Planet Fitness – Manhattan – Union Square

You get what you pay for. Coming from a NYSC membership where I refused to continue to pay more than $ 50 monthly for something I was too busy to visit more than 2x a week and hated what a-​holes worked for that company, I was seduced by PF’s low rates. $ 20/​mo for access to all gyms. Now, of course it isn’t that great. Don’t come here for inspiration/​motivation. Yes there are dudes working out in jeans. Or people who are wasting time on weight machines instagramming instead of finishing their set, and yes there are limited weight racks. The latter sucks the most because I love weighted squats but most of the time I have to skip the rack and satisfy myself with hand weights since the three racks are usually occupied by dudes looking at themselves TOO hard in the mirror.
There are lots of treadmills and ellipticals so you’re likely to get your hamster cardio on, and just pick a lonely corner, get a dirty blue mat and do some body weight exercises.
And no there aren’t fitness trainers walking around and helping you with machinery. Nor are there any fitness classes.. Also, lots of clueless teenagers or young college students frequent this place. Don’t they have gyms on campus? Ugh.
You get what you pay for

If I could give these people zero stars I would. I’ve belonged to Planet Fitness on other states and have used it to run indoors when it’s cold out, but I switched to yoga in the winter at a studio closer to home. My biggest complaint it the customer service with the staff and cancellation policy. If you can take my credit card online to join the gym, you can refund me online too. It is so rude and in poor taste to make me physically come in to your gym to cancel. and to boot THEY CONTINUED TO CHARGE ME AFTER I CANCELLED AND THEN REFUSED TO REFUND ME ONLINE. I will be filing a complaint with the BBB. Go to Crunch fitness or NYSC

This is a great gym. Has all the basics you need for a complete workout
Used to go here when I worked in the area, never had any problems with it.
Some people complain about how dirty the change rooms are and maintenance around the gym, but if you’re paying $ 10 a month I don’t think there’s anything you can complain about. If you do then spend some more cash and go to another gym

Working out here during off peak hours is fine. Not crowded and usually no waiting for any of the machines. After work hours are packed and you can expect a line for weight machines and free weights. Locker room is packed during evening hours as well. Showers can use an update and a good scrubbing. The water is cool, not warm enough for me and more than once I’ve had to switch shower stalks mid shower once I realize the soap dispenser is empty.
The staff need to maintain better.
Also, the locker rooms are leaking from the ceiling — can’t be good since it is in the basement and that means there must be a problem internally. Either way, the leaks need to be addressed and fixed.

Pros: this gym is cheap and on my way to work. Cons: it’s basically a homeless shelter. Every morning the locker room is filled with homeless people showering. Now, I am all for the homeless showering and having gym memberships. That’s important. But I’m not ok with finding shit in the shower and needles on the floor. It’s gross. This place is ok if you don’t have to shower, otherwise I’d recommend paying the extra money and going to a better, cleaner gym.

Best bang for your buck here. My membership is only $ 10/​month and for someone like me who doesn’t frequent the gym or make it a huge part of my every day routine, Planet Fitness works out just fine. The gym itself is pretty big, and I’ve been during different times of the day and it’s never been packed. The facility is pretty clean and seems fairly new, as well as the equipment. This isn’t an upscale gym by any means, but for something affordable it’s clean and has what you need for a good workout. Unfortunately this gym is underground so there’s no natural lighting coming in which makes the environment a little dismal.

This place is cheap and conveniently located for me, but literally the worst people go here. The guys are constantly hitting on the women here, sometimes until the women just drop what they’re doing and completely leave the gym. I saw one guy hit on four women the same evening. And when they’re not hitting on the women, they’re taking selfies while they work out! Also, they sometimes play the music in the gym so loudly that you can’t listen to your own music. Pretty irritating.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a gym offering $ 10/​mo & $ 20/​mo memberships would quickly fill beyond capacity. When I have trouble using weights (both cable machines, as well as free weights and benches) in the middle of the afternoon, it’s time to stop selling new memberships.
What compounds the problem of overcrowding is the people who insist on sitting on a bench or other piece of equipment to text for extended periods of time, with little or no actual exercise being done. It’s one thing to wait for equipment because someone else is actually using it, but quite galling because someone can’t stop texting. (And THAT is why you’re still fat!)
Almost no staff come around the gym floor (the entrance/​reception area is upstairs), but when they do it’s to rack weights, etc. — never to advise members to stop being asshats. When I’ve mentioned this to them, they tell me that they’re not allowed to say anything to members who are hogging equipment while texting.
What keeps this from being a 1-​star review is that the staff is mostly nice to deal with, and the place is relatively clean. But unless things change, I’ll be going elsewhere when my year is up – even though it’ll cost significantly more and won’t be the close walk from home PF is for me.

