my gym has just changed its opening hours and its becoming less and less appealing… its never been open at a good time in the morning so i could go to the gym before work, and now its reduced its opening hours in the evening so i’d need to sit around in a car-park before it opens after work

RUBBISH, sitting around in a car-park will mean i just end up driving straight home. it also has no access to a swimming pool and is pretty limited on equipment/classes etc.

to be honest the only reason i’ve stayed with them for as long as i have is its pretty empty and very local.

near me is the ‘The Royal County of Berkshire Health & Racquets Club’ which is run by Esporta and according to the website owned by Virgin active. my only experience of virgin active is mrsconsequences sister working for them for a while and overhearing conversations of silly prices.

before i pop in and visit, get distracted by bouncy women and shiney new machines…. anybody care to tell me their experiences of the pricing structure, memberships and other such horror stories? 🙂

i thank you x

In the League table of Gym’s I’ve attended, Esporta is ranked 3rd.

It comes behind my current gym and David Lloyds.

The things that knocked it down are it wasn’t cheap… I think I was paying about £60 a month and that was 5 or so years ago.

The other members were posh North Oxford *****. You know the sort whose brats don’t say thanks when you hold the door open for them.

IMO the price is not always as important as how much you like it there… the equipment and enviroment will make a massive difference to how much you go.

cheers dude, price will definitely be a factor and it doesnt exactly look like a cheap place to visit!

😀

Look out for the minimum contract length too…

David Lloyd would allow you to cancel with just 3 months notice, a lot of places tie you into annual memberships.

Go and watch the idle rich Phil, it will be an eye-opener!

Many of my running club buddies belong/used to belong there, their prices are eye-watering, and they complained the place wasn’t maintained very well. Sometimes used to go there in the evenings to eat – all I can say is that people don’t teach their kids how to eat. The floor was always covered in chips etc. 😯

Actually, probably shouldn’t say this but years ago my daughter went for an interview there. She was told that Berkshire people can be very rude and was she able to deal with this? 😯

Have you considered Virgin in Wokingham?

hmmmm i’m expanding my search to wokingham as we speak actually 😀 it’s on the way to work in the mornings, i’m definitely more motivated in the mornings than at the end of a hard day at work. getting up early has never been a problem!

i was kinda looking forward to shocking the posh people 😳

Phil – you need to go there during the day cos the yummy mummys will luv yer 😉

I’m a member of virgin active and i pay about £48 a month – thats a diamond membership which includes 12 guest passes a year. The main thing is the contract – once you agree to a year long contract, you are stuck there until the year is up. I quite like it, been there for about 3 years now. Used to go to the local council gym which i liked but it shut for refurb for a year which is the main reason i ended up at virgin.

For propper posh people go to Nirvana in wokingham, about £75/month, but they keep out the riff-raff and the staff refer to you as sir. Unfortunately it tends to be full of old people so no eye candy. Pulse8 next door for sluming it with the plebs.

Inbetweeny price there’s Nuffield in Green Park, it was £52 a month, but I lied and said I worked for AWE to get that (awaits knock on door from MI5). Probably the nicest gym in the area if a little out of the way with 101 roundabouts in the mile between it and Baisingstoke road..

For a good gym try the Academy in Whitley Wood, despite the reputation the locals are mostly harmless, the gym’s/changeing rooms have been refitted and it has propper spinning bikes (fixed gears, huge flywheels, and none of those horrible v-brake and a bit of carpet friction thingys). Gym + swim + classes was £18/month with a reading passport (free from the library, just take a council tax bill or letting agreement). Quieter than the other council gyms as well.

Welcome back dirtygirl. 😀 How was your adventure?

Phil – my friend recently joined Virgin Active as her previous gym (Wellington College) reduced their public sessions including swimming pool availability. I believe Racquets is around £80 per month and am sure the figure dirtygirl quoted for Virgin sounds about right.

My experience of Esporta is about 5 years out of date . Badly maintained , escalating prices but loads of deals for students so over crowded. Bad to the point of unpleasant plumbing. Lack of integrity in financial incentives. And when i cancelled and left they set Debt collectors on me claiming i owed them a massive notice period.

