Travis Durdy
February 16, 2020 00:51
I don't know if people will read this or believe the integrity of my review, but I do hope that at least LA Fitness management does pay attention to what people are saying about their experience with their brand/franchise.
My honest experiences here have been quite poor. The facility (and parking lot) are not the newest and it shows; it's a bit inconvenient and borderline cramped feeling; some days it feels like so many of the inconsiderate and ignorant patrons are wearing heavy amounts of cologne/perfume/fragrances but these points are not even close to my largest of contention.
Some of the staff here is horrid. We'll start with the smaller potatoes... one of the employees that spends most of his time "cleaning" can be better described as trying (very poorly) to look busy but is very clearly just going through empty motions except for heavy people watching (mostly form upstairs at the floor) as well as awkwardly pretending to wipe down machines that people are still currently using but now have their space being invaded which I personally found to be either frustrating if not just distracting or even startling.
All of this so far had still done nothing more than just leave a sour taste in my mouth though and chalked it up to being standard par for the courses down here in south Florida. It was not until I had began encountering another staff member that at the very least prompted me to write a review and fired me up enough to share my experience with anyone else that I knew or might relevantly encounter.
This tall thin caucasian male that usually works toward the front of the desk rows was never my favorite person because he can usually be seen ironically smoking cigarettes on the side of the building which is directly on path for the entrance/exit ramp that everyone else use for walking in or out of this plaza that don't use the stairs for whatever reason. Even if this person was coming in or going out or taking a break -- why they think smoking cigarettes of all things on one of the main walkways for customers to their place of business which also happens a health and fitness establishment is beyond absurd and out of touch.
Still, the reason why I felt this person crossed the line was because the way he treated my mother. She was using a guest pass with my wife and this jerk was truly excessive, insensitive, rude, and terrible on all of his failed customer service opportunities. I feel like she was hassled upon checking in and disgruntled that she hadn't "activated her guest account" yet and was very impolite about her overall guest agreement/activation/waiver process.
He then naively hid behind corporate policy that she should not be permitted to be guest since she had been a member within the last year. She explained that she hadn't been a member for nearly 10 months and that she was just accompanying my wife for the day and would be willing pay for a day pass if necessary or required. This customer service all-star and detective must have felt like he needed to know why my mother would dare be be an inactive member for under 12 months and double dare attempt to come as a guest with my paying wife's membership. So she explained this last year was hard for our family with the loss of her husband and my father and that she just hadn't the time or enthusiasm to keep up for now. His response was lackluster and underwhelming; certainly not redeeming in any way.
Experiences like these reinforce my mother's decision to re-join with a new gym elsewhere as well as personally inspire me to consider other options and becoming more vocal about things like this to others.
TL;DR: facilities and parking are sub-par, other patrons are often off putting (i.e. wearing strong fragrances, generally not being too polite, etc.) , and certain staff members encountered have been on average from obnoxious to infuriating -- particularly the tall white slender man that smokes cigarettes on the side of the building right in front of the entrance/exit ramp and usually parks his desk near the front row after walking in.