Life Time — Local services in Rochester Hills

I am very upset over how LTF members are being treated in Rochester, MI club. I am LTF member since 2010. Since August 2012, my wife and I started to participate in various paid offering of the club. We regularly pay for PT sessions, TEAM Fitness sessions, TEAM Weightloss sessions and 1 on 1 Nutrition Coaching. You know your fees, you know how much we spend a month on top of the family membership we have. Since the beginning of January 2013 the club is pretty busy during the time I have my PT sessions and TEAM Fitness sessions. It is a normal high peak activity at this time of the year and I don’t mind it. I have an issue with how the problem with limited parking is being addressed by the club management. The main parking is completely full during the peak hours. One has to spend at least 20 minutes driving around the parking lot to find a parking spot. After busy day I cannot always arrive at the club 20 or 30 minutes ahead of my scheduled and paid for sessions. To date there is no sign of any sort advising customers where to park during the peak hours. After few weeks of being late for my paid for sessions I decided to park on the other side of the building and enter the club trough the tennis court area. To my surprise there was a sign posted there “For tennis players and executive members only”. Because of what I pay monthly for my membership and all additional sessions I consider myself exclusive member… I was wrong, additional fee is needed. During my attempt to enter the club I was informed I cannot use this entrance. I had no time to argue I was able to negotiate to enter the club this one time through the “exclusive” entrance. This was on Monday. On Wednesday I decided to park in the general parking lot. After driving around for a while, I found a person pulling out of parking space in area that is crossed for no parking zone. I didn’t think twice - I pulled in, took my gear and went for my training. When I returned after two hours, I found a ticked on my windshield. I was surprised, as I know Police does not enforce traffic in private parking lots unless called by the property owner. The parking violation ticket had a note – “Complain from Life Time Fitness management”. I was surprised to see LTF membership calling polis on its own members during peak hours. I would expect either better information on where else to park or some sort leniency during the peak hours. The area I parked in is an access area to a retention pond nearby. I have seen this place being used over and over as parking space since the busy season has started. However, between the parking lot and the retention pond fence, there is enough space to dup all the snow, yet it is being dumped in parking lot taking 8 spots! In the other access area to the pond a LTF owned heavy equipment is parked (I didn’t see any ticket on it)! As of yesterday (I have not been to LTF today), there is no official information posted anywhere near the main entrance where to park during peak hours. After a brief discussion with one of the LTF employee I was informed I can park at the nearby church. This information should be much better disclosed to all members – maybe a sign by the main entrance. I am very upset how Life Time Fitness is treating its members. They not only do not offer official solution to a long term problem, but they call police to ticket its members. At this point I am considering taking my business elsewhere. There are at least 10 different fitness clubs in this area, many of them with lesser fees, who will love to see my wife and me spending our money there. I also advise other LTM members and potential members to look at different fitness clubs in the area.

LTF...

I’ve been going to Lifetime now for a few months, Rochester is not my home club but I do come here occasionally for yoga and tennis. Before signing up I toured Rochester since I figured I might want to go there from time to time, it was then that I first noticed that the service was slightly off. I walked in and said I’d like to take a tour, front desk attendant 1 rolled her eyes, scoffed, turned to front desk attendant 2 and goes “He wants a tour..”. Front desk attendant 2, struck with disappointment and astonishment, goes “Well I’m leaving in 45 minutes. But I’ll do it.” The tour was uneventful after that point but that atrocious encounter in customer service sticks with me. Poor service is one thing but what I can’t get over is how poorly the club is kept. When you walk in your nostrils are immediately filled with this disgusting burning plastic/puke smell that apparently “comes from the roof when it gets hot”. I smell it every time I go there, it’s awful and they don’t do anything about it despite charging their members $179/mo to go there (I pay more than that, btw). You’d think they’d have enough money to fix it but rumor has it Lifetime is actually going broke. Yikes. Then most recently, for at least the past week or two the men’s showers have been under construction resulting in 10-15 minute waits to use the shower. Again, not enough money to pay someone to come in and regrout the showers quickly at low traffic times. As I stood there tonight sweaty and tired and waiting to shower (after shaving using a sink that only produced cold water) I started to notice just how disgustingly dirty the men’s locker room is. There’s some kind of blackish-grayish goo all over the wet floor. Dirty bandaids, used sopping wet towels, toilet paper and razor caps litter the floor. When I go to complain at the front desk I’m told that they know the men’s locker room is a disaster and that it’s mainly attributed to the “600 extra people coming in to use the outdoor pool.” I said “So why don’t you staff appropriately when there’s 600 extra people coming in?” She goes “It’s fixed, we can’t have any more than 5 locker room attendants on.” Anyway, I don’t know what else to say; disgusting stinky gym, rude staff, broke, don’t go here. Not worth it.

Oh.. and just as a little something for the people posting reviews angry that they can’t bring guests to the outdoor pool without paying $50 - we other paying members don’t want your guests in our pool. This location can’t afford to keep the facilities clean and smelling decent for the members it...

Don't get me wrong. This is an upper end gym. The management is doing a great job to keep the equipment up to date, offering activities for all ages and providing the 24 hour service. In this specific location it is possible to practice tennis both indoor and outdoor, have a massage eat lunch at the cafe or sunbathe on the very generous 2 decks poolside in summer. Why I am rating it only 3 stars? Two reasons customer service and cleanliness. There is room for improvements in both those areas. First incident was few months ago, I had a guest with me coming from oversea, and anxious to be exposed to the LTF experience. My guest had forgot the ID at home and there was no way to reason with the stubborn front desk representative. I offered to sign a release in liability for anything that might have happened during the short time of our stay but the only reply was "sorry this is a company policy" without any rational explanation. As a 7 years club member, I felt disrespected by the incompetence and lack of sensibility of the youngster employee. One other incident was earlier in the time, when I needed to to put on hold my membership for one month due to a business trip abroad. My trip during the month of November was scheduled on very short notice in October but according to LTF policy the notice for holding the membership need to happen 2 months prior. Again I could not find anybody at the customer service desk that could give a reasonable explanation or help me in this exceptional circumstance. Now regarding the cleanliness, I often witness LTF employees cleaning objects such mirrors, lockbox, benches and so on, with regular white towels (small or large) that people use on their bodies after shower or during the workout. Those items then are collectively washed together in the laundry. This is against any hygienic basic rule. It would be easy to keep thing separated, providing a set of yellow rugs to use on cleaning objects and wash separately from the whites. In this Rochester Hills location also the large white towels smells disgusting. This is not the case in other locations. There must be something done wrong in the laundry area. Finally one remark about the yoga room. Very appreciated the effort to have a dedicated yoga room with temperature control for the HOT Vinyasa but have you seen anybody cleaning the floor after hours of intense sweating workout ? It would certainly not be prohibitive to organize a daily routine for floor sweeping and sanitizing.I hope this constructive critique can inspire...