Merritt Athletic Clubs

I have been a member of Merritt in White Marsh for about six months.
What I Like
It’s the newest and nicest gym in the area. I like that it is more serious than Planet Fitness (e.g., it has power racks, grunting is allowed, etc.) but not a total meathead gym. The equipment is all immaculate; new, shiny, well kept. There are a lot of good classes; mostly aerobics or yoga. The personal trainers are hit or miss but there are a couple of good ones (ask for Kim). Though crowded and full of children, the pool is great in the summertime. The gym area itself is not usually super crowded, so you rarely have to wait for a piece of equipment. They also have child care, which is a huge plus for those with kids.
What I Don’t Like
I don’t like that it is very expensive. I pay $ 130/​mo for me and my wife. That’s a lot of money considering gyms like PF or Spunk are charging $ 10/​mo/​person. I don’t like that they don’t have the small details down for that high price. Example 1: Never enough clips for securing plates on barbells. Example 2: They don’t buy new ab wheels when people (apparently) steal them. When you pay that much per month, you expect that these minutia will be taken care of. I don’t like that I have to pay the full price when I don’t utilize all the services. For example: I don’t have kids, so I should be able to buy a membership package that is less expensive because it excludes childcare. Finally, I don’t like the one year contract. Most gyms (even non-​PF ones) are going month-​to-​month now with no commitment. I wish Merritt would do the same.
Summary (TLDR)
Merritt is a luxury gym. It is very nice and offers a lot of features, but is very expensive in return. Despite this, they can’t seem to spend small amounts of money to fix minor issues. They also do not provide various types of membership packages that include/​exclude services in exchange for lower rates.

The gym was beautiful, new, and had great features! The locker rooms were clean, lockers were spacious, and they even had a sauna in there! I did notice that this gym has a bar, which is unlike any gym I have ever been to before. It seems like they were trying to go for gym/​cool hangout place, which is a fun idea. I also appreciated that there was a kids play area, which I would imagine to be a big plus for anybody wanting a place to entertain their children while they were working out. The equipment is new, the staff is friendly, and the classes are all really fun. Best of all, it’s located really close to the Costco, so I can get shopping and a workout in all in 1 trip!
Just a word of warning, it can get REALLY crowded during peak hours.

Beautiful and clean club! A little of everything from classes (Les Mills, Cycling, Zumba, Barre, Yoga, and more) and endless equipment. The locker room is beautiful and boasts a sauna in addition to usual amenities. The best part of the gym is the dark and private movie room. Cardio flies by when you get engrossed in a movie! During the Unilocal event I thought the cycling instructor from Jersey was awesome! The only reason I didn’t give 5 was because I was given a hard time about using the 30 day pass I was given at a Unilocal event because I had joined a friend at the gym over a year ago. They allowed me to workout that day, but told me I would have to speak to a manager to come back as I was «flagged» in the system. It made me uncomfortable.

The gym itself is nice and clean for the most part. The staff up front by the entrance are friendly and helpful.
The only negative is that several times a week there are no towels in the women locker room. Oh one more thing lol some of the guests never put their weights after using which sucks especially for women who needs to put back four 45 pound weight when they only need like two instead of the six that’s hanging. I feel like this something the staff/​trainers/​employees should keep an eye out and either restock the weights on the correct weight shelf or speak to the members via email or letter or in person.

This location is my main gym (I travel to the other locations for certain classes). I absolutely love the Merritt. Members can use the studios to workout, the smoothies are good, the sauna is a huge plus and the equipment is good. My favorite part of this gym are the classes offered. I feel motivated to get up and workout because the instructors are cool and motivating. I think the value for the cost is worth it as long as you are using the gym and all the benefits included.

The gym during non peak hours is great for experienced individuals however if you don’t know what you are doing, no worker will step up and give advice. Additionally, they have several great front desk staffers whom really make you feel like your not just a member (karen). Daycare decent but they let the big Kids pick on the smaller ones. Price point is high for the area and they should lower it.

Been a member for over a year-​was so happy to see the location in White Marsh open! Great facilities, tons of equipment, and great trainers! The locker rooms are always super clean and well-​stocked, the classes offered are great, and the staff at the desk is always really friendly. Great pool in the summer, as well.