This Planet Fitness location gets 3.5 stars from me, rounded up to 4. It has most of the equipment/​machines you might need to stay big and strong, or fit, whatever you are there for. If you mostly bench or do deadlifts, then this is not the right gym for you. For everyone else, it is. It is priced at $ 10 per month, and $ 20 for black card members. Black card members get additional benefits such as tanning, massage chairs, «total body enhancement,» and reciprocal use of all locations, among other things. Too bad the massage chairs are always broken when I’m there. If you are into pizza or bagels, they have them for members on Mondays and Tuesdays respectively. They emphasize that the gym is a judgement-​free zone; you’ll see signs of that everywhere — that’s a relief for all of the self conscious people out there. I remember back when I first started working out in my life, I was scared of trying out a new machine because I didn’t know how to use it and I didn’t want to be judged for it. Well, Planet Fitness does have a comfortable vibe about it that is perfect for all sorts of people. The locker rooms and bathrooms are pretty clean, and the water fountains work well. They have A LOT of cardio machines so you wouldn’t need to wait if you’re interested in running. The downside is that for the other kinds of machines, they only have one or two of each around. It gets very crowded on weekdays around the late afternoon, and so for those who want to get their workout done before night, expect to wait, or ask if you can jump in. You’ll be seeing purple and yellow colors in the entire gym, which are vibrant colors and keeps the mood up. I will be returning here often; however, I wish they would fix some of the things that have been broken for a while.

You pay for what you get with this location. Stay away from associating yourself with the gym as management is atrocious. They are negligent in taking responsibility for any errors by their staff. They will hide behind anything they can and take no interest in any dissatisfaction of customers. Especially the manager, Nicole L., who blatantly lied about how their staff handles things. Citing a trained staff member assisted me, while I was actually assisted by a trainee who had no idea what was going on.
Stay away, spend the extra few bucks, and go to a gym that actually cares about their members and not themselves alone.

I think it’s my third or fourth day here idk I lost count but I have to say I love this place the staff is awesome and very professional the locker room’s nice and clean, the tv’s attached to the machines is a nice touch with the headphone jack. I just love it!

This is the third Planet Fitness I’ve been to. I was a little hesitant about coming here with my boyfriend, because it’s in the center of Union Square –14^th street and I was afraid it would be outrageously crowded. Fortunately, it wasn’t crowded at all and I was really happy about this!
This particular Planet Fitness is a little bigger than the one near my home and a little smaller than the one on Wall Street. All the machines, female locker room, and restrooms are properly maintained and clean. The staff here are friendly and helpful!
I’ve been here twice already and have had a good experience. So glad it’s not overly crowded here on the weekends when I go and very close to the Union Square — 14^th street train station, top retail, restaurants, and shopping!

Okay, I have spent quite a bit of time at this location. They had a very serious leaking problem in the ladies locker room. When you came in from the snow or rain there were buckets and barrels everywhere. The floor was soaking wet. I have pics of this as well. There are only two changing rooms and as I indicated in my previous posts the machines are pushed together leaving you feeling very cramped.

So I have actually never used or even seen this facility. Why you ask? Because I have tried three times to go see it and every single time the horrible front desk staff tells me they are understaffed and either can’t show it to me or want me wait 20 minutes!!! In other words they have so little respect for my time that they want me to wait 20 minutes or come back another day even though I made the trip to see this place. They also would not let me go view the facilities myself (really what am I going to take tissues?) or speak to a manager. My only thought was if they treat me this badly as a prospective customer (when they normally treat you best) I can only imagine the hell I would go through as an actual customer who is locked into paying them…
Instead of waiting for 20 minutes or coming back a 4^th times I did the smart thing and walked over to Blink that charges the same amount but was friendly, treated me like a customer and immediately let me look at the facilities so I could sign up.
Maybe the owner of this place should take 10 minutes to train his employees how to deal with customers but I certainly will never be one. Good luck to anyone who signs up here though if you ever have a problem.

