The billing and hours complaints come first
The most useful review at Choice Fitness Lowell is also the angriest, and it's about money. A member in September 2019 wrote a one-star describing a frozen account gone wrong: "I froze my account and was given wrong info, I was then charged before the date they gave me to be able to make changes." She says she tried to cancel, left notes and calls, "never received call back and was then charged again." That's a specific, checkable grievance, and it sits at the top of this page because billing disputes matter more than any equipment review.
Choice Fitness Lowell is at 55 Church Street, Massachusetts, scoring 4.2 from 108 ratings. Let me pull apart the two real problems.
The freeze-and-cancel mechanism
The billing complaint maps onto a familiar mechanic, and understanding it is worth more than sharing the outrage. Membership freezes and cancellations run on billing-cycle dates, not the day you decide. If a change request lands after the cycle's cutoff, the next charge still fires - the account doesn't stop itself. That's likely what produced the "charged before the date they gave me" experience. It doesn't excuse being given wrong info by staff, and getting no callback is a service failure. But the takeaway for you is concrete: get any freeze or cancellation date in writing, and confirm which billing cycle it takes effect in, because verbal dates are where these disputes start.
The hours complaint - and this one has a mechanism too
A second one-star, from July 2019, raises something you can plan around: "their hours are never consistent. What they say online is never accurate to when they're actually open. They advertise a 24 gym, in reality they're open 24 hours 3 out of 7 days a week." If accurate, that's a gap between the "24/7" marketing and the staffed reality - a common setup where round-the-clock access only runs on select nights. I can't confirm the current schedule from this record, so don't assume 24-hour access on any given day. Check the posted hours for the specific days you'd train.
That same reviewer noted "the tanning bed rooms are always dirty" but kept using the gym "out of convenience." Convenience keeping someone at a place they're annoyed with is its own kind of data point.
What the average measures
At 4.2 across 108 ratings, the sample is solid, and the split is clear: real frustration about billing, hours, and cleanliness, balanced by short positive notes like an August 2019 "I love to workout there, the place is always well maintained" and an October 2019 "can't go wrong with this gym." Those brief five-stars pull the number up while the detailed reviews explain the friction. Both are true at once.
What's missing
No price appears in any review. No reliable, confirmed daily schedule either - which, given the hours complaint, is exactly the thing to verify before you join. I'd call and ask for the real 24-hour days in writing.
Who it's not for
If your whole reason for joining is guaranteed 3 a.m. access every night, confirm that hard before signing - one reviewer says it isn't consistent. And if you've been burned by freeze-then-charged billing before, read the cancellation terms cold and keep every date in writing.