My fiancé and I signed up and were very excited because we had heard great things about the club. We went for a walk through it was so nice and spacious, nothing like any other gym we had gone to. We signed up and started to go, we were set up to speak to Jason so that we could set up some sessions with a personal trainer. We were paired up with a great guy named Terell, he was amazing and really understood the path that my fiancé and I wanted to take in order to get in shape for our upcoming wedding. We trained with him for about two sessions. He sent us helpful tips on eating and so on. Unfortunately he ended up leaving the company, he called us informed us of this and told us to contact the club and things would get resolved in our BEST INTREST! My fiancé and I discussed things and we decided that we did not want to train with anyone except Terell because he pushed us and we just felt comfortable with him. So I contacted Jason who had set us up and informed him that we wanted to cancel our training sessions and would still keep the membership with them. The entire time I was on the phone with Jason all he kept saying was let me see who I can put you with. Umm Hello are you not listening to what I am say. No I do not want anyone else I would like my $ 360 back because we are not going to spend our money on something we do not want. I just felt like he was not trying to understand where we were coming from and he was just pushing us to switch trainers so that his commission check was not fucked up! After repeating myself and getting a little nasty with Jason, he then proceeded to tell me the reason behind our trainer leaving. I felt it was so unprofessional of him to do so. What happened between our trainer and the organization has nothing to do with me. It seemed like he wanted me to get a bitter taste in my mouth about the trainer and change my mind. Negative did not work, it made me rethink why my fiancé and I even bothered to join this fitness center. Jason stated he would have his manager contact me, that NEVER happened. I only got an email back when I went on the website and gave them feedback and stated we would be canceling our membership as well and all the friends we had referred would be doing the same because of the horrible service we had gotten from the white marsh location. The GM contact me through email and a phone call. She apologized and stated we would be getting a FULL REFUND for the training, gave us 4 guest passes that value up to $ 100 on our account. I thought the issues had been taken care of, boy was I mistaken! It has been over a week no money has been returned to us, each time I contact the GM she tells me that it is still being worked on. I’m sorry but I have worked in the Banking industry before and it does not take 2 weeks for you to refund me my money, second why am I contacting you all the time. If they run into issues as they say then I need to be updated to that I do not feel like I am getting the run around. These people take your hard earned money with out thinking, but when it is time to give it back, oh you better be patient. I do not feel like the situation was taken care of in the correct manner and the customer service has been awful. My family and friends will not join the club after this and if we could get out of our contract without having to pay an arm and leg we would.
The facility itself is beautiful, I love the pool and the classes. The facility itself is fantastic but the quality of service is awful. I would not advice anyone to join at this point!

I love this gym! It’s another «family oriented» Merritt club, such as the towson location, unlike the canton location. Everything is brand new and very modern from the pool to the cardio cinema!
The group fitness instructors are the highlight of the place. They have the best Zumba instructors in town and once a month they take it outside at the avenue!
Yes Merritt is a little pricey, but it’s worth it for a if the amenities that are offered a d they really do care about you and your fitness goals.

Pretty awesome place. Kept ridiculously clean, there’s 24h service, and many free classes you can join. Haven’t tried the pool yet but I know there are lap swimming hours so one of these days! There are always towels to check out, and disinfecting wipes to wipe down machines you use so that really adds to how the place is so clean and well taken care of. The smoothies are awesome, the bar and grill has some good food, and there’s also a little store you can buy work out clothes if you somehow forgot and don’t feel like driving home to pick some up.

The gym is amazing for the most part, a majority of the staff is super down to earth and cool. Equipment is always clean. My complaint comes from the kids though. This is a premium athletic club «they advertise that heavily» and it’s flooded out with children. They do an awful job with controlling that. If you want to lay outside by the pool on a Monday afternoon to relax good luck… You’ll be searching for a decent seat for awhile and be sprayed by kids. They allow the kids to use everything in the pool area, even the lap lanes. I was also told to watch my mouth for saying «damn» in the locker room by one of the children’s staff members. Other then the absurd amount of kids they allow to scream freely throughout the gym and ruin the pool area, the gym is nice. And shoutout to Andre, he’s the man

Do you like scratchy towels? Do you like group class schedules that change all the time? Do you like kids running around and playing on equipment and lax rule enforcement? Then this gym is for you! It’s not the worst but for $ 80/​month they can do much, much better. If you want to try whatever new fad is around they will have it and send you nonsensical emails about it. Plenty of weights and racks and such, there are like 30 ellipticals but only about 8 stationary bikes. It’s relatively small too. No designated space (or mirrors) for body exercises like planks, stretching, etc.
Pet peeve and a bit of a rant. The towels. There is one size of towels, mid-​sized, which is the wrong size for the two purposes for which towels are used at the gym, showering (too small so I have to take 2 or 3 irritatingly) and while using the machines, too large so I sweat and have nothing to wipe off myself or the machines. Where did you buy these scratchy, low quality towels? They just feel terrible, all the time. This is not a $ 10 or $ 20/​month gym this is $ 80/​month and I expect much better.
Class schedule? Not consistent. No published schedule, it’s online and always changing.
The staff is nice and helpful (Eric, John) and the floor is clean, good showers, good locker room, but in comparison to the other Baltimore gym I belonged to that was relatively the same price-​wise, it’s a distant second.
I think the MAC spoiled me with better facilities, better kid management, better rules, a published class schedule. If my office wasn’t .5 miles away I would join a different gym. Location, location.
I’ve been harping on these issues for a while, spoken to management and no changes.