Hey look for $ 10 a month and in the city this place does the trick. Ive been looking for a gym near my office and with all the high end boutique gyms nearby it’s been impossible. Even NYSC is $ 80 a month and it’s not top notch.
So down to what they offer. The gym is in the basement so there’s no windows but they have new equipment, plenty of cardio machines as far as the eye can see. Decent weight machines and a small section for free weights. The Dumbbells don’t go above 60 which falls in line with their «we are not a gym for ‘lunks’» policy. They have 3 smith machines for heavier weight. For $ 20 a month you get to use their tanning booths, massage bed or chairs and I think some training sessions.
Downsides are they don’t provide towels which is fine. They don’t really have a designated stretching area so you have to figure it out based on a few small spots around the gym but they do have mats. My biggest complain (which may be fine for the rest of you) is that they completely do go against their own mantra about having big loud annoying juice heads in their gym! I have seen some guys that fit that profile with their actions and the staff doesn’t say anything to them. The worse case was maybe 2 weeks ago early morning where I saw a big body builder type guy grunting and slamming the weights on a smith machine. At least 2 of the staff members passed him and said nothing. Then he started to use one of the treadmills and picked up a call on his cell, speaking at the top of his voice for the entire time he was on there. No one said anything to him, their was no lunk alarm going off! Maybe the staff doesn’t care or they don’t get paid enough. Ok sorry, but it bothers me when a business does not live up to what it preaches. You will not see the «I pick things up and put them down» guy getting showed the back door here. Either than that the gym does also gets really packed during peak hours.
Regardless of my rant I still like the gym both on value and quality.

This gym is pretty awesome. It’s pretty new and the staff is really nice and helpful. 2 stars taken off because since it is located in what used to be Duane Reades basement there are so many leaks! Hopefully they call their contractor and get them to fix the mini pool that happens in the lady room after a snowstorm/​rain. Because it’s kinda gross. Otherwise the equipment is new and nice

The machines or equipment and the monthly price tag are awesome as are the folks who work there.
However, and not sure how to say the rest but here it goes — the place and the facilities are sub par. Parts of it are a big mess.
The ceiling leaks and the equipment gets rained on. In fact the whole ‘Biggest Loser’ section has buckets on top of their leg press and leg curl machines. The worst is the women’s locker room. The ceiling leaks all over the place and it’s winter so on any given day/​night, if it rains or snows outside then you’re most definitely guaranteed to get a frosty droplet down your back. (Worse yet, that frosty droplet might land on places not used to such wintry frostiness.) The floors in the locker room are tile so they’re exceptionally cold and most of the gals tippy toe on their sneakers while they’re changing so as to not stand on the freezing tile floor. That and you don’t want to stand on the freezing puddles which are the result of the ceiling leaks. It’s just a big mess. Last I saw there were more buckets collecting water in the women’s locker room than there were benches to sit on.
The owners have been notified (the staff says so) and everything is blamed on the weather out. Which would make sense… maybe… where it not for the fact that 14^th street has plenty of other basement businesses which seem to be bone dry. Anyhow, the staff does their best to make their rounds and mop what they can which is very much appreciated.
For sure Planet Fitness needs to do something about this or take this up with the building management and work on the ceiling/​sidewalk infrastructure but for all of $ 20 bucks a month they may have no incentive to do so. (Speaking of $$, in order to start a membership you’ll need to provide your checking account and set up auto-​payments since they don’t take credit cards. That too sucks. But you can read about that in other forums.)
If you’re considering a Planet Fitness membership definitely wait for the weather to get better. Summer might definitely have us looking forward to those hard cold tiles.
:)
p.s.
I completely agree with mimi k.‘s review so have a look at that.

Even though it’s a smaller space this is still a great location and staff is very friendly and accommodating. Will give 5 stars so they keep up the good work :)

Planet fitness is a joke. How can you be a judge free zone if your company labels people? You have a lunk alarm and posters with a dude carrying a gallon of water around. You are hypocrites. Your company is the definition of contradiction. Why would you offer free pizza and candies and bagels weekly? You’re a damn gym not a social club or hangout spot. Those are the most unhealthiest foods you caN think of. Planet fitness you are the worst gym on this universe. Your company lacks integrity, your gym offers no solutions but instead adds problems. Thanks for promoting obesity ya @$$wholes. The guy underneath me must work for planet fitness or previously been a member of his mom’s basement gym. The wait is ridiculous, people pretty much fight for the olympic or smith bars. The location is new give it a week before stuff gets out of order looking all messy n shiiii

