£80-£90 a month? Eeek!
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Virgin Active
Clapham, London
Star distribution
17 reviews
At Virgin Active we are passionate about exercise and wellness. That is why we offer world-class facilities that include state-of-the-art cardiovascular equipment, toning circuits, free weights, sw... show more
- Address:
-
4-20 North Street, Clapham, London SW4 0HG
Tube:
- Clapham Common Tube Station (0.6 km)
- Clapham North Tube Station (0.9 km)
Nearby stations:
- Wandsworth Road Station (0.5 km)
- Clapham High Street Station (0.7 km)
- Contact us:
-
08452 704087
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Marylebone Village Fitness
Marylebone, London W1H
“Hello! Welcome to the home of Marylebone Village Fitness. We are a personal wellness and beauty studio located in a beautiful Georgian house in Marylebone, Central London. MVF's brand new Power Plate studio offers small classes (never more than...” more...
16 reviews of Virgin Active in English
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I was a member before Christmas, the front of house people are friendly and helpful and while the gym is ok (there is a definite shortage of machines and equipment, if you want to go in the middle of the day it's great, if you want to go at normal after work hours it's packed, they have a ridiculous "twenty minutes per machine" rule as the solution, doesn't work at all!) The real problem is the management. When I signed up, they lied to me about guest passes, promising me seven, of which I got zero. When I emailed them they only replied if I didn't mention quitting, it took them two extra months to actually stop my account, which I eventually did get refunded, but there was absolutely no effort to keep me on as a member. Obviously they are full of people paying £100 a month and don't need members to want to stay.
The pool, jacuzzi and sauna are really nice (when they're not crammed full of people of course!)
I would maybe go back if there was a complete overhaul of the management and recruitment staff, BUT FOR NOW I WOULD DEFINITELY RECOMMEND AGAINST ANYONE JOINING!
The pool, jacuzzi and sauna are really nice (when they're not crammed full of people of course!)
I would maybe go back if there was a complete overhaul of the management and recruitment staff, BUT FOR NOW I WOULD DEFINITELY RECOMMEND AGAINST ANYONE JOINING!
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Overcrowded, underserved, overpriced and inconvenient.
The booking system to get in to a Body Pump or any other class means you need to allocate 30 min each day to try and phone to get a class otherwise you need to turn up 2hrs before the desired class. They start taking bookings at 0700 and by 0745, the class for the particular day will be full.
For £85 per month, I expect a hell of a lot better.
I have just cancelled my contract. Thank goodness I opted for the rolling monthly one.
I was very disappointed. It's in a good location and the facilities are not too bad but for the number of members they have, it is unuseable in anything other than out of hours. It is too expensive for the quality of facilities they offer though.
I will not recommend this club.
The booking system to get in to a Body Pump or any other class means you need to allocate 30 min each day to try and phone to get a class otherwise you need to turn up 2hrs before the desired class. They start taking bookings at 0700 and by 0745, the class for the particular day will be full.
For £85 per month, I expect a hell of a lot better.
I have just cancelled my contract. Thank goodness I opted for the rolling monthly one.
I was very disappointed. It's in a good location and the facilities are not too bad but for the number of members they have, it is unuseable in anything other than out of hours. It is too expensive for the quality of facilities they offer though.
I will not recommend this club.
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My first experience of Virgin Active and a very poor one at that.
80s style changing rooms although plenty of room at least. Towels are ask included and were nice.
The gym floor itself was shockingly poor:
CARDIO: plenty of treadmills, bikes and x-trainers plus 4 rowers (although one was broken) but you may have to wait to get onto one
FREEWEIGHTS: By far the smallest free weights area I've ever seen in a commercial gym. It was so small and jammed up that users were tripping over each other.
RESISTANCE MACHINES: this area was larger and adequate equipment although the TRX in the middle of it was unusable as there wasn't enough space around it (or too many people)
MATS: this area is even more of a joke than the free weights - three people were using it and there was then no space left. And even then you had to hunt for an actual mat
Downstairs:
POOL AREA: looked nice and modern although there were no lanes and it was literally full of young children which made it impossible to actually swim
SAUNA: reasonable size but it wasn't a nice place to sit - it (like much of the gym) felt run down.
SHOWERS: This was the one really nice part of the club. Very modern and clearly recently refurbed.
This place really does need shutting down, stripping out and seriously refitting.
The £80 a month they ask for membership is laughable - if they charged £25, I still would feel overcharged here. It's a shame as I had high expectations of the chain and, if this is anything to go by, they were way off the mark.
80s style changing rooms although plenty of room at least. Towels are ask included and were nice.
