Fitness Connection — Attraction in Raleigh

As with any gym there are going to be positives and negatives here are a few of mine for F.C. @ N.H.

Not sure about "half" of the equipment being broken as several people have mentioned in their review. Yes, there will be the occasional breakdown of machines. With so many people using them they are bound to at some point breakdown. But, to say "half" of the machines are always broken is just flat wrong. Other than the idiots who don't rack the plates the equipment is fine.

Crowd control. If you don't like crowds and want to get a good workout in do not go during after 5pm. If you are going for cardio you'll be okay because those machines will usually be available but, if you want to do your weight lifting routine well good luck. The place is a straight up madhouse. It seems as if all the buddies got together and decided to all want to lift @ the same time. Don't think about trying to bench press cause there's normally a line for that. Now, there are some people who are there to really just work out and a get out but, more often than not there are people there to socialize and say they worked out...big difference. I've seen some people talking while standing near a piece of equipment or holding dumbells and I've gone through at least 2 sets again what are you really there to do.

Locker Rooms. The locker rooms aren't that bad but, what do you expect? Short of having a guy who is exclusively going to clean the locker room (female for the ladies locker room) its not going to be pristine. I will agree w/one reviewer; the urinals and stalls are the filthiest that I've seen; even a gas stations urinals are cleaner. I'm not sure why they took out the light in the steam room. It is really odd....... They finally fixed the pressure in the showers as well as a couple of the shower heads. I think all it took was about 7+ months....

The pool. I like the pool but, that water is cold and its winter (mild but its still winter). Also, why are members being restricted to the 2 outside "lanes" in the evening. Why is there a school swim team (not sure which one) using the two middle lanes? I understand the need for practice but, its frustrating to really only use half the pool.

Customer service. The young man in the morning (Jose?) is excellent. He's always friendly and polite. I can say that the afternoon people are pretty friendly also (don't know them by name) but, I haven't/don't have an issue with them. My guess is that most of the reviews have to do with the PT's. I don't use them so, I guess I have no dog in that fight. I will say that they do have a high rate of turnover with them. Can we please have towels in the afternoons???? What is so damn hard about making sure that you have towels to last throughout the day and evening. Ridiculous.

Overall,...

This review is about help I received from Bobby Hall, the general manager of FC North Hills......So myself and my wife were members for a number of years at FC Pleasant Valley. One day my wife went to the gym only to find out that it had closed. We had received no notice of the closure, no email, or regular mail, etc.... Unfortunately this was the only local area location that was convenient for us to be members of. So I called FC customer service to cancel our memberships due to this and get a refund for the monthly due that was charge to us when the gym wasn't open anymore. I spoke with a lifeless, unhelpful, and downright rude customer service agent named Mariah Esperanza, who I imagine works for whatever company FC contracts to handle their central customer service (terrible choice, very poor representation of the the company who's staff at the actual gyms are very nice/helpful typically). She was completely unwilling to help refund our charge and stated that we should have received an email notifying us of the closure. Upon examining all our our emails, there was no notification sent to us and Mariah couldn't even provide any proof that an email was sent to us. We regularly receive account notifications and other emails from FC so I knew that this was likely a technical glitch on their end and that Mariah was full of it, especially since she couldn't even provide any proof that an email was sent to us. ... She even stated that since we didn't provide notice to cancel, we would be charge an additional month due. This was quite infuriating considering its hard to give cancellation notice when you aren't even made aware the gym was closing .... So I reached out to the North Hills location and was put in touch with GM Bobby Hall. COMPLETELY different experience. He went out of his way to understand our situation, he let me know that many other members from Pleasant Valley had experienced the same issue with lack of notification of closure, and he went ahead and stepped in and cancelled our memberships immediately and made sure our accounts were zero'd out, which he confirmed via email. This was exactly the right thing to do and really made a difference in my whole experience. If I lived closer to the North Hills location I would consider staying with FC but unfortunately I don't.. So long story short, Bobby Hall was EXCELLENT and went out of his way to correct the situations.......

Fitness Connection, you really need to look into another service for your centralized customer service, people like Mariah Esperanza put a bad taste in customer's mouths and tarnish what could be an otherwise excellent experience for current/former clients.

THANK YOU AGAIN to Bobby Hall at North Hills...

I joined when this place first opened as Gold's Gym. Back then it was clean and the staff seemed to be more attentive. It changed hands a few times and finally has become one of the Fitness Conn. franchises. Now its a mess. Sweat towels may or may not be available and no one seems to know how to clean up. Or maybe the one guy they have doing the actual clean up needs help, its a 65,000 square foot facility, that's an acre and a half folks. The showers have slimy mold on the partitions and even on the tile walls. The shower heads have been replaced with some cheap fixture and it's problematic getting a good shower. The glass in the door at the steam room has been cracked and fogged for years. The upstairs floor has not been mopped in a couple of years. Neither has the half-size basketball court. Since they have dropped the membership fees to $10 a month the clientele has changed. Now the basketball court is dominated by what sometimes looks like a bunch of thugs from the 'hood. They've gotten so aggressive in their play that the sheetrock is broken and is in the process of being covered with some sort of heavy fiber board. This project is taking forever. We have to contend with construction dust and its a hazard when you're working out. I participate in several group workouts in the gym and when we are finished the B-ball players are not very subtle in their effort to get their fix.

I spoke to the manager, several times, and suggested she look in on the men's locker room. Maybe show up early or stay late every now and then and do an inspection. She seemed a little surprised at either my bringing my concerns to her or the fact that the locker rooms were nasty. Same with the weight floor and the gym floor. I got the usual "we'll get right on it" but I've not seen any changes.

One thing that really bugs me are the insurance salesmen and stockbrokers that lurk in the lobby. Once there was a guy selling over-priced neckties. WTF??? Come on FC, this a gym, not a flea market or chamber of commerce convention.

Having said all that I'll probably keep going. Their are a couple of great staff members who are worth it. Knowing this bunch they will probably chase them away just as they did some others. I just need to get a tattoo and maybe a short rap sheet to fit in. Maybe a parole officer would help. Strange way to run a gym at this location when you consider that the most affluent neighborhood in town is...