Arrillaga Outdoor Education and Recreation Center — Attraction in Palo Alto

Gym has lots of quality equipment across a range of disciplines, so right off the back, that's 4 stars from me because most gyms just don't. Staff also very friendly. Basically everything else is quite bad. The weight collars in general are broken, near broken, or don't fit half the bars properly; not sure whose bright idea it was to get "olympic lifting bars" some of which are 1-2mm different diameter from the others, and then have weight collars that can't accommodate the discrepancy (this was annoying enough that I actually checked to verify that some of the bars aren't actually oly bars). Just get standard metal collars if you can't have collars that actually fit on the bars so there is more wiggle room. Very poor air circulation in there as many other reviews have mentioned. Also as other reviews have mentioned, making announcements that the gym closes 10 times in the last hour is annoying AF. If the gym closes at X time, don't shut 3/4 of the lights off while people are in the middle of sets with 5 or 10 minutes to go; that is kinda dangerous if someone is lifting heavy and gets startled. Either close the gym 15 minutes earlier if you really need all the employees walking out at X time or keep the lights on until it...

This gym does not meet Stanford quality. Although there is a lot of nice equipment, there are too many odd discrepancies - the weight/cardio room (where 90% of occupants go) is tiny relative to the rest of the space in the gym, so it’s always packed. There aren’t that many mats to use, and the area where people can use mats is tiny. There are frequently long lines to use equipment between 3-8pm.

In the studio rooms, all the equipment is always locked down so you can’t actually use any of it. You also can’t use the stationary bikes in the bike room unless there is a class going on, which only occurs 3 times/week (so the room is only unlocked for ~3 hrs per week, further reducing total gym space). The gym has odd, sometimes very short hours, and they start shutting it down before the actual close time. They don’t provide towel service, even for a fee. The pool has short hours, and the climbing wall far shorter, with there almost always being a super long line especially during popular hours. Essentially, there was clearly just not a lot of thought into what people would actually be doing/what spaces would be most occupied when they designed this gym, and it doesn’t meet the...

-2 stars is for the gym weight room. It is really really HOT in there, even in a cold winter month. It gets uncomfortably hot starting in the spring. Summer is unbearable. Usually weight rooms should be kept at 62-63F but this room sure feels like 72-78F. The circulation is poor. Always really busy. Lots of equipment and machines though.

Restrooms are kept clean and new. There are yoga rooms, a climbing wall (but it’s very popular and closed in the summer), and a basketball court I think.

The pool is out temporarily for an upgrade, but it was great (clean, temperature controlled, well-lit at night, love the Friday music, can’t beat the aesthetic of Hearst pool in...