Tokyo Aquatics Center | 東京アクアティクスセンター

As other reviewers have noted, this facility, located in an industrial area, is definitely off the beaten tourist path. It's a 12-to-15-minute walk to get there from the Tatsumi Metro station. And, once you do get there, you have to decide which pool you want to swim in, as they have separate entrances. The sub-pool (Pool 2) seems to be mostly set up for short course.

MAKE SURE TO CHECK THE SCHEDULE. As Japan's premiere swimming pool, it's often closed for competitions and swim camps. Even if it says they are open, you may want to find out how many lanes are available for lap swimmers. There were only three lanes available when I swam but I had a lane to myself for most of the swim - probably because of the hard-to-reach location. Other lanes had training and practices going on, and the diving well had a synchronized swimming practice.

You buy your ticket from vending machine and scan it to get inside the locker rooms - don't lose it, as you'll need it to leave. It also serves as your locker key - insert the ticket on the inside of the door to release the key.

I had a lovely time swimming here - but between the lap lane availability, travel time, and location, you definitely need to plan ahead.

This is a beautiful state-of-the-art facility. BUT: you must check the schedule. It is often closed to the public on weekends and at certain times of day for meets/club practice, etc. The pdf of the monthly schedule is in Japanese: yellow shaded time slots are CLOSED, blue shaded time slots are open to the public. Modifications to the schedule are published daily - so double check before you go. This pool is difficult to reach, and we were disappointed to find it closed twice, in spite of our best efforts to gather information. Vending machines sell souvenir towels, t-shirts, etc.

This is a huge, new, hard-to-get-to facility. There are giant change rooms with lots of free lockers (insert your entrance pass to allow use). Oddly for a Japanese pool, there is no shoe removal area or signs outside the change rooms requiring shoe removal. Most users seemed to be removing them out of habit.

I used only the main 50m pool. The water was clear and cool enough to be comfortable. Initially, there were two lanes for serious training, two for low-level lessons, and six for lane swimming, later eight lanes became available for lane swimming. The lanes were divided into slow and fast lanes, no medium. No passing is permitted during lengths but swimmers seemed very courteous about allowing faster swimmers to pass at the lane-ends. There were some pretty fast swimmers in the fast lanes and some Speedos and other racing suits, which are seldom seen in most pools here. There were three or four swimmers per lane, most of the time. How much of this is driven by novelty of the facility having just been opened to the public or that it’s free this week, I’m not sure.

Everyone had to get out of pool for a 10-minute inspection, but I don’t know how often this is done.

The bad part is getting here. IT takes about 40 minutes on transit from central Tokyo, plus a good 1km walk. I used Tatsumi Metro station which I think is closest to pool (use the #2 exit). The walk starts fine with one large sign pointing the way but that’s the last sign I saw. Google maps led me on a circular route of at least an extra ½ km circling the facility. It would have been far better/shorter to pick my own route on the map. But the area and facility are not particularly pedestrian-friendly. The main entrance is on the northwest side, but it's not obvious. I think there might be a better shorter-distance entrance on opposite side, but this was barricaded off for construction.

Though this is a nice new pool in great shape the same experience can be had more easily at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium pool. Maybe fewer swimmers too.