The gym floor itself was shockingly poor:
CARDIO: plenty of treadmills, bikes and x-trainers plus 4 rowers (although one was broken) but you may have to wait to get onto one
FREEWEIGHTS: By far the smallest free weights area I've ever seen in a commercial gym. It was so small and jammed up that users were tripping over each other.
RESISTANCE MACHINES: this area was larger and adequate equipment although the TRX in the middle of it was unusable as there wasn't enough space around it (or too many people)
MATS: this area is even more of a joke than the free weights - three people were using it and there was then no space left. And even then you had to hunt for an actual mat
Downstairs:
POOL AREA: looked nice and modern although there were no lanes and it was literally full of young children which made it impossible to actually swim
SAUNA: reasonable size but it wasn't a nice place to sit - it (like much of the gym) felt run down.
SHOWERS: This was the one really nice part of the club. Very modern and clearly recently refurbed.
This place really does need shutting down, stripping out and seriously refitting.
The £80 a month they ask for membership is laughable - if they charged £25, I still would feel overcharged here. It's a shame as I had high expectations of the chain and, if this is anything to go by, they were way off the mark.
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I have been a member of Virgin Active Clapham since it opened and before that when it was owned by Holmes Place. It used to be a luxury brand but Virgin have now run it down into a public leisure centre. It is dirty, unkept and although there are a couple of fantastic staff the majority including the manager are only interested in chatting to each other and you are ignored. When facilities are out of order they are left like that sometimes for weeks as they don't want to pay costly emergency call out charges unlike when it was a luxury brand. Virgin have forgotten that the members are paying customers. I joined years ago because I liked the idea that there were no children in the pool and you were given towels so didn't have to take them. But, this has changed. They now have kids running round the changing area screaming, loads of family swims which means the pool is closed to swimmers frequently and towels are suddenly like everything else in the club "subject to availability". If the facilities you're paying for in your membership are out of order they will not compensate you in any way they just use this clause. I was told by the same person from head office that towels were inc in my membership and then an email later that they were complimentary and not inc in my membership. This is a badly managed club that's only interested in profit. They seem to have lost contact with their members. Don't join this club there's a brand new leisure centre opened on Clapham Manor St go there.
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200 Aldersgate is simply amazing! Well well well what an excellent 5 star gym!!!! Front of house are just simply the best and a total credit to this gym. As an ex personal trainer I can promise all personal trainers that 200 Aldersgate is PT heaven. You will not find better equipment and as an unashamed hedonist 200 Aldersgates gets 10 out of 10 for their serious hydro massage spa (complete with tropical rain showers,) -I kid you not. I am so glad I signed up here out of all the classic clubs, yesterday I held an important meeting, I choose to hold to it at this gym as they have such an impressive lounge, meeting rooms and front of house. Choosing this virgin active club gave my meeting the message of quality I wanted to deliver. The concierge treated my business associates with the ultimate professional TLC. The Virgin brand gave a bit if magic to my meeting that I wanted. There is absolutely no question about value for money. Not even an issue, There really is too much to say. It really is a 5 star gym, I've seen some top end gyms in London, for an all round service, you won't get better than 200 Aldersgate. Serious stylish!!!! Richard does it again!!!
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The 3 stars are not because the club isn’t good – i.e. the teachers of the exercise classes are good, the pool clean and gym ok. But you really do pay and arm and a leg for it all – to the extend that you can have the same (and more – if you don’t care about towels) at the newly opened Clapham Leisure Centre for literally half of the monthly cost.
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West London gym – cold showers on several occasions. Bland apology (eventually, after complaining twice and complaining that they weren’t responding to my complaint) but ignored my request to offer even the most basic gesture (I asked for a couple of guest passes).
Very crowded at 7pm weekday: no space to park.
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I cancelled my membership after being there for a few years. Far too many members, crowded, tired showers and changing, air con often broken in the Summer. Poor value at £80 a month. It’s a shame because it could be great – I love the pool.
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ldownham
1 review
1 review
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I'd suggest thinking very hard about whether to join Virgin - well, I suggest you don't.
I'm only working two days a week now and can't afford the membership anymore - but have been told it isn't possible to cancel my membership until my 12 month contract expires.
Not only that but I'll soon be on maternity leave - even the fact the gym membership will take up a stonking 25% of my income doesn't sway them.
Mortgage lenders are more understanding!
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bigsmoke
1 review
1 review
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I'm a member of barbican virgin active, and have also used islington, streatham and nottingham. I occasionally use Clapham but have finally decided to stop bothering as my experiences there get worse and worse - there is only one exercise studio so the class timetable is limited. every class must be booked in advance it seems, and you can only do this from 7am the day before (places go within half an hour for popular classes).
