The Dolphin Centre

Fantastic experience: We held a party for over 90 people in the grand hall. It is a perfect venue. With chandeliers and grand paintings to accompany the atmosphere! A hidden treasure! The hall is huge with a bar and staff wonderful. After a sit down meal, we booked out the whole bowling alley for our guests, which went down very well. Car parking and accommodation on the doorstep - you couldn't have asked for any more. A perfect venue at an excellent price.

Fantastic experience: A place to meet up, chill out and relax. The Thai fish cakes are very nice.

Fantastic experience: Kids in soft play . Coffee for me

Fantastic experience: Went bowling. It's well done and the equipment is all new. Would be five stars but it didn't register one of my strikes. Fine up because it registered all five strikes I got in a row.

Fantastic experience: Plenty of activities. Something for everyone. Even 10 pin bowling, everybody loves it. The gym is getting all new equipment at the end of September.

Fantastic experience: Great coffee and the best scones in Darlington available in the cafe. Friendly, helpful staff.

Fantastic experience: I take a swimming class here, pool is clean and warm. Staff are friendly and efficient.

Fantastic experience: Whilst the gym isn't the grandest it's good value for the monthly cost; it has most of the equipment you'd want as well as access to the pool.

Fantastic experience: Great place amazing friendly staff!! EXCELLENT in and situation thrown at them. We love it there x

Fantastic experience: Great multi sports venue. Excellent staff, always happy to help. Decent cafe with good affordable food and drink. Well equipped gym with top staff. Very convenient for the town centre, only draw back is lack of free parking but I only live half a mile away so am OK!

Fantastic experience: Very good high quality pool with two equally fun slides and a safe diving board.

Fantastic experience: Great customer service. Pool is well maintained and has bookable lane swimming every day. Well equipped gym for all rounders and plenty of classes too.

Fantastic experience: Great space. Loads to do and we'll maintained. Important for the town to have a place like this.

Fantastic experience: The centre is inclusive and there is always something for everyone. thoroughly enjoy the wellbeing classes such as taichi, pilate and yoga. And have a cup of tea and a slice of their delicious tray bake before or after.

Fantastic experience: Great place for kids and adults, lots to do

Fantastic experience: Excellent gym, pool and helpful friendly staff

Fantastic experience: We had a great family trip first bowling, and then into the soft play area which is one of the best we have visited

Fantastic experience: Excellent service and I will definitely recommend to family and friends

Fantastic experience: Great big pool for the kids a lot longer and deeper than most of the local ones

Fantastic experience: Located around Town Hall. Nice leisure centre in the middle of Darlington town centre. Very well equipped and used. Centre staff were helpful. Also has a bar and restaurant. Parking nearby at Feethams car park.

Fantastic experience: Very well run and safe environment to do all your keep fit

Fantastic experience: Kids love the big pool and diving boards

Fantastic experience: Still one of biggest pools around the north east - a lot of the other local baths do not have enough room for a decent swim

Fantastic experience: Very good pool and great children's facilities. Also, well equipped and managed gym.

Fantastic experience: Great centre, swimming, bowling, soft play, tennis, gym, and a pretty good cafe bistro.

Fantastic experience: Was impressed how smart this place looked and will be going there again

Fantastic experience: Brilliant venue! Well done! A council that invests in venues and service....... Give Cornwall a pointer please!!!!

Fantastic experience: The soft play centre is a little gem staffed by warm friendly people who really seem to like what they are doing. Clean and bright with a nice selection of snacks for kids and adults. A little sing song led by Diane makes a happy break in the play sessions. Well done everone! The cafe just sealed our good impression. Good food and service in a pleasant lounge . The prices are very reasonable. We live in a tourist spot and would have been paying twice that amount at home! Staff working very hard to provide a good service. Tables cleaned as soon as customers left, no dirty plates left to build up. Top marks!

Fantastic experience: We took our 4 children, they absolutely loved it, they said it was better then any of the other swimming pools we've been too. They were all worn out when we got home, so we were happy

Fantastic experience: Loved our visit to swim and eat. Enjoyed the swimming and the diving but the curved slide was as slippy as a council gritted road. Had to use my arms the full length of the slide, phew. Mix up with food in the bistro too but the manager immediately took control and sorted it. Thumbs up to him,

Fantastic experience: Six weeks worth of physio. Good instructor, good people, and well worth going.

Fantastic experience: Had a fantastic time here with the wife first time I have been swimming in 10 years . The facility's are excellent and the staff and friendly and extremely helpful.

Fantastic experience: Small bowling alley but feels better due to that, food and drink selection good, £7 a game so good value

Positive experience: Used the facilities of the centre. No problems. Staff helpful to clients.

