Waiting, Waiting, Waiting
Written: Jun 14 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: 24 hour availability
Cons: too crowded, too much waiting around
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| merlot's Full Review: 24 Hour Fitness |
When I moved a few years ago my friend and I decided that we wanted to join a Health Club together. We called around looking for something that was in our price range.
We called 24 hour fitness because they had a lot of locations and a couple of those locations were either close to work or home. When we called to check prices we were told that they had too many amenities to explain over the phone, therefore we should just come in. I thought that this was ridiculous as it was going to be a waste of our time and theirs if they were not within my budget. However, we made an appointment and went in for the tour.
The employee showed us around, told us about all the different plans that they had and then told us that they could only offer us the deal right then and there. I said "we would have to sign up right now in order to waive the $150.00 registration fee?" and he told me yes, the offer was only good at that time, once we walked out the door it was no longer valid. I thought this was insane. I told him that we were not done looking around, that there were a couple of other clubs we wanted to check out first. He told me "well the offer is only good today". This seemed completely stupid to me, after all if your product is so good you should have faith that after checking out the other clubs I would be back. Well, we discussed it further and thought we were getting a good deal, so we decided to join.
For $18/month, no inititation fee (this was about 5 years ago) we joined 24 hour fitness. This allowed us to work out at 3 or 4 different clubs, but not all of the clubs that are in the chain, you have to pay more for that. That was fine, we would just go to the one that was between both of our houses and workout everyday.
Well, after work seemed to be the best time to work out. Apparently, that is the best time for everyone else also, LOL! The club was extremely crowded at this time...really crowded. We would have to put our name on a waiting list to use either the treadmills (they had 4) or the stairmasters (they had 3). The treadmill sign up ran in 30 minute increments, but frequently people would go over. You could either tell them that it was no longer their time on the treadmill, or you could go tell an employee that would then tell them their time was up. Either way I felt like a little kindergartner having to tell the other kids "its my turn to go down the slide".
There was a lot of waiting for other equipment as well, and it seemed like our workouts were not very effective since we spent a great deal of time waiting to use equipment. We decided to try the club at other times of the day to see if it was less crowded. We found the best times to go were around 5 am or 10 pm. YUCK! Who wants to get up that early? Obviously no one since it was usually pretty deserted then. As for 10 pm. that meant going home after work and then going back out, and not seeing a whole lot of my husband. Plus, I don't like to work out right before bed.
The club itself was nice. They offered quite a few different aerobics classes and the insturctors were all very good and a lot of fun. They also had a good circuit training program that was lead my an instructor. This was fun and was only limited to a certain amount of people, so we did this quite a bit. I did notice during the 6 months that I went there that there was a lot of turnover, employees seemed to find other jobs quite frequently.
The club was clean and the equipment seemed to be in good condition. There was no pool at this particular club so I can not comment on any pool or sauna conditions.
24 hour workout would have been a good club if I had gone in the early morning or late evening, both of which were not at all convenient for me. I thought that working out there was ineffective due to the quantity of equipment available compared to the number of people using the facility. I also was not at all impressed with the used car salesman tactics of the staff. I think that I would have been happier going elsewhere, even if I had to pay more.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
merlot
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 - Top 500 |
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Location: Californina
Reviews written: 295
Trusted by: 321 members
About Me:
Feel The Roar! GO KINGS!!!!
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