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| - I've worked as a fitness professional for over ten years, and I've worked in various gyms--from the uber high-end to the not-so high-end. Now that I'm on the other side of the industry (the client), I think I have a decent perspective to evaluate a fitness club. The Uptown Gold's location is pretty disappointing--mostly because of the service (management, training, front desk) but the facility itself plays a role as well. The space itself is fine: It's fairly clean (though I've never seen a single employee walk around during peak/nonpeak hours to wipe down machines, tread mills, mats/props, or benches, and guests definitely don't clean up after themselves), and there's a decent variety of machines and weight sets, as well as a cycling studio that's usually available, a boxing area that's also usually available, and a group exercise studio that's available most of the nonpeak weekday hours. On the other hand, there are very few props or styles of handles, etc. for the free and pulley weights; the props that exist are in mostly terrible shape, from the weighted rope, the mats, the weighted balls, and the various handles that go on the pulley weight machines; the cycling studio bikes are pretty low quality from what I've seen; and the cardio machines are similarly outdated and in rough shape. The service is, when you need to use it, not what I'd call "customer service," and it's pretty obvious that the management of the club is poor. The gym doesn't handle any of its member services, so if there is ever an issue, you're outsourced to one of at least two outside companies (personal training packages are handled by one company; the basic membership is handled by another; I'm sure the same goes for the tanning services--I just don't use that). Those companies are constantly changing (in the year I've been with the club, the personal training has been managed by FOUR different companies), but the gym never updates you. So if you have training appointments scheduled in advance, and the company changes hands, those appointments get dropped and you're never told (at least I was never told, in the three times it happened while I was a member). Even though there is supposedly a personal training manager, that person has never reached out to me to update me. Additionally, the trainers are always leaving (often without any notice), and the PT manager fails to notify the clients or help the clients get set up with a new trainer. I showed up to the gym waiting for my appointments with trainers that were gone several times. If you have a dispute, it's next to impossible to get in touch with a manager (or at least, the "right" manager--because there are several with apparently overlapping areas of expertise), and the front desk/phone folks are not set up for success: there appear to be no contact numbers left with the front desk, so you're SOL if you need to talk to one of the various outsourced companies, and because the managers' schedules are (apparently) all over the place good luck to you to get in contact with the right one. Even the several managers, including the general manger, don't have the relevant phone numbers (or even company names!) for the other managers' "genre" of outsourced customer service. And when you're finally put in touch with whichever outsourced company you need to contact, the gym and that company play hot potato with "the buck" (i.e., who gets final say as to how XYZ procedure or grievance will be handled). For example: When I was moving from NC to CA and needed to cancel my membership (the "regular" gym one as well as my PT package membership), the GM had neither the name nor the customer-service number for the outsourced PT membership processing company, and because the club had not yet hired the new PT manager, the GM couldn't even put me in touch with a Gold's Gym manager to speak with... and this is the General Manager! I was constantly given numbers that had been disconnected, email addresses that went nowhere, and then told by the customer service numbers that did work that "they didn't handle that service." Moreover, when you call the gym to speak with a manager, and you're forced to leave a message because no one is around, you never receive a return call--either because of disorganized front desk folks, or because of poor customer service on the management end. As for the front desk (which is, to some degree, to be expected with younger, likely minimum-wage-paid employees), they have closed the gym early without notice on me a handful of times, even once when they offered to keep my bag behind the front desk for a couple hours when I had to go to an event!
All in all, the gym is okay--particularly if you know what you're doing or enjoy working out by yourself and don't foresee ever needing anyone's help--but I wouldn't sign any long-term membership agreements or use their PT services.
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