Rec Centers in VA Beach (neighborhood, to live, price)

[nightsoilman]

I will likely be relocating to the area in the next few months, and have been researching many different areas of Virginia beach. I'm particularly interested in the community rec centers that are part of the Parks & Rec system there. It seems like a terrific system. I realize that a membership will get you access to any of them, but it would be great to live close by to a good one - preferably accessible by bike.

The ones I found were:

Bayside Community Recreation Center
Bow Creek Community Recreation Center
Great Neck Community Recreation Center
Kempsville Community Recreation Center
Princess Anne Community Recreation Center
Seatack Community Recreation Center

How do the different facilities compare? Are they all pretty much the same, or are some nicer, or have more to offer than the others?

Thanks in advance.

[Spazkat9696]

I like the Kempsville rec center. It is located in a nice neighborhood. Bow Creek is small and has a lot of jet noise. I really don't know much about the others.

[Statz2k10]

What exactly do you want to do at a rec center? Some rec centers are better for certain things.

[GoodGollyMolly]

Bow Creek is one of the oldest facilities and is small as previously noted. Seatack is newer but also small. Kempsville is old but has been maintained well and has a variety of activities that some of the others do not. Great Neck, Bayside, and Princess Anne are the newest. All nice facilities with the major areas covered, workout facilities, full gyms, nice pools, etc. We are very lucky with our high quality Parks & Rec program.

[bhaffiliate]

Seatack is small and in the direct path of the Oceana navy flyzone (is extremely noisy).

[CosmicWizard]

I was a member at the Great Neck rec center for 15 years. Primarily I used the wieght room as a low priced alternative to a place like Golds Gym. The equipment was certainly no match for Golds Gym, but I found it to be more than adequate for my workouts. For the price ( $50/yr in 2006 ) it's the best deal in town. In addition to the weight room, theres are basketball courts ( indoors and out ), an indoor pool, and a nice outdoor picnic area. It's located adjacent to Cox HS. Occassionally I'd use the Bayside center, which was basically a mirror of the GN center, but a few years newer. Less occassionally, I'd use the Bow Creek center. As others stated, it's old and small, but it was close to where I worked, so it provided easy lunch break access for an occassional lunchtime workout.