Signed up when they first opened. Paying 76 per month. Can use any facility. Investigating whether a friend I work with got a young professionals discount and paying something around $ 56. I’ll keep you posted. Go low…

Been a member of this gym since Day One and it’s just fabulous. Everyone that works there are very personable, greet you coming and going, never an attitude, machines are always in working condition. Classes are great; instructors really get you going. The pool party I had for my grandson at the club was awesome. Hostesses were always there for whatever we needed. I am satisfied with the monthly price I pay for this club.

I usually go to the Towson and Canton clubs, but decided to see this brand new Merritt. I was immediately impressed by the nice looking hardwood floors and higher end looking locker room. The lockers were wooden and fancier than the usual blue metal ones found in the other clubs. The shower were actual tiled stalls with its own frosted glass door. There were also shampoo, condition, and body wash bottles! The gym is nice and roomy/​airy. There are two outdoor pools, one for laps and one for the kiddies to play in… the rec pool actually looked like a lot of fun with a small slide, pails dumping water, and random sprinklers. There was a good number of treadmills, with and without TVs. I like the ones without since staring at the screen makes me nauseous, and what is nice about this one is that the ones without TVs faces a window! (instead of a mirror like at Towson or a blank wall at Canton). The main gripe I have is that I guess it is a more family friendly area, so during my run, even with my headphones in, I continually heard kids screaming and shrieking at the top of their lungs. I realized that the kids club is open at the top towards the cardio machines, so that might be why it sounded louder than it really was? The staff here didn’t seem as friendly either… when I entered, it was my first time at the club and they were just chatting amongst themselves. I had to wait to get someone’s attention to ask how to get to the locker rooms, which is very different from the other locations where someone is always there to say hi and bye to you.

Love this gym. The pool is the best. Like a resort pool. Also you can work out and watch movies in movie room and they have lots of events for families. Employees are awesome too. Now they even have food that can be brought to u pool side along with adult drinks. Try a free one day pass today and see how great it is. Don’t forget the kids. They will never want to leave!

So I agree with everything with what Sarah said, except value. The only other comparable club in this area is the monstrosity that I’m sure will now soon go out of business around the corner. There are good gyms, but this is the only other all encompassing gym around.
You pay for bells and whistles and this place delivers. Now when I lived in Falls Church (in 2004) and was a member of the WAC, I paid $ 95 for a single membership. For a family membership of 4, I don’t even pay 50% more today than I did in 2004.
So it might not be a bargain, per se (I mean depending on what you value), but it’s a price tag that I think is justifiable and unfair that its rating suffered because of it.

As the first to review, I want to make it PERFECTLY CLEAR that 3 stars is NOT because the club isn’t beautiful and shiny and new. The staff is nice enough, though a bit overwhelmed with the influx of new people and trying to show everyone around.
I was able to get a free week because a friend is a member. What I found is the equipment is UBER fancy, I mean touch screen EVERYTHING. Substantial weight area, tons of cardio equipment. Enough space for several classes to be going on at once. The classes were PACKED, and I wasn’t able to get myself into them. Now, I’ve taken group fitness classes before, and I’m familiar with Les Mills, so if they hold true then they’re going to be a good class.
The area for kids makes me want to be a kid again, think McDonald’s play place meets an arcade meets childcare. I didn’t go in, but I could see it from the cardio area on the second floor.
Outside pool for laps, a family pool for the kids and areas to lay out in the sun.
To summarize the PRICE is what has me bringing it down. You would think that with all these amenities that it would be worth more, and I assume that’s their business model. What concerns me is that when I’m able to find time to lay out in the sun, I can guarantee that half of White Marsh will be there with me… and I won’t get a chair. Same with the classes. If I can’t get into the group fitness or the pool what this becomes is a fancy shmancy Planet Fitness, only $ 120/​month more expensive for a household of two.
This is geared towards families, I can guarantee it. They’ll benefit the most out of the family package pricing. I’m not saying don’t go, I’m just saying I don’t think it’s going to be for me.