GoodLife Fitness Ottawa Rideau Centre

I just started my membership at GoodLife and will give them two stars now because of their personal training fishing tactics. I received a free personal training session where, according to the front desk person, I would be able to get a workout plan. Indeed, the guy assessed my physical condition. He told me to come back again and I thought he would walk me through the machines and create a workout plan for me. But he only wanted to sell me very expensive personal training plans. The cheapest one would cost approximately CAD 500/month. I felt uncomfortable with their tactics, as I was not given the chance of saying "no" and was never told that the main purpose of taking the free personal training session was being offered their expensive plans. And when I said no, the guy told me to GOOGLE for workout plans!!!!! That's UNACCEPTABLE coming from a fitness professional. What if those "Google standard" fitness plans don't work for me or leave me injured? Who's liable for that? If I knew, I would have never taken any free personal training session and strongly recommend you NOT TO TAKE IT unless you want personal training and are willing to pay for that. The only reason why I'm giving them three stars today and didn't cancel my membership was the good will of the club's general manager to walk me through the machines and create a workout plan for me after I complained to the front desk guy. It was good and I appreciate that, but they need to keep an eye for communication and for their sales tactics. They need to inform people what to expect from free personal training classes instead of leading them to uncomfortable situations where someone is trying to sell them something they don't want to pay for, and don't have to pay for unless they really want personal training. In spite of the good attitude of the general manager, they're deservedly losing two stars on my review. So they can think about the situation and improve. And you, who are reading me and want to sign up for GoodLife, remember: AVOID FREE PERSONAL TRAINING SESSIONS IF YOU'RE NOT LOOKING FOR PERSONAL TRAINING AND NOT WILLING TO PAY $200 TO $500 BI-WEEKLY FOR THAT!

The location of the gym is good.The issue is equipment.Spinning bikes are dated (old school).They don’t even have timers on the bikes.I mean are we still in the 1990s? And for us dudes they don’t have complete set of equipment to use ,was disappointed to find out they don’t have a slanting bench press machine.I mean what kind of gym especially the one that caters to men can not have that bench. Overall this branch does bring down the standards I expected out of the GoodLife brand.

Stay away from this gym, is the best thing you could do. Bad service, bad experience, and overall unpleasant experience when cancelling the membership. Definitely don't sign a contract with them, unless you know what you're getting into; thousands of dollars in cancellation fees, hours wasted on the phone, and emails back and forth. Great waste of my time I'd say, hopefully whoever is reading this, will avoid this trouble.