By Gazette Staff
May 17th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
In-person registration support is also available at the start of the registration launch at Customer Service desks at the Burlington Seniors’ Centre (Thursday, May 21) and Tansley Woods Community Centre, on registration launch days. Please note, staff have the same access to programs as on the City’s website; in-person registration does not provide priority access.
For assistance leading up to registration launch day visit our Service Burlington page for regular recreation customer service hours.
New! Online virtual waiting room
On the upcoming registration launch day for summer for adult programs and swimming lessons, you’ll see something different when registering online – a virtual waiting room! Learn more about how the virtual waiting room works.
Yes, there is a new process in registering for programs starting Thursday, May 21st at 6:45 AM for Seniors.
We have been told that from 6:45AM to 6:59AM we can register to go into a Virtual Waiting Room. At 7:00AM the Virtual Waiting Room will tell you how long you have to wait until you can register for programs. Supposedly, this is done randomly.
The purpose of going to this new form of registration process was to avoid the system from shutting down or going very slowly as everyone was ready at their computers to get registered at 7:00AM.
Registration for some programs is very limited. Pottery for example has only 12 spots.
Previously Registration for Senior Programs took place on a Saturday starting at 9AM. This changed a couple of years ago to a Thursday at 7AM. Now seniors will be sitting at their computers by 6:30AM to get into a virtual waiting room between 6:45AM and 6:59 AM.
You should be aware that Registration for swimming etc. occur on a Saturday starting at 9AM.
Why seniors have to register on a Thursday at 7AM? Well you will have to ask the people at Parks and Recreation for the answer. It is certainly not what the seniors want.
To make matters worse this new program was not even told to anyone until an email from the city came last Thursday ( one week before registration) to tell us this was happening.
If this program will indeed be better – great. HOWEVER, one week notice of the change is definitely not the way to find out especially since there are no tutorials on what to expect.
I was fortunate enough to be able to speak to Parks and Recreation and was able to get some screen shots of what we will see when waiting to get into the VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM. I shared this with my Round Table Discussion Group.
The most important thing for people to remember is to NOT close the browser while while waiting to be allowed to register.. If you do this you will be knocked out of the Virtual Waiting Room you were in only to go into another Virtual Waiting Room and have to wait longer.
Definitely not enough time was allowed for seniors to become familiar with the system. I foresee a chaotic situation on May 21st. I hope I am wrong.