Esporta Health Clubs

This place was great when it was LA fitness, but now that it has changed to "Esporta" it is just as bad as planet fitness. It's nothing but a cash cow and they don't care about anything but sales. They have about a dozen sales staff but there's never any staff members on the floor taking care of the place. It's a small facility and they're selling super cheap memberships and so the place is overcrowded with people who don't really care about fitness and don't practice good gym etiquette and the place becomes a disaster zone with no order and weights strewn all over the place and often the machines are all taken by a lot of people who are just sitting there on their cell phones not even using them.

It's so bad that sometimes dumbells go missing because people take them and leave them in random places so you sometimes won't be able to find the weight you need. They also do not have enough clips for all their cables and I have had to start bringing my own otherwise my workout gets interrupted by me having to wait for someone to finish on another cable so I could take the clip from it. And today when I was working out there was absolutely no paper towels anywhere to be found on the ground floor. And worse yet, the mens lockers never get cleaned and are constantly full of disgusting things like mens pubic hairs that need to be cleaned up if I want to use one.

To use this facility I am basically paying to have to do a bunch of cleaning and grunt work that ought to be done by staff members but isn't because they don't care. I end up spending so much time cleaning up after other people, and looking around for lost weights and equipment, and waiting for equipment to be freed up so that I can use it, and dealing with other such nonsense like looking for paper towels today that I can't even finish my workouts in time before they are kicking me out (and its impossible to tell when they are closing because they can't even be bothered to set their clocks right either).

This place is absolutely terrible, its unprofessional and a disgrace to the fitness industry and the entire business world. There is 0 accountability here (even though the A in esporta is supposed to stand for accountability, its just an empty marketing slogan). None of the staff even care about fitness or the gym, all they care about is selling new memberships, and once you are a new member you are just a number. After being a member of LA fitness for a long time, one month of it being EsportA has caused me to go somewhere else, and I recommend you do the same.

Not worth joining! Besides paying a expensive joining and high price every month they don't really care about you! They make it sound so excited when they call you in and show you the club, calling you almost everyday but after joining they will no longer care about you! I was promised so many things upon joining therefore the high joining fee, however I had to wait almost 1 year to receive those and I only received them because I kept constantly calling. Staff aren't too nice either. I have been a member for 3 years and for the past 3 years I have been calling there is no one from the membership team available to help you, however when you ask the reason why they tell you to send an email because the people that are there are only there to sign people up, which tells me they don't really care about the people that are joined but what they will get from new members. But if there is payment issue to be solved they you will sure give a call right away. DONT FALL FOR THEIR TRICKS AND SCHEMES!!!

Belfast club now Virgin Active, no sign of a lead coach, leads to personal trainers/fitness instructors standing at computer drinking coffee ignoring issues on the gym floor, handy getting paid a wage for drinking coffee. Bins loaded with dirty tissues overflowing beside the water fountain, dumbbells and barbells left laying around, no trainers confident enough to be authoritative and advise members to put weights away after use. Faulty equipment left right and centre. Sent several complaints to the club as has my father in law, not once have we received a response, obviously there is no one assigned to members retention. The club was honestly 10 times better value when it existed as esporta. I worked in David Lloyd as a personal trainer/fitness instructor, yes it's more expensive but at least you get your money's worth, Virgin active = members 3000 plus, 1 squat rack, 1 lat pulldown, 1 leg press, need I say anymore??? Honestly is pathetic, whoever is in charge is taking home his/her pay check way to easy!!!

So you spend the £500 joining fee and then anything from £260 per month membership, so you think OK this'll be a cut above, but you'd be wrong, unless you like tennis, the tennis facilities are great. The gym section is as equipped as any other standard gym no more no less, but there is hardly anyone ever there, just some very weak people doing curls whilst staring out the window blankly, similar to a mental ward. The aerobics classes are also always empty and are very limited in times and choice, the poor instructors really have to work hard to get energy out of a big room with three bored housewife’s who'd rather be sitting downstairs drinking wine.

Occasionally you'll see a nano celeb or even a micro one, the staff think that's part of Chiswick Riversides 'exclusivity', they make a big deal about prices keeping the gym 'exclusive'. Hhhhm then how was it that two weeks ago two 18 year old Raggas with their pants down below their backsides were in the gym changing room (and these guys are regulars), their conversation went something like this.

ragga #1 "like ya na beed (you know what I mean), dat gyal (that girl) was spo'in me big ty (was looking at me big time)

They punched each others fists in the air and chuckled whilst they broke out a packet of friutellas and some ribena

Ragga#2 'yeah init man, das right, easy same speed (I don’t' have a translation I didn't understand)

So there you go, there's your 'exclusivity'

Oh and the wet area, it's like a scene from Cocoon, no one under 70 and absolutely no one with a gym type body, all saggy baggy and pale.

In the dining area women sit around at 3 in the afternoon whilst their kids run around aimlessly, they all look the same, hard faces because they have lost too much body fat (through starvation, the unhealthy look) and all look slightly like Jimmy Saville, they also have dieted away their backsides but strangely seem very proud of the absence of it. I’m sure one wife could go home to another’s husband and he wouldn’t notice.

It is very ironic that a Gym that costs so much and self proclaims to be some sort of high flyers social club, actually instead leaves one with the same feeling you would get when looking at an impoverished establishment such as an abuse clinic or the like, as no one seems very happy or content or indeed in shape, it's a very sad place, as, it seems to be in denial, it's not what it thinks it is, but it's made up of clients who aren't what they think they are either, so it's a self perpetuating phenomenon, the gym tells them what they want to be, and they in turn tell the gym, I hope one day a huge psychiatrist’s couch is built so that the Esporta Riverside and its clients can sit on it whilst being analyzed, or even anal-ised for that matter that would probably work even better.

