EōS Fitness — Local services in Oceanside

TL;DR: breach contract agreements and up your rates without warning/consent. Overcrowded gym with okay variety of equipment and classes but generally poor customer service.

1/25/24 Update: they upped our monthly rate without warning in violation of our contract: "ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP FEE: ...This fee will guaranty your right to use Club facilities without an increase in, but subject to payment of, your dues for the following 12 months."

Equipment: We do weightlifting, cardio, and yoga classes several times a week. We try to come at off hours (around 6am) to avoid crowds), but it's always crowded and a gamble if you'll be able to access the equipment you need. Some of it is in bad shape with ripped grips, loose pads, fraying rope handles, etc. that can take a long time to fix. Dumbbell sizes between 5-20lbs can be hard to find. Not enough of the popular machines. There are a limited number of weight lifting platforms, but clueless/selfish people hog them to do non-weightlifting exercises that could be done ANYWHERE else in the gym or outside and don't need a platform, further limiting available platforms.

Staff: Occasionally Eos sends out emails asking for customer feedback. My husband (the more serious weight lifter of the two of us) has written in with this feedback several times and EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. he gets a dismissive, mansplaining response from the manager that we come at "peak times" when equipment is limited and we should try coming at off hours. When is that exactly? 2am? The front desk staff mostly ignore you because they're to busy chatting with each other or staring down at their phones (there's one dude in particular who is a champion at this-it's unreal; although someone must've noticed and said something because he took a 180 recently and has started acknowledging people occasionally). Thhere is ONE regular staffet who is always attentive and welcoming with a greeting or good bye; he is the exception and deserves a medal.

Classes: I love one of the yoga instructors and those classes are why I keep my membership and come 3 times a week. Be warned it is common for randos to stand at the glass doors and oogle awkwardly. One time a middle aged white man loudly interrupted savasana by yelling "WHAT IS THIS, A SLEEPING CLASS?!"

Unfortunately the weightlifting platforms are also directly on the other side of the wall to the studio. This might not be a problem for classes blasting music, but anything short of a 1000 decibel concert will be interrupted by slamming weights on the other side of the wall. I've attended these classes for years (I also weight lift). I know the sound of weights being dropped. They clank, shake the floor, and jolt you out of the zone in class, but I've come to expect that.

Today, someone was dropping the weights at what sounded like a dangerous height and distance - to the point that I was afraid someone would hurt themselves, I've never heard it so loud in my life. The walls shook and the instructor was inaudible over the clanging; after 10 minutes of this, I left the class (noticing on my way that several folks had stopped their workout to look for the impossibly loud noise) and walked to the front desk to ask if there was any supervision or enforcement of the "no slamming weights" policy clearly printed on signs around the gym because I literally could not hear the instructor and anyone slamming a bar down that loudly is probably using more weight than they can safely handle. I was met by what looked like the adult child of Fred Durst and Grumpy (of the seven dwarves) with a long, beaded chin beard. He immediately dismissed my concerns and mansplained ad-nauseum "those are bumper plates, they're made to do that." No offer to check it out for the person's safety, no acknowledgement that it was disruptive to classes, no empathy or understanding or customer service to speak of.

Apparently the "no slamming weights" signs don't apply, just like the rest of the signs that some folks ignore here (like no filming, wipe down machines, put...

This poor review is ONLY about the locker rooms in this specific location. The workout floor is nice and EOS as a chain is great.

However, the locker rooms here had a couple small but critical issues.

1. The amount of bugs in the showers was far greater than I'm comfortable with. An occasional fly is inevitable; FIFTY drain flies is a problem. And that's just how many I could count from the shower stall I was in; about ten of those were along the walls of my cubicle with the rest spread out on the ceiling above. So who knows how many there were total in the shower area.

The first stall I went into also had a bunch of drain fly larvae crawling around in the corner. Absolutely disgusting. Get an automatic fly zapper; they're cheap but even if they weren't they'd be worth not having 50+ drain flies sharing the locker room. Also drain flies live in their larval stage for like three weeks, I'd reexamine your locker room cleaning procedures as a whole if that many were allowed to be born here.

2. If that weren't bad enough, the water temperature was also awful. I couldn't get it to rise above room temperature until I was the only person showering out of like six stalls. Even one other person showering at the same time was enough to drop the water tempurature below room temp. To be fair this was the first (and likely my last) time I've visited this location; maybe they just had issues with the water heaters tonight. But I'd argue that if your water heaters can't keep up with two people showering at 1am, someone who visits during peak hours may as well jump in a frozen river.

These are both pretty minor issues. A few flies is hardly the grossest thing I've seen in a gym shower (thanks Planet) and a cold shower is annoying but arguably better for you anyway. The reason I was so harsh with my star rating and wrote all this out was that this is the first and only time I've had any of these types of issues at an EOS location. I've been to most of the EOS gyms in SoCal as well as other locations out of state, and they're usually extremely consistent with quality and cleanliness across branches. Tonight was a disappointing anomaly, but I know it was just a fluke and I just got unlucky. Just also having drain flies landing on your shoulders while trying to take a frigid shower at 1am is extra unlucky and I'm still grossed out...

I registered for a membership and 1 month personal training and they failed to tell me in person that there is a 4 month agreement to personal training. I did not read the fine print because they said canceling the membership was simple and no cancellation fees. It sounded great to me. I travel for work 60% of the time and said my schedule is hard to keep consistent and wanted to pay the 1st month as a trial for training. They did NOT mention a 4 month commitment. I would not have signed up for a membership and training in this way if I had all the information up front. I showed up for my first personal training appointment and scheduling with trainers were limited at the time that I wanted. The trainers were nice and said they would cancel it. I was happy to pay for first months sessions. Unfortunately they avoided talking the reality of things with me said they would take care of it on their end. Showed me that it was complete on their end and not to worry.

What happened next is that corporate called me saying they couldn’t cancel it. It’s hard to understand how “easy” to cancel it is at the gym but in reality I feel information has been withheld. When I was at the gym they said it wouldn’t be a problem to cancel. Then I get a random call from corporate saying they couldn’t honor it. The gym crew said it would be fine. It’s not fine.

Things should be clearly communicated at the time of sign up. I signed up in less than 30 min, which means things were not fully communicated on their end. I thought this was a very convenient gym based off my needs… they smile to your face but yet again limit their communication so they don’t have to deal with the results of my discomfort. I am a very reasonable and was willing to continue trying to schedule for the first month to meet what I agreed upon- 1 month (4 sessions).

How am I supposed to feel comfortable even working out there knowing they are taking advantage of members without giving them all the details of cancelation.

I hope they reconsider and communicate better. Again, traveling for work and working with them on getting this figured out is very discouraging. I’ve been a member for less...