I go for the body pump class but every time i go there is an issue with too many people in the class and not enough equipment to go round, delaying the start of the class and meaning that you run a lottery of getting the class that you paid for.
the floor of the studio was filthy last time i went, not nice when you're doing press-ups and abs routines.
the changing rooms are ok but the showers are badly maintained, i looked up to find rust and mould growing on the ceiling on saturday morning
yet every january, IF i can get a place on a class, i walk through the door to find a huge recruitment drive taking over reception.
This gym has WAY TOO MANY members, i won't be returning
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Sfelt
1 review
1 review
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The staff on the front desk have been downright rude and abusive on numerous occasions, yes if you are reading this you know who you are, they are a far cry away from the old Holmes Place where the quality of the gym was reflected in the staff they hire. Also the change rooms are tired and badly maintained.
Cancelling a family membership because of it.
You have been forewarned.
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My boyfriend and I were looking for a gym nearby our home and signed up for a FREE trial at the Virgin Active in North Street, SW11. A Virgin sales guy called us and wanted to fix a time with us casually throwing in the fact that a FREE trial will cost us 15 Pounds per person!!! He generously added we would get the money back if we sign up for a 12 months contract for over 70 Pounds per month each.
I was pretty disappointed about such a practice to recruit new members and decided to give their trial a miss.
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I’m writing to warn people about the Virgin Active contract for the diamond membership, which I sadly signed up for. I joined the streatham branch in Jan 2008 and signed up for what I thought was a standard 12 month contact.
I have recently moved out of the area and called today to cancel. This is 15 months after I joined so I assumed if would be straight forward enough. However, I’ve been told that because I didn’t contact VA between the 11th - 17th Jan 09 to cancel I have automatically been put on a rolling contract for another 12 months. VA didn’t contact me about this 6 day window which I think it outrageous and very poor business practice.
I’ve complained but they’ve told me that because I signed the terms and conditions, I have no way out.
I’m fully familiar with the standard 12 month contacts that gyms use, but this rolling contact with no communication seems incredibly unfair.
Just want to warn people to steer clear of Virgin Active. The gyms might be nice, but their customer and business policies are ruthless and unfair.
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I’ve been with Virgin Atlantic since 2000, I actually had 2 frequent flyer air miles card sent to me in different occasions, they update their points system accurately and it is redeemable towards a purchase of a fresh ticket! I was on premium economy visiting Texas, stayed at the Hotel Houstonia - lovery 5 star hotel with a golf course; Virgin Atlantic served absolutely delicious croissant - washed down with donperi-on red wine, I would always fly with virgin, they are brilliant on air.
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I Agree with Maverick. Virgin Active gyms are quality. I just wish they weren’t so damn expensive! You’re looking at about 80-90 quid per month which seems pretty steep in my book. But Virgin does blow LA fitness, Fitness First et al out of the water. Great pool, nice people and a great part of Clapham. I think i’m going to have to join….
Comment 6 comments on this review show all
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Stephanie, 24 November 2008: -
Andrew Hunter, 24 November 2008:I know! Expensive, huh? But that’s the going rate for a high quality gym in London…..
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dave_walsh84, 24 November 2008:And it is VERY high quality!
Lots of space, eye candy, great facilities and the the never ending feeling that it’s not busy when it’s rammed!
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fashionaddict, 26 November 2008:Actually I feel very bad saying this….but i’ve managed to blag a student membership to my very very expensive gym for 4 years running!
I work full time, but i’ve been doing a professionally relevant diploma in my spare time (very slowly, as LOL - its meant to be a 1 year course - but i’ve managed to never take the final last exam!)And apparently thats enough to get the student membership….as i’ve just been showing them letters from my diploma provider for some time.
Its only costing me under £52 per month, whereas non-students are being charged a nice £70 per month.
I won’t dare name the gym (sorry!)
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NDMCCRAE, 28 November 2008:I joined Virgin Activ a few months ago in Moorgate, and yes i did balk at the £80 monthly fee, but it is so bloomin lovely. All the latest equipment (powerplates - very amusing).
There is also the pool/spa area and i think the plus bonus (for me) is that it’s literally 2 minutes away from work and as previously mentioned, plenty of space. I’ve never had to wait for a machine yet. -
Andrew Hunter, 28 November 2008:
Perhaps worth it then…. I need to hit up my brother (who works at Virgin) for a discount!
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Probably the best in Gym in Clapham and it has a pool! Hooray! I’ve always been a fan of Virgin Active Gyms and the Clapham branch is great. If only they had tennis courts….
Staff are always friendly here and i’m always impressed with how clean the changing rooms are. If only it cost the same as fitness first!
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