Cold swimming pool - entitled or reasonable to have a grump?
Wanted to take the kids swimming for the last day of the school holidays. £31.90 for two adults and two kids aged 4 and 6 at our semi-local leisure centre seemed a bit steep (we're still getting used to paying big kid prices for the younger one), but we thought we'd splash out as Last Day of the Holidays, etc. Our more local centre would have been cheaper at around £16, but the further-away-more-expensive one has wave machines and a flume and the kids do love it, so.
After a 25-minute drive, we arrive at the centre, do the usual dance of wrestling Mlle 4 and Mme 6 into their swimsuits, and get into the water. The pool seems much quieter than usual, and after 30 seconds we realise why -- It. Is. Freezing. Being hardy outdoor sorts (husband is Scottish to boot!) we encourage the kids to tough it out, do lots of kicking so they stay as warm as possible, etc. They did their best, but by the 30-minute mark I had a 6-year-old (who is quite small and a bit underweight) physically unable to do anything but huddle sadly over on an outlet vent with her lips turning blue, and a 4-year-old frantically bouncing up and down whole-body-shivering while squeaking "too cold!".
At this point, we admitted defeat and fished them out of the pool. On the way to the changing room I asked a lifeguard why it was so cold, and he admitted that the boiler switch had tripped overnight which meant the pool had gone cold overnight and was still coming back up to temperature. Nobody had mentioned this to us on the way in.
On the way out I asked the nice young man behind the front desk about the possibility of a refund or credit note against a future visit. He went off to ask his manager, and came back with a second-hand lecture from the manager about how he would generously issue us with a pass for another session Just This Once, but we really should have got out immediately if we wanted a refund (with the strong implication being that we thought we were being dodgy/looking for freebies). Nice young man was obviously a bit embarrassed about this.
I might be being petty and grumpy, but this has really rubbed me up the wrong way -- over £30 is already bloody expensive for an hour's worth of swimming, and I don't appreciate the implication that I'm being dishonest just because we spent 30 minutes trying to make the best of a situation where we'd already driven 25 minutes and had kids who were desperately excited to swim.
I guess I'm just looking for a sense-check -- am I reasonable to have the grump about this, or am I just suffering from irreversible end-of-school-holidays crabbitude?