The Wave Aquatic & Fitness Center — Local services in Whitefish

The Wave is an oasis for Whitefish retirees and tourists. If you are living in Kalispell, Halfmoon, Columbia Falls or any of the surrounding area, you are not the ideal clientele. However if you have recently moved to the area, this is the place for you!

They like to charge an exorbitant ( by Flathead county income levels) amount just to be able to be ‘initiated’. why this costs almost $200, on top of an extremely high monthly rate, I’m not sure. This is a non profit, but don’t worry Whitefish retirees. They don’t skimp on the frills. There is plenty of art, leather sofas, and random flat screen TV’s to make sure you know where your money is going.

There is state of the art equipment, brand new weight machines. I’m not sure what was wrong with the old ones. They worked fine. However, the new ones count your reps for you. So if you forget to count to 12, the top of the line machine has a digital display.

Forget your water bottle? Don’t worry, The Wave sells them for literally $37 dollars. I’m scared to ask why, but they also have a huge display of designer sunglasses for sale. They are full price, because The Wave doesn’t believe in discounting anything.

When you are retired, you can take advantage of the many fitness classes offered during the work day. But if you get off work after 5:00 pm, sorry. Maybe come take a class during your lunch break.

They didn’t mention this at joining, but towels are an extra $50 fee. Was a pleasant surprise that it wasn’t $100. And since you’ll be asleep by then, The Wave also closes at 8pm on weekends.

There is usually parking available in between the Denali’s, Lincoln’s, and Mercedes with Texas and California plates that are waiting for new registration.

They do not offer a sliding scale of membership cost based on income. The Wave is for the community of Whitefish, particularly those who are staying in AirBnbs and those that own them. If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.

UPDATE TO MANAGER RESPONSE 9/2

Mr. Owner,

Since you did not leave your name, just a response with plenty of excuses, I have updated my original review.

The fees are way out of line. Check the neighboring community gyms, outside the Whitefish Wave bubble. There is a surprising lack of designer displays, overpriced water bottles, and art in their gyms. More importantly, they have fees that are more in line with the average folk’s income.

Other gyms don’t have a pro shop. And for good reason (no one buys there). I guarantee you that your prices for Oakley sunglasses are not lower than Sportsman’s Ski Haus, despite your claims.

Thank you for shouting out my old beat up vehicle. Glad there are other people in similar cars that are stretching their budget to join this non-profit.

The scholarship form seems to be well hidden on the Wave website, so thank you as well for making it public. It also seems to be very rigorous, but I am sure most eligible recipients will not mind waiting the 3 weeks it takes for approval.

As for your comment about us average people spending more money at bars and on cell phones, I can assure you I spend less at the bar than at the Wave. Comparing a cell phone bill to a non-profit ‘gym’ would be like comparing apples to oranges.

Lastly, during the extensive and extravagant remodel, the floors of the racquetball courts and basketball courts have been heavily damaged. They moved metal equipment on the delicate courts and have left them deeply scratched. I hope that our membership fees will cover the repairs, or maybe the water bottle and sunglasses sales...

I have been using the Wave for 14 years. For the last 13 years the Wave has been excellent. The staff and facility are top notch. Recently, I am very sad to say the Wave is on the decline—as indicated by other wave users in previous comments. I believe this is largely due to short sighted decisions made on the behalf of management, especially surrounding the renovations. I recently came in to buy a day pass. I called in beforehand and was told I could buy a monthly pass. I arrived and was told I could not buy a monthly membership until Monday. I was told to go the Rockfish facility. Unfortunately, this incident is not isolated and for this reason I decided to leave a review.

Within the last year the customer service, headed by Michelle Murphy, has taken a turn for the worse. She can be quite snappy and isn’t looking to help customers, rather sternly enforce the rules. I know the wave is a popular facility but I’d hope they still try to provide good service.

Here are some of the new issues I would like to highlight and recommend changing: -getting a pass here is a royal pain. You are no able to get day passes and no longer able to get a Monthly pass outside of weekday hours apparently (hope this will end after Renos). The process of getting a monthly pass is a painstaking process. Can this process be improved and expedited?

-no towel service for student memberships (it’s a pain to pay $1 per towel) . Getting towels used to be one of the best perks for members as we could workout and then sauna, hot tub and shower off. This is one example how the leadership is becoming penny wise and pound foolish. That is they are trying to pinch Pennie’s where they can but are losing sight of the big picture ( Wave patrons and quality of service).

-2 hour parking in the facility lot even though some families may want to spend the day at the Wave.

-quality of new staff hires has decreased. The old staff are still excellent and provide excellent service.

Customer care, excellent staff and a state of art facility defined the Wave for and have made it a place patrons feel happy, healthy and connected to their community. I hope Art can take the necessary steps to ensure the Wave is a place that serves the community. I fear that donors will no longer generously endow funds to this facility if some changes...

We have been members for quite some time now. In the past year however, it has become insanely overcrowded. The influx of members has turned the facility into a total zoo. We plan to cancel our membership because during the summer the kids pool had feces floating in it. The pool is always very packed out during open-family swim. The hot tub always has hair floating around in it, the womens changing rooms are pretty gross too. There's toilet paper, tampon wrappers on the floor, wads of hair in the showers and floods of soap on the counters. People dont utilize the lockers and leave their wet towels, shoes & clothes laying everywhere so it makes the changing rooms feel kindof bummy. Especially when you use the bathroom and someone's bra and dirty underwear are hanging over the door. This is a matter of way too many slobby members for the staff to keep up with. Staff members arent very friendly and come off as lazy. (We have towel service and the girl up front acted like us asking for towels was annoying because she had to put her phone down and reach behind her head to grab them) Kids are generally unsupervised & allowed to dive and jump in the therapeutic pool and use cell phones in the hot tub when there are large signs plastered everywhere that it's not allowed. It used to be a fairly invigorating and relaxing experience everytime we went, wether it was to utilize the gym, juice bar or swim... but now we drive by, see the parkinglot flooded out and ask ourselves why we still have...