Equinox Sports Club Orange County — Attraction in Irvine

Very friendly environment from the front desk & managers, to the valet, to the members! I feel like I'm part of a community that truly cares about my well-being & how I'm doing on a personal level. Further, I always feel at home here & I can't say all the Kiehls beauty products in the locker rooms doesn't help with that.

In regard to the actually working out part of going to the gym, there's always plenty of open equipment; I've never waited for a machine. Fitness instructors are always evolving as the class regulars grow stronger.

Room for improvement however. If the equinox managers are reading this: (1) the ellipticals on the 3rd floor are unnecessarily too close together. 2 of the roughly 8 regular elliptical have faulty buttons that rarely allow you to adjust the difficulty level. Furthermore, there's rarely ever more than 3 people using those ellipticals at one time anyways. Thus, get rid of those 2 old ellipticals that don't work & space the remaining ellipticals out. (2) add another Norma Pilates class that people who have day jobs can actually go to! I understand that despite the Monday & Friday 10am pilates schedule, at time which the majority of the population is working, always ends up full. However, if Norma has the time, I'd bet adding another class either in the evening or on a weekend, would please a lot of other people that haven't been able to attend. In other words, I'm sure adding a 3rd Norma class would be easily filled. (3) Last, I know you've all been busy & you've been doing a great job. But, please, please, please open the cafeteria soon; or at least a smoothie bar. Spring is quickly approaching & my favorite place to get work done is after my workout, at equinox, lounging by the pool! Sounds relaxing right? It totally would be if my stomach wasn't ferociously growling!! A solution you may pose is to simply order door dash. However, door dash takes an 1+ hour to deliver a trivial item & often forgets at least 1 thing from my order. Further, last spring, I upgraded to monthly Dash pass b/c I found myself ordering so often & typically ONLY at the gym. So, it sort of just felt like a waste of money to spend all this time to burn calories at a place leaving me starving & spending all this money to eat more calories AT THE SAME PLACE. I hope you can see where I'm coming from here.

In closing, dear reader, a smoothie bar would be a simple thing to bring back, would hopefully only require you to (a) open a small part of the cafeteria, & (b) to hire very few people. .... Additionally, almost all the luxury gyms have smoothie bars are something analogous. Therefore, it'd be in Equinox's best interest to continue competing w/ these other luxury gyms in the area by putting just a few extra time & resources into opening this smoothie bar! Thanks for reading &...

1 star very much appreciated the effort of the remaining cleaning crew here. I saw them working hard during our tour. 2 star for the apparent effort of the brand or Equinox for attempting to offer the best safety precautions & requiring coV2 vaccination. Aside from that everything was a turn off here. Our tour was about a yr ago, fair to mention. We were unhappy with our experience & ultimately never joined. Here’s why: My husband & I come from sales. We’re 36. Don’t bs us, he was smug, shmoozy, green, a put together. Nice nonetheless of course however, just sales-y. We are straightforward. Covid safety then were a must…this location didn’t seem to care. It actually sparked my upset bc of potential pregnancy status. I didn’t know yet. Call me a Karen but… Receptionists didn’t care to wear their masks at all during a mandate, me thinking maybe I was pregnant said something to them while checking in questioning why they weren’t wearing them while representing Equinox. They didn’t care to apologize or think to put masks on but rather defensively replied with “but those aren’t the rules though..” The representative we had been speaking with had his mask on but hanging below his nose within his enclosed office & didn’t seem to care until we did.. & I had to mention something to him to wear it correctly. My husband is a cardiac thoracic RN who had been working through the worst of covid times wearing full PPE. We clearly understood & respected the situation on behalf of ourselves & others. We were just hoping the same courtesy would be extended for us coming here. A few days later I tested positive and became extremely sick with covid, then my husband as well. I wouldn’t presume to know how I had contracted it however, it wasn’t comforting to have had this recent experience. Equinox’s ethics & Covid safety precautions were what drew us to inquire however, this location didn’t deliver. We were also surprised to observe that it’s very outdated in comparison to its sister Newport location, Lifetime, CorePower, f45, Rennassaince Club Sport, & even 24 hr fitness. It has what you’d probably need, but nothing special unless you’re an avid tennis, racquet, or basketball player. Personally we definitely did not see the value opposed to other fitness options nearby. I look back and remember how uncomfortable this experience was for us. However I did receive wonderful service at their other location in Newport & would consider their membership...

The actual gym is pretty nice, and the staff on site is very friendly, although some of the equipment is a little outdated for such a pricey place... but, I'd cut them some slack on that since they probably haven't had much revenue over the past year due to covid, and the cold eucalyptus towels make up for it.

I would give them 5 stars, except they are horrible when it comes time to cancel your membership. I attended the gym one time as a guest of a member, and then signed up. I was told by the sales guy that it was month-to-month, and I could cancel at anytime. I had to suddenly move away for work a week later (to a state that doesn't have any equinoxes) and never actually attended this gym one time as a member. I called to cancel, and the lady on the phone said no problem, she would cancel it. I noticed they were still charging me ($250/month on top of the $285 they charged me initially), so I emailed them about it, and was then told by some lady in New York that memberships require a 12 month commitment (first time I was told that), and that I wasn't able to cancel. I tried escalating it and was told by somebody else that I needed to send him proof that I had moved away, including my new home address.

Still fighting them over it. I move a lot for work and always sign up to the nicest gym in the area, but I will be boycotting this place, as this business practice of trying to fleece members on their way out is a deal breaker for me.

Shame, because it is a nice gym (I was a member there for years when it was a Sports Club). Lifetime fitness on the other hand was very easy to deal with last time I had to cancel, and even refunded me a pro-rated amount of the dues I had just paid them...