dodge ball. So far, no big deal. Then we learned that they divided up the team counselors vs kids. That’s right, kids as young as six vs counselors who are all adults into their 20s. These adults were throwing dodge balls at my six year old!
Upon our arrival back at the school, both my husband and I tried to get some clarification from the adults running the camp. The recreation leader admitted that she was reluctant when her underling assistants suggested this as she realized how askew the teams would have been. Then one of her smug underlings chimed in, «we gave them the option to sit out.» So, these idiot adults were empowering my six year old to go against the people with whom we left her thinking the adults would be making safety decisions. I asked them to admit to me that they can see, in retrospect, that they had made an error in judgment. I wanted this admission so that I can regain my confidence in them when I dropped my children off the following day. The only one who would admit this from the five staff members was the recreation leader. The other four saw nothing wrong with what they had done.
Our next stop was the park district office. We spoke to the person in charge of the summer day camp program. She saw nothing wrong with what had happened. We promptly pulled our children from that camp run by idiots.
The adult classes I have attended from the park district were good. The pre-​school program my daughter attended was great. Unfortunately the idiots running the summer day camp needs to be what dictates my low rating.

Unfortunately their classes are very disappointing. My son has attended swimming class and gymnastics but both were waste of time, and waste of money. instructors not good at all.

Temperature control at the rinks is awful. After 3 months of freezing in the rinks and asking the management to do something about it, they finally come out with «oh yeah, we know there is a problem, but we can’t get the parts» I am sure it can’t be above 40 degrees in the stands.

Overall, I’m happy with the park district. They have many programs available, which we have participated in from basketball for my son, to dance for my daughter for several years, a dance company that is now competing and doing well, an outdoor water park which we have taken full advantage of since it opened, to egg hunts, daddy/​daughter and mom/​son events, and even breakfast with santa. There are three facilities to choose from.
What I would like to see is more updated equipment at the Triphan Fitness Center, which is closest to me, as well as an option for indoor swimming for season pass holders all year. We do not have passes to Prairie Stone, therefore cannot use their pool. Neighboring Schaumburg pool passes give residents the option to go to any of the pools, both indoor and out.
Also, the concessions are lacking. need better quality food at more reasonable prices. Children going to the pool cannot afford several dollars to get a snack and drink.

Great staff and prices for a gym membership. They offer a large variety of cardio equipment and have more then enough weight training machines for a great way to exercise. People who use the facility are all friendly and it never feels like a «Globo Gym» atmosphere. In the mornings, if your lucky, you can even watch the Chicago Wolves practice while you exercise!

A nice place to go ice skating with the family

The Park District has an awesome ZUMBA class and the instructor is so nice! Always smiling and helpful, I always enjoy my workout here. It’s worth the money. The locker room is clean and the equipment is newer. Would recommend to anyone on a budget, but still wants to enroll the family to get healthy.

It’s great you have a free wi– fi here but it’s very cold! Only one old coffee machine doesn’t do the job cause it has no cups in the evening.

This review is for the Fitness Center inside the Hoffman Estates Park District building.
I guess I will start with the positives. This is a very cheap gym to belong to, with a monthly fee of only $ 20. This gym is also included for free with a membership to Prairie Stone, which works out well for me because I work very close to the HEPD building.
With that said, I am reminded of the old saying «you get what you pay for.»
First of all, the locker rooms are a HIKE from the where you enter to check in. They are clear on the other side of the building making them useless to me when I come for a quick lunch time workout.
Speaking of lunch time, the entire building always smells like a combination of funnel cake and french fries. Its really quite overpowering.
Do you like working out in the freezing cold? The gym is usually about the same temperature as the two ice rinks that are on either side of it. And speaking of the ice rink, there are times when there are large lines for the ice rink and if you are trying to go to the fitness center you might find yourself waiting in those lines too. There is not a separate check in spot for fitness.
The gym itself is very small. They have a decent mix of equipment, but nothing spectacular. The size can make it a little awkward if you are, say, trying to do some situps… you may feel like you are sort of in the way of others. oh because you are.
In summation, its not terrible, but its not great. It’s probably worth $ 20 a month, just don’t forget you sweatshirt and mittens.

This is a review for the free skate at the Hoffman Estates Community Center. This was quite possibly the biggest circus I have ever seen. The free skate began at 8:20 on a Saturday night. I had gotten there at 8:30 with some family and friends. We got into the lobby and were greeted by a line of well over 75 people.
Confused if we had walked into some sort of event, we broke up and investigated. Nope, turned out to be the line to get into the rink. One of our reconnaissance team said that there was at least 300 people already on the ice. Overall not an ideal situation, but we stuck it out.
Waiting in line for another 10 minutes I again got a bit stir crazy and walked towards the front desk. Here I encounter a very strange situation. There was one woman doing tickets/​stamps letting people into the rink, and the other employee was bickering with an apparently disgruntled would-​be customer. I was shocked when i noticed both of them were calling the police on one another.
This quickly turned into a train wreck as two cop cars showed up, further slowing the line via the lack of 50% of the ticket-​selling employees. Plus, there were line slowing gapers delays as the suburbantites were slowed by the sight of two armed police officers.
The final straw was when they ran out of any skates over a size 9. That would have left half of our group without skates. So we just left. I know this is just a park district, but how hard can it be to sell tickets and stamp hands?! You would be hard pressed to get me back to this rink.

Having lived in the city for the past decade or so, the whole park district thing was completely foreign to me. Discovery Center, yes. Park District, uh… no.
Well now that I’m married, mortgaged, and surburban, I have rediscovered the wonder that is the park district. So many classes! So little money!
I’ve taken 3 classes at the HEPD so far, all adult exercise classes, and all have been great! Small classes, great teachers, awesome hours. Classes draw a great mix of people from all age groups. They’re a great way to get to know some people in the area and to feel a bit more keyed in to the community.
The facilities have been very impressive (just try not to think about the portion of your property tax bill that funds them). I was blown away by the ice center — I had no idea 2 hockey rinks were tucked away back on Higgins Rd! The kid’s programs look great too. If I ever decide to pop any rugrats out, they will definitely be partaking in the HEPD classes.