Bally Total Fitness . . . Bad Experience All Around.
Written: Jan 12 '08
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: None
Cons: Unfriendly staff, smelled bad, hurt my credit score, lap pool too small
The Bottom Line: My experience with Bally Total Fitness was truly one I would not wish on anyone.
|
|
|
| hempem's Full Review: Bally Total Fitness |
I joined Bally Total Fitness two years ago and purchased a two year membership. I chose to only select my local Bally to visit, meaning I had no access to any other location. But that was fine with me.
I had never "worked out" before, except on a treadmill. I knew nothing about the weight machines, the stair climber machines, and even the more modern treadmills had me confused. I needed some help. But paying monthly fees apparently is not enough to get the kind of one-on-one help a person new to fitness needs, and I was on a strict budget.
I asked for a tour of the gym, which was given to me in a rapid 10 minute walk-through. The Mall 205 location in Portland was small . . . basically one big room with a shallow lap pool and a jacuzzi of equal size, which I thought was strange. Several times I ended up swimming laps in the jacuzzi because it could have seated probably 50 people comfortably and was always empty, whereas the lap pool could only accommodate 4 swimmers at a time. There was always a line. And for someone self-conscious about their body in a swimsuit to begin with, I don't like waiting in a line. Did I mention that to use a towel it cost $1.00? And the towels were smallish and scratchy to boot!
The big fitness room was smelly and hot, and the treadmills faced two rather small-screened televisions that were muted, and I didn't have any electronic device to allow me to listen, but I read the closed-captioning.
The staff were all young, disinterested people that seemed annoyed to answer questions, and I had a lot of questions that I simply didn't ask after a couple of tries.
There was no sense of "Club" at this Bally, and I'm not sure if it is this way at other workout places like 24 Hour Fitness, but it was just a strange feeling to walk in to a place with indifferent staff and total strangers and sweat on a treadmill in isolated silence and leave. I'd rather walk or jog around my neighborhood.
I am shy and after about one month I just stopped going. This left me with 2 years of payments, which weren't much at $19.95 a month. However, as I learned later on, the way Bally Fitness does their financing can be very bad for your credit score.
I learned through a credit monitoring service I had purchased via www.eloan.com that my score was lowered because Bally basically opens a credit line for you when you sign your contract for the full amount you owe, and then shows that you have used the entire amount and are making payments. So it appears as if you have a maxed out credit line. Credit scores are higher when lines of credit are only 49% utilized, and ideally far less than that. I was instructed to pay off as much of my Bally balance as possible to increase my score. I did so, and my score went up immediately.
The location was right for me, the price was reasonable, and yet the unhelpful staff, a lack of education about using the equipment, the almost ridiculously small lap pool, and the smelly big room with silent human beings all moving their bodies like zombies . . . I didn't like my experience with Bally Total Fitness at all.
Thanks for Reading,
Melissa
"hempem"
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
hempem
|
 - Top 500 |
|
Location: Beautiful Northwest
Reviews written: 172
Trusted by: 99 members
About Me:
You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.