I have been a member of Virgin Active for almost 2 years, from when it was Esporta up until now. Initially when Virgin took over they brought internet access, brightened up the lounge and generally kept everything that was good about Esporta and added that Branson touch.
In the last few months they have started to claw back the investment they made when they bought the club.
Gone is the free coffee before 8 am Gone is the free cereal before 8 am In comes expensive breakfast menu
Gone are quarterly class timeables. (Handy for the fridge door at home or the top drawer at work) In internet only timetables.
In addition to this the air conditioning keeps breaking down making classes almost unbearable during the summer heatwave and the microphone headset in spinning never works (and i mean never). This from a club with no towels or any of the other extras you find in other clubs. They have also replaced the sofas and chairs with school dinner hall style table and chairs.
The latest wheeze is to make you pay for a padlock instead of the coin operated lockers so they can cut them off if people leave their stuff overnight. (Obviously never heard of a masterkey!) The padlocks cost £5 a time and if like me you cycle sometimes, drive others and often take different bags to the gym you may decide you need a couple. You also need to remember which locker you use because everyone's padlocks are identical and you no longer have a key with a locker number.
I would say this gym has lost its way and with it its customer focus. The staff and instructors are great but they do keep rolling out these money grabbing initiatives and expect us to be happy about it. I am tied into a contract and will not be renewing when it comes up and would recommend people look at other gyms in central Edinburgh.
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Hiya, sorry your gym has gone downhill. The review would be rated higher if you included detail about the facilities on offer, the general look and feel of the place, location, prices etc. Welcome to Ciao! Triciax
miggmoggspud 21.08.2006 17:37
Hi - well your gym sounds rubbish. Sorry for the lowish rating but you only focussed on the bad points of the gym and the review should be about the gym as a whole. Info on classes, gym facilities etc would be great - you need to image that the person reading your review knows absolutely nothing about the product/service you are writing about so you really do need to tell all. If you edit your review please leave a message in my guestbook and I will be happy to re-rate. Alexandra x