Planet Fitness — Local services in Washington

I signed up for a membership before this gym even opened, excited to have a reasonably priced option downtown. Although I never ended up using my membership, about a year ago, I decided to try their tanning services before my usual July 4th beach trip, as I remembered Planet Fitness offered tanning services.

When I went in, I learned I had an outstanding balance for July 2023 and January and February 2024. The staff member at the front desk was very nice, explaining that while I technically needed to pay off the balance, I should be good to go for tanning since I had spoken to someone about it, and I just needed to let others know if they asked. I told him I’d pay it off right away, used the tanning bed, and left.

The next day, when I came back to tan again, I had a very different experience with Troy McGilvery. As soon as I mentioned tanning, he brought up the outstanding balance and said I couldn’t use any services unless I made a payment. I tried to explain the conversation I’d had the day before, but Troy was condescending and rude. Even after explaining that I would pay the balance within the week and that my June membership was already paid, he eventually allowed me to tan but told me I couldn’t return until I paid something on the balance.

As I was walking to the tanning room, he continued to mumble under his breath, and when I asked what he was saying, he became defensive and rude. I told him he needed to work on his customer service skills and left feeling disrespected by his unprofessional behavior.

I emailed the club manager, AJ Hester, regarding the poor treatment and miscommunication. After three days, he finally responded, simply repeating what I already knew, offering a payment plan, and saying he was “willing to grant [me] access to the club and possibly waive some of your late fees to expedite the process.” I surely didn’t need a payment plan for $125, and it defeated the purpose since I was leaving for vacation.

What disappointed me most is that AJ never addressed Troy’s unprofessionalism or poor communication. Troy could have easily said, “I see you haven’t used your membership before and may not have been aware of this. We’re glad you’re coming in. If you can pay by July 1, you’re welcome to tan this week, but after that, your access will be paused until payment is made.” That would have been reasonable, but instead, I was met with an attitude.

For the record, I paid the $124.65 in full the very next day as I said I would. I forwarded my receipt to AJ and asked how my customer service experience would be addressed, and never heard back from him or anyone else. This was one year ago, on June 27th.

I have never returned since, and I strongly recommend staying away from this location. First impressions matter, and it’s unfortunate how they chose to treat someone who was finally walking through their doors for the first time.

I imagine there will be a "response from the owner" telling me to reach out to the club's manager.... look how...

I come to this club and I'm pretty satisfied with it, although it does have a couple of major cons (hence 3 stars, not 5):

PROS: Low cost of membership. In that respect, no other gym can compete with them. Good location of this particular club. It's right at the Gallery Place metro, as soon as you come up the escalator. Not a very safe or clean neighborhood, but you don't have to walk more than 5 steps from the metro to enter the gym. The equipment is new and there's lots of it, and the showers are better than in many other gyms. You have to bring your own towel and toiletries, but I suppose that's how they are able to afford such low monthly fees.

CONS: They don't have fitness coaches on sight. Their monthly membership explicitly includes the perk of being able to get assistance and coaching. But this location doesn't have any. I think they should give discounted monthly fees for locations that aren't able to provide all of the features as advertised. Way too much space is given to elliptical equipment and treadmills and not enough for strength-building equipment. There are four Smith machines, and they are always in use, so there is wait time. There isn't a single squat rack at this location, so people are using Smith machines as squat racks (which is arguably dangerous as it doesn't allow freedom of movement and can lead to injuries). But then there are so many treadmills, and they take an enormous amount of space but I've never seen more than a quarter of them in use at once. Usually, most of them are empty. People don't come to the gym to jog if they can jog outside. They come to the gym to use equipment they don't have at home. So it would be great if this location could get rid of half of their treadmills and put some squat racks and a couple more Smith machines there instead.

Update: The club owner responded to my reply, which is always appreciated. However, the suggestion made to me was to check my home club schedule of free classes on the website. Well, when I do, I get an empty page with an error message saying, "It appears your club has not set up an online schedule. Please check with staff members at your club to learn more about training sessions offered near you." And, last I checked with the associates on-site, they don't have any classes at this location. This, unfortunately, reinforces my earlier point: if you can't provide everything that is advertised as included in the package, then perhaps there should...

Planet Fitness is the fifth gym I've been a member of in the five or so years I've lived in DC. It is by far the most affordable gym I've been a member of during my time here - at $25 a month, the black card membership is hard to beat. The vast majority of my workouts have been at the Gallery Place-Chinatown location, conveniently located at the 7th & H St exit of the station.

It's an accessible, affordable gym, but one thing that has remained constant through all my visits is the absurd crowding. No matter when I go, it's ALWAYS packed, to the point where benches in the free weight area are rarely available. Moreover, the amount of space and equipment dedicated to cardio is not tenable or aligned with current fitness trends. The 30-minute express workout area is obsolete and should be removed to accommodate the new plate-loaded equipment PF locations are supposed to be receiving (Chinatown still doesn't have the new equipment).

One annoying thing about this location is every single time I've gone, several paper towel dispensers are either jammed or empty. There doesn't seem to be any urgency to address either issue.

Front desk staff is pleasant for the most part, aside from the few instances where they didn't acknowledge me. Due to the crowding at this location, there have been times where I've had to completely abandon my workout plan after even my backup plan was foiled due to virtually every piece of equipment being occupied. I've even seen lines of people waiting to use equipment here!

PF is an affordable gym that allows guests, so that likely partially explains why it seems to be crowded no matter when I go. I've gone in the morning, early afternoon, and late at night - it's always the same. It hasn't even been two months, but if crowding continues to be an issue, I will unfortunately be moving back to one of the more expensive gyms...