Fantastic experience: A very grand elegant Hall, perfect for any occasion. Went to a family wedding which was beautiful. The kitchen is also huge and well prepared, parking in the nearby carparks and town centre is available. The staff and management are very helpful and made it a smooth day.

Fantastic experience: Amazing food at the cafe! The swimming pool and changing rooms are kept clean. The soft play area is great for kids

Fantastic experience: I take my daughter swimming here each week for lessons. The teachers are fab and she enjoys it very much. The pool and changing rooms are always clean.

Fantastic experience: Excellent staff really friendly and extremely clean bowling was really fun and quite cheap

Fantastic experience: Nice little (I mean small toddler area) Big pool is fun and good for kids too (armbands probably needed) Diving boards and pool and slides too Fun and good pricing.

Fantastic experience: Really enjoyed my experience with the bowling friendly approachable staff highly recommended

Fantastic experience: Love the dolphin centre all the staff are brill so helpful most of them are young but are so great nothing is to much trouble and Sarah who teaches water aerobics is so good at her job makes it such a pleasure and works you very hard and gets the best out of you ,it’s a pity the management aren’t as helpful need more training in how to be more public friendly

Fantastic experience: Travelled up from Leeds as it's the closest swimming pool to us that still has a 5M board, Had to queue for an hour due to restrictions on the amount of bathers but we expected that, shame sessions are only an hour though, but better than nothing, Locker system is a little confusing but a friendly staff member showed us how they worked. the lifeguards are attentive and approachable, The diving pool is fantastic! both myself and my 10 year old son spent the whole hour diving off into very nice warm water, Prices are very reasonable, including parking at Fleethams, I spent less than £10 We will be back in a couple of weeks but we will be there early this time

Fantastic experience: Great first swim in over 18 months, although the staff looked quite bored we had a great time and didn't impact on our enjoyment

Fantastic experience: It's been a while since I went to the Dolphin Centre and what a change,it has a swish feel about it now, The staff are friendly and attentive, we went 10pin bowling. The alley was very clean, comfortable and the equipment was just as you would want. 10 out of 10.

Fantastic experience: Went for soft play under the sea with my son and daughter. Great facilities as well as attention to cleanliness with the current pandemic. A large variety of activities from climbing to slides to role play booths (hard to explain) a good cafe with plenty of tables accompanies it so you can get something for yourself or for the kids as well

Fantastic experience: Friendly staff, cleaners never stop and they have strict rules on hand sanitising and making it so you can safely socially distance which gives you extra peace of mind. The new soft play and bowling are amazing.

Fantastic experience: This place was a nice little find! Nice soft play centre, secure and friendly staff! Soft play for all ages! Took my 10 month old and she loved it! You can get food and drinks here and food for you babies too! We got mash, veg and gravy for our baby and she loved it! With the odd cheeky sweet potato fry from my plate Nice coffee and because it is in a sports centre it has all the ammenties you need. Only down side and it was very annoying coming for the first time and that's parking... none on the premises itself as its in a town centre, you have to find some multi story cat park somewhere. Ended up driving around in circles a couple of times at the beginning. Apart from that we will be coming back!

Fantastic experience: I've been a member of the Dolphin centre for years. It was my lifeline when I had some personal struggles and kept me focused and motivated. The crèche is a fantastic affordable facility for parents. The staff are really lovely and the hospitality and gym staff go out if their way to be helpful. An excellent facility that I really value as part of my routine.

Fantastic experience: I love this place it has everything. We go and use the squash courts and go play badminton on a Wednesday. You can borrow rackets too. If you sign up you can book online also which is super convenient

Fantastic experience: We took our two year old to the soft play here and he loved it. It's a really good size: big enough for him to explore without us feeling like we were going to lose him. There's a good variety of things to do, with a mini football area, some games in the ball pool for older kids and some great slides. Our son was on the smaller side for the main soft play so he needed help getting to the different levels but he was able to run around and do the different things by himself happily enough. There's a baby area for the youngest kids. He got a drink, cookie and some fruit included in the entrance fee which was only a couple of pounds. Absolute bargain! We were only visiting Darlington, otherwise this would have become a regular.

Fantastic experience: Good fitness centre in the middle of town. Wasn't very busy, modern equipment, clean, lots of variety. Was £5 for a one off gym entry. Lockers take £1 coin deposit. Fully recommend if just visiting

Fantastic experience: It has excellent services, whether it be swimming, different pool for young children, an excellent gym which I'm a member of, suitable for both sexes and all the equipment is up to date and of a very high standard. Squash courts and a spa. Excellent, simple as that.