24 Hour Fitness — Attraction in Santa Ana

I had high hopes for this gym. There's a lot of great things about it but it's poor floor plan brought my rating down significantly.

The positives: the pool area is great. It's outdoors and has lots of room. the basketball court is awesome, I won't ever use it but it's huge and also outdoors. the rig they have setup at the functional training area is awesome. This is the first 24 I've seen with a complete set of bumper plates.

The negatives: the floor plan isn't the best. The rig I mentioned in the previous section does not have nearly enough room for it's intended purpose. There's not enough room to use the TRX suspension trainers and it's difficult to use the barbells and do power lifts with such little room. the cubicle for the personal trainers is nearly smack dab in the middle of the functional training area right next to the TRX/powerlifting rig. the kettle bells should be moved over towards the open floor area and not stuck near the corner where there is no room to use them, especially for swings and thrusts. there's no designated walk space for people to get to the cycling and group x rooms so there's constantly people walking through the already cramped functional training area. Not a great idea and a complete liability when people are trying to power lift. the cardio section is way too big. There are too many cardio machines. This isn't the 90s anymore. People don't do as much cardio as they used to, especially now with many women lifting as well. They should have used more of that space for more weights, resistance machines, and especially the functional training area.

This place is brand new so everything is clean and for the most part all the weights are in the proper positions. I hope they don't end up like all the other 24s in the area and stop keeping up with the maintenance.

Update 8/21/2015 So they've had the bumper plates removed for almost 3 months now. When they first removed them they told me they were going to move the huge power rack/rig over to the cardio section. I have yet to see any progress of that.

Also they've been slacking just like the other 24 Hour Fitnesses in the area. During the busiest hours the dirty towels pile high and spill over in their bins, and often they don't have enough clean towels. The weights and equipment are scattered throughout the gym and sometimes nowhere near where they are supposed to be. I understand you can't always pick up after everybody but I've seen personal trainers not even re-rack their...

The most scammy backwards gym I've ever dealt with. Here is a little story of my experience with 24hr fitness after only a month of being with them...

Early Jan. 2018 I started a "trial" membership for me and my roomate. This required a $40 deposit for both accounts ($80 which would be refunded or credited toward the membership at the end of the trial). Within 3 days of the "week" trial my roomate doesn't want the membership so I cancel it. They assure me that the deposit will be refunded in a few days (their words). A week and a half goes by and I haven't been refunded so I go in person and ask the staff again. This time they tell me I was told wrong and it actually takes 20 business days to get a refund. Sucks, but I wait.

One month and some change later.... NO REFUND. Actually even better they DIDN'T cancel my roommates account and I was charged for his membership. Roughly $85 in the hole with these jokesters.

So I go in person again and talk to management. They assure me the membership is cancelled this time and my money will be refunded. A couple days pass and I'm nervous because of the previous experience with "refunds." So I call corporate to double-check that the membership cancellation for my roomate is pending. The rep on the phone assures me it has been requested.

A week passes and to my surprise I get a refund! Finally, after a month and almost a half of waiting I get my money back. BUT WAIT, it doesn't stop there. A mere two days after I get my refund I get ANOTHER CHARGE from 24 hour fitness on my credit card. The exact amount they charged for my roomates "cancelled" membership"

Here is the real kicker. Not only did they already charge me (and refund me) for this cancelled membership, but they charged me a SECOND TIME, middle of the month (Feb 17, not even within the billing cycle) AND. AND STAY WITH ME HERE BECAUSE IT'S SOOOO GOOD....

They charge me on a Saturday, conveniently when NO management is in and customer service is only open M-F.

In shorter words. They snuck an already disputed and refunded charge back onto my card, on a day when I cannot call or go in person to dispute the fraudulent charge AND it's in the middle of the month when they are suppose to charge you at the beginning.

Seriously how do you guys sleep at night?

Incorrect charges in my first...

This gym has a no gym bags on the floor policy. They say this on the video presentation while you are in the gym. The staff here is extremely lazy and unprofessional. Last week on Friday there were over 20 gym bags out on the floor. These are trip hazards and in the way. I went to the desk today as I heard their video saying no gym bags allowed on the gym floor and once again there were four people 3 with very large gym bags in the work out area. I am posting picture of these gym bags. The guy working at the desk said he did not know of such Policy. He said we will play the video again shortly. I said you can play the video all you want, but if you do nothing about it, then you are not doing your job. Why implement rules that you are not going to enforce? I said if someone trips over these bags and gets hurt 24 hour fitness could get a huge lawsuit. There is often staff on their cell phones, visiting at the front, just laughing and hanging out. Very lazy staff, except for one guy. There is a very nice man working there who has dreadlocks and he works harder than anyone in that entire gym. He is always cleaning and working harder than anyone else in the club. 24 hour fitness used to be a leader in the fitness industry. However, now they just a contender. I would think they would want to stand out. They have rules and people do not follow them and they do not implement them. They do not mind keeping members with bad behaviors, yet they tend to forget all the members they actually lose because of this. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone complain and say they wanted to find a fitness center with rules and other member respect, I would be a rich man. I posted a picture of the 4 large gym bags from today, but there were also very large back packs everywhere that I did not include below. 24 hour should get back the reputation they once had and implement rules and keep good members that respect one another's...