24 Hour Fitness

Previously I thought this facility 4/5 stars, but that was when I first joined the gym October '07 and had a personal trainer. Then I contracted pubic lice from the locker room June 9. Here is the reply I received from the club manager, emphasis between asterisks is mine: James, I do apologize for the experience you have had in regards to the cleanliness of our facility. When do you notice the club looking the worst? I can assure you that we do go through and disinfect the locker room area twice a day and have a hourly check for any things that need to be taken care of right way, these type of activities would not build a habitat the lice would breed. I will look into this issue today and see if we have any signs that there are lice anywhere and then let you know. *I do know that we have not had any other instances in this club of lice in over a year that I have been here.* Again, I understand where this could be a very embarrassing and frustrating situation, so I will let you know what I find out when we look deeper in the club for signs of infestation. Let me know if there is anything I can do in the mean time!! My reply: Thank you for taking the time to respond. I've only used the facility in the morning hours. Several times I've used the equipment only to discover paper towels and/or disinfectant wasn't available for cleaning. Recently the club didn't have any soap in the locker room; how people were able to wash their hands after using the bathroom or take a shower after working out is unknown. I find your claim of sanitization efforts hard to believe when simple hygiene using soap and disinfectant solutions were not maintained at a satisfactory level. My daily schedule consists of home, your facility, and my office. I can say with every confidence that both my home and office do not contain any possible access to infection. You stated "I do know that we have not had any other instances in this club of lice in over a year that I have been here." Having experienced your facility since October of last year, with your own staff telling me they do not even use the showers, and having seen the ventilation shafts above the showers coated in layers of dust, I have every reason to conclude my contact with pubic lice is from your facility. more

I was one of those morons who signed up for the "free 10 day trial". Wow, that was SUCH a mistake. When my husband and I went in to give it a try we were immediately subjected to the super high-pressure sales situation that we should have expected. I literally wanted to cry. We were stuffed into this tiny cubicle for over an hour. When our realized we weren't going to give in, he did the whole switch-aroo and gave us to his manager, who really turned up the heat. If they were smart they would have let us work out first. The gym is nice. Plenty of machines, it's all fairly clean, and we loved the fact that there was a gym and steam room. We ended up joining, but made the jerks wait a week to get our money. Don't they realize that the high-pressure thing is so dang sleezy?! more

The downtown Seattle 24Hour Fitness is the first national chain gym I've joined and so far it has met my average expectations to the T. There was an initial hiccup in my paperwork that was slightly annoying but easy enough to resolve. The time of day I go offers free garage parking w/ validation (before 8:00 am, after 5:00 pm). It's generally pretty easy to find an available machine; sometimes the weights are trickier if it's a weekday evening...however early mornings are pretty wide open on all fronts. Nothing too electrifying, but it gets the job done. I eventually came to terms with the fact that it would be unreasonable to hold 24Hour responsible for my neighbor's B.O. or the seemingly high number of socially awkward elevator riders. more

If you have a busy schedule like I do and just need more time in the day to fit in a workout, then 24 hour Fitness is the place. You can go there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week because you can rely on this gym to be the only one open. Not only are their hours wonderful, but they also have an abundent amount of equipment for all your workout needs. The gym downtown has a huge swimming pool, sauna's, tanning rooms, and more. And yes those are open 24/7 as well. They always have trial memberships available, so try it out. more

I usually try to avoid coming here at the times when it's too busy – especially like after 5 o'clock in the evenings, or on the weekend. It's just so crowded with people, then, especially on the gym side. They have really good classes, though – like yoga and aerobics, so it is a good fitness center. more