I've been a member here for 11 years and since Virgin took over, the standards have just continually gone down hill. Lots of nice people have left and have been replaced with people who are clearly paying a lot less than the full membership. Children run out of control, teenagers with tattoos swear, staff openly complain to guests and all in all it's quite a depressing, grim experience. If you can get a membership for £20 a month because you're in an essential service, fair enough, take it and just expect it to be like a council run facility. Everyone else, vote with your feet!

I would have left a long time ago but I hoped it would pick up but it hasn't and actually it's getting worse.

I have been a member of this club since it first opened many years ago, and, even when it was in financial difficulties the then Esporta was being run as it always was - a members only club (with appropriate guest passes)and with a range of facilities. I admit that some things could have been kept in better condition such as the showers (I can only comment on the Ladies changing rooms), some studio equipment and most of all the air conditioning, or lack of it. This had always been a problem and, sad to say, still is.

There were many social events held for the members that wished to take part, a fairly good restaurant (nobody expects gourmet cuisine), many children's activities including day trips, excellent studio classes with very good instructors that came from outside of the club and a spa which was used by members both male and female and guests. There has always been a crèche and in the early days a hairdressers.

Members were asked about what they liked and disliked - no on-line feedback that only certain members use - but, actual pieces of paper displayed outside of the studios and gym for all to pick up and fill out should they wish.

Since Virgin Active have taken over they have put in place many more machines in the gym which is good but now the gym is cramped, the studio classes are predominantly taken by members of staff (a financial saving) and we do not have the array of both classes and instructors that this particular club was once well known for, and now they are closing the popular spa with only a couple of weeks notice for both members and spa staff alike. No-one took the trouble to ask members if this was what they wanted they said is was due to feedback that the gym needed expanding and another studio put in place. Next to go I have been told, is the crèche. Well, I can get the sort of facilities that Virgin Active will be giving me at my local council run leisure centre, in fact, they have a spa/beauticians and a crèche and have a very varied class timetable. I can get all this for a fraction of the cost of my membership to this club.

I started by saying I have been a member since it first opened, during this time I have made many friends (although many have chosen to move their allegiance to other clubs), but, now I only see it as a somewhere to meet the friends that are still members and have a cup of coffee after a reluctant trip around the gym or swim in the pool. By the way, we now have to purchase Costa coffee which is not everyone's choice. They had the coffee machines so why have Costa Coffee take over?

The days when I really looked forward to going to Esporta and taking part in classes and using the gym and pool have rapidly depleted, I sometimes did three classes in a day and was at Esporta at least five days a week. For those members who just want to use the machines in the gym, have a sauna/steam (if they are working) and use the pool and are happy to pay handsomely for these pleasures, then that's fine, but, the long standing members now feel short changed by Virgin Active and I feel that the 'Family Club' it once was is no more and will never be again.

I have just had a letter from Virgin Active informing me of the 'reluctant' closure of the spa which was due to expansion of the gym and studios. I shall see what happens, but, feel that my membership will soon come to a reluctant end.

when you pay 70 per month you dont want to see algae like fungus on the edge of the pool. You do at ilford esporta.

Discusting look and feel. padlock for the lockers, the place is soo hot and humid when you step out of the shwer your sweating again.

wanted to cancel my membership they said I was out of the contract (member for 17 months) but I have to give a 3 month notice. OKKKKKK... where is the sense in that im not in contract any more still gota way a quarter of the year to leave.

avoid.

DO NOT JOIN! Was a member when it was the Brighton Health And Raquet club. The place now unrecognisable. Since virgin have taken over the decline all round has been simply unbelievable. The machines are ALWAYS out of order the changing rooms and showers are filthy. The toilets are disgusting with overflowing sanitary bins. The showers are clogged with hair and the floors unwashed. The staffing has been dramatically reduced and it shows. Management are clearly not managing. Im a nurse and i am seriously concerned about the poor hygiene. I have witnessed a child putting there hands onto a toilet seat covered in faeces. There was no cleaner around so a lifeguard who was the only visible member of staff was called! The standards have declined yet the fees continue to rise. I have decided that it is such poor value for my money and as i have seen no improvements at all, in fact the opposite i am leaving. There are better clubs with higher standards and facilities for less money. My only regret is that i didn't leave sooner.

Virgin Active Brighton: Smelly facilities,dirty changing rooms and shower areas, faulty equipment.......target driven and aggressive management style, some very inept, fairly rude and unapologetic new staff - the list goes on, the company running this club now is in the wrong industry!

I am a member of Virgin Active at Hunts Ground, Bristol and so far, I've found nothing to complain about.

Okay, the membership is a bit on the expensive side for me, but I live less than a mile away and the place is open from 6.30 a.m. until late at night. I've honestly got no excuse not to train there nearly every day, even though I have a busy working schedule. I strive to get my money's worth and take full advantage of the facilities and free classes.

Let's face it, ANY health club membership is costly, if you only drag yourself through the door once in a blue moon. I have also found the staff polite and friendly, and the showers, changing rooms, etc are quite clean and adequate.

I can't comment on the "problems" of joining fees, cancellations, etc, but aside from these complaints, I feel that some of the members whom I have seen at Virgin Active can be very petty and demanding. Some of them have behaved like spoilt kids throwing their toys out of the pram, expecting to be pandered at every whim.

I've trained at some VERY grotty and unpleasant gyms in the past, but believe me, Virgin is not one of them. As far as I'm concerned, I'm happy.