Hi CG, it was fab! Hot – about 35 deg most of the time. Smooth roads, lots of climbing (2000m in 30km one day!), loads of seafood, good cheap coffee, lots of sleep… 🙂 Only thing I missed by the end of the trip was a washing machine and cold milk for my cereal. Could have quite happily stayed away! Will be uploading pix and a day by day a/c on my blog soon. How are you/your injuries?

Phil, there may also be a joining fee to pay as well, can’t remember if i had to pay one or not. Am sure the prices will be fixed/the same across the UK.

On the joining fee’s note. Just think of them as a sucker tax. Phoned nirvana saying I wanted to join but wasn’t paying the £750 joining fee or whatever it was, they phoned back saying it could be waived if I joined then, I dithered for a week and got another 3 months free!

Bonus of joining Nirvana, you geto walk in/out the pool used in the Kids video pretending to be Kylie.

That is hot and glad you had fun! Do you have any more adventures planned as you’ve obviously got the taste for it? Will look forward to reading your blog anyway.

Currently looking at 6 months off the bike – 4 months waiting list for op. 🙁

Don’t forget that the bracknell leisure centre deal is actually fairly good value – proper big swimming pools, huge sauna and spa, big gym etc.

about half the price of Raquets

cheers chaps and chappettes 😀 more places to look at now!

wokingham have a place called ‘harpers fitness’, any reviews?

Harpers is part of wokingham council gym’s IIRC, might be wrong though, so if you join there you can also use the one in lower earley (which is ful of screeming kids), although could be wrong.

the website does suggest its linked to the council… i’m hoping this is reflected in the price!

Esporta went through an extended period of financial difficulties so their clubs may well be suffering a bit from neglect. They did also have a particularly poor reputation for sharp practices in relation to membership lock-in and cancellation periods.

Virgin Active have generally been pretty good in my experience (I’ve been a member over two extended periods in the last 10 years), but this may depend a lot on the strength of local management and the quality of the facilities that they started out with. Certainly my local VA seems to have a rolling programme of investment and reinvestment to keep things running nicely and up-ot-date.

How long it will take VA to sort out Esporta is another question entirely – clearly there were some structural issues in the business given its problems, so its unlikely to change overnight and will require a big injection of cash.

Just checked, it’s carnival pool, so definately the privatised/subsidised council gym. Was about £25/month IIRC.

sweeeet, i’d need to put on my ‘council house’ voice to get on with people and pretend to like football but council gyms are very attractive if they include swimming pools etc and still come in cheaper than small private gyms!

I’ve just left Esporta in Plymouth. Many reasons the primary ones being cost and an increase in hours I’m expected to work.

I’d been a member there since it opened (as a much smaller chain) in 2000, from then fees increased gradually but took a hike when Esporta bought the business and then have increased regularly for no improvement in facilities. Even with a corporate deal from work it was £60 a month.

Generally the equipment was OK, there were far too many people there though, Esporta doubled the membership in the course of 2 – 3 years after they acquired the business. Membership appears to be aimed at families which is fine but increasingly the club was becoming a large creche rather than a gym and pool, small kids in the lanes in adult only sessions in the pool, kids running riot in the changing rooms etc. Not the fault of the gym as such but they created a place where I don’t want to spend my cash.

But on the plus side I did meet my wife in the sauna 😀

I used to be a member of Stoke esporta until virgin shut it as it wasn’t profitable enough. You used to be able to use all there gyms as part of your membership, so I went to the royal Berkshire once as I was on a course near to it. The difference from esporta Stoke to that was massive, but then my membership fee was only about £40pm whereas they were paying nearer £75pm. I seem to remember it had several indoor tennis courts, good gym and pool. I think it has (or had) it’s own tennis pro as well!

I got the impression that after years of changing ownership the service was always getting slightly worse. Equipment was never repaired as quickly, but we kept on using it as it was close to home and family friendly. I would agree with bagpuss that sometimes kids were running wild and I know of people who didn’t join because of it.