Bally Total Fitness

Pros: Quality equipment, although usually not enough of it
Cons: Under equipped, "in your face" sales reps, incompetent staff

Bally's, and other commercial health clubs like it, want to get you in the door and hope you never show up again. The harsh reality of commercial fitness facilities is that they are not set-up to get their members results. If everyone who signed up...

Pros: decent equipment, lap pool
Cons: customer service is non-existant

Beware of paying Bally’s in full for your membership; you’ll be hard pressed to get it back if you need to cancel. I had a conversation about cancelling my membership with Bally’s call center. I moved to California in May 07 at which time I had faxed and ...

Pros: NONE
Cons: EVERYTHING

Don't ever join this gym. They force you into the strictest contract ever, that you have no chance of escaping. When asked how to get out, they replied, either 1) Move 25 miles away from a Bally's (but there is a Bally's every 50 miles); or 2) If you...

Pros: Top notch workout equipment, Great facility
Cons: See Below

This is the story of one man's year long venture with Bally Total Fitness. While Bally is a good place to workout, it is often a place that I go to with a bitter taste in my mouth.

1. I have tried numerous times to update my address with...

Pros: None
Cons: contract, moving, cancellation

I joined Bally's while I lived in the DC area. It was the only convenient gym close to my house. When I had to relocate for work, the staff told me that as long as there was not a Bally's within a certain radius of my new residence, then the contract...

Pros: Multiple locations, variety of classes and equipment
Cons: Bait and switch tactics on agreements. Extremely bad music at some locations for classes

In 1988, I signed up for a membership with Bally's health club in West Los Angeles. They had several promotions. The one I chose was for half off renewal fees for life in exchange for paying a significantly higher sign up fee. I believe that was around 8...

Pros: Bally,s can get you fit in a suitable time for some.
Cons: But LA Fitness will have you fit in no time compared to Bally's.

Bally total gym is a great gym to go to, it has many things for you to do to get into shape, depending on the person and there fitness goals, but the thing is, is that LA Fitness is much better than Bally's. if you were to experience them both like i ...

Pros: Variety of equipment, classes at different times
Cons: Meet market, crowded

I have belonged to many different gyms over the years and enjoy weight training both in a facility and at home. This gym was, by far, the most disappointing overall.

I found it to be fairly clean, although not as clean as I would like simply...

Pros: A lot of equipment
Cons: feels like everyone is pretentious

Bally's total fitness makes there club look like it is a life changing club that will turn you into a sex symbol. However I found it very difficult to go to the club consistently because most of the time it was very crowded and I was unable to work out...

Pros: not a thing.
Cons: dirty and crowded. rude and deceitful. Its all a scam to steal your money.

I'm 18 years old. I signed what seemed to be a reasonable contract but it turned out I was just naive. After a little while I realized what ridiculous requirements they expected, but having signed a contract i figured the best I could do was suffer ...

Pros: Equipment
Cons: Customer service, draconian contract, very expensive, impossible to cancel.

Report Edited due to several complaints: Not only you will have to sign a draconian contract from which the chances of escape are minimal, but you will find none or little customer care in case of a problem. I have been a member for two years, been ...

Pros: Generally cheaper than other clubs.
Cons: Old equipment. Dirty clubs. High employee turnover. Broken facilities not fixed.

I've been a member of Bally's in the Portland, OR area since before they were all Bally's. At first, the Portland area clubs were Nautilus Plus Fitness. Then they were bought out by Gold's Gym. Then they were bought out by Bally's. Since the clubs ...

Pros: After reading aboutballyfitness.com none.
Cons: Scammers, salesperson quit after 2 months, no weights above 85lb

After reading all the stuff on AboutBallyFitness.com about Ballys and the reviews here I say you should avoid them.

They are scammers and will rob you.

I didn't believe it for myself so I joined. The sales person disappeared after...

Pros: Good workout machines, decent hours, good parking
Cons: Ammenities frequently don't work, dirty

I joined Ballys in North Seattle about 3 years ago. While the training machines are nice, the locker room and bathrooms are filthy. I have seen sticky stuff on the floor in the locker room and seen the same spot 3 days later. As a good corporate ...

Pros: Great equipment
Cons: dishonest staff

I started working out about 3 years ago and lost 100 lbs. so I have nothing bad to say about exercise, but I've been a member to 3 gyms now and the staff at Bally's has definitely been the WORST. First of all I bought one of their most expensive...