OK, maybe all Planet Fitness locations are similar, but this one is top notch for so many reasons. Today is January 2^nd, opening day for this location.
(These first few paragraphs are for the Planet Fitness brand, so if you are familiar with how it works, skip ahead)
PRICE: $ 10 per month. You just can’t beat that anywhere unless your work is paying for some fancy corporate membership for you. They make money by you not showing up, but that’s not gonna be you, is it?
NO FRILLS: Maybe I am in the minority, but I don’t need spin classes, bikram yoga, stretch lessons, balancing classes or other nonsense like that. Give me some cardio machines, give me some weights and I am happy. Planet Fitness is meant for people like me. I don’t need lavender soap in the shower, thank you.
NO WAITING: I think most planet fitness locations are loaded with dozens of machines, and this one is no exception. If I find the strength to stop watching Breaking Bad reruns, get off the couch, and come to work out, I don’t want to have to wait to get on a machine. This location has so many of them, I doubt they will fill up.
REWARDS: One thing I always loved about planet fitness is that you get rewarded upon successful workout with some tootsie rolls from a giant bucket in the front. The purple ones are the best. Don’t be an ass and take a handful.
(The following items are specific to this location)
CLEAN: 6 months ago, this location was the basement of a Duane Reade. The upstairs was a nasty old store, dirty and poorly maintained. I imagine the basement was something horrible. Fast forward to today and it is like a shiny new toy. They completely gutted the place, added EVERYTHING new, and gave it all the perks it needs. It still smells like plastic — i.e. the New Gym Smell™. Machines were sparkling, bathroom was dinner-​plate clean, walls, air vents completely dust and dirt free.
(If you are reading this review, and it is far past January 2^nd 2015, this may be inaccurate as I cannot tell how well they will clean the joint in the future, but here’s to hoping for the best.)
MODERN: The machines are all brand spanking new, and they aren’t the budget machines either. PF probably gets a good bulk deal with Lifespan, but these machines seem to be the most current models, and each of the aerobic machines have a 19″ tv mounted on it with individual controls. I cycled through all the channels and they appear to have the full Time Warner Cable lineup, including HBO and Showtime. I am mostly a cardio guy, but the weight machines seemed like current models as well, and of course, if lifting pieces of plain metal is your thing, the dumbbells seemed like the «current model» too.
FREE-​WIFI: All PF locations probably do this, but I don’t know so I thought I would mention it. When I was there, the connection was blazing fast, but alas, the place was only 10% full due to it being opening day and a Friday evening.
CONVENIENCE: This is my neighborhood so it is super convenient for me, but this PF is also about 150 ft from the Union Square station stairs so it’s going to very convenient for anybody commuting through there. Even if I lived off the L in billyburg I would probably come here to work out.
HOURS: Open 24 Hours Monday morning through Friday night, weekends 7 – 7. You know when you go out drinking then pass out on the couch, and then wake up at 4am and can’t go back to sleep? Now you can go work off those apple-​tinis in the middle of the night.
MOTIVATION: This may not be a motivation for everybody, but it is for me so I thought I would mention it… My last gym was full of geriatric people. That’s fine in it’s own right, but it did nothing to spark my inner competitiveness to push myself. This planet fitness is full of young people. There are many people who are fit and I look at them and it pushes me harder.
EMPLOYEES: The limited interaction I had with them showed me they were properly trained and nice.
(But alas, there are some cons)
TOWELS: You have to bring your own towel if you want one. This probably means giving up a coveted shelf of space in your tiny linen closet to hold workout towels, and the laundry overhead to keep them sanitary and smelling nice. I guess you could use the paper towels they provide here, but those are for cleaning the machines…
NO WINDOWS: As mentioned above, this location is in the basement. It’s well lit, but lit with fluorescent lighting. You won’t see the sun at all for the time you are there, so get used to it. They pump a ton of fresh air in there, so I don’t think it will get «funky», but it is day 1 so we will see.
(in conclusion)
With everything above combined, this PF gets a 4.5 stars, and I round up so it gets a coveted 5-​star rating from me. I really I don’t have to come back in a few months — after the sparkling grand opening — and review them negatively for cleanliness or something else. For now and for the foreseeable future though, this is the best gym in the area, hands dow