Bally Total Fitness

Ths location (and I believe every Ballys inthe state of MD) was purchased by LA Fitness on 12÷1÷2011. In the last 3 weeks I have seen some pretty positive changes at this location.
Small things but:
1) all of the overhead lights, and water fountains work. These seems obvious, but wasnt always the case at Ballys.
2) introduction fo a key fob system instead of the unwieldy «credit card» type Ballys card. Again, seems obvious but is definitely an improvement.
3) Machines being maintenenced and fixed! Eureka! The Preacher Curl Bench has been fixed! No lame excuses from management, just results.
Keep up the good work LA Fitness! So far, so good
*also, next area to improve would be the parking lot. Put up signs that designate an actual traffic flow (1 side entrance, 1 side exit), and tow the many people who park there as free alternative to the metro lot across the street.

I joined Bally because it was a cheap gym membership and located within a 5 minute walk from my house. When I joined online, I enrolled in the automatic payment system. Recently my bank sent a new credit card and I neglected to change my membership information over to the new card. So when I went to workout tonight, after scanning my card I was «red-​lighted». One of the employees looked me up in the computer and our conversation went something like this:
Bally’s employee: «Oh, you seem to be due for payment.»
Me: «Really? I thought I was enrolled in automatic payments.»
Bally’s employee: «Well you are, but there seems to be a problem with the card on file.»
***At this point the lightbulb goes off and I remember the credit card change.***
Me: «Ah, I forgot to change to my new card! I’ll take care of it when I get home. Can I go ahead and work out tonight?»
Bally’s employee: «No, I’m sorry but you need to pay first.»
Me: «Really? Because I already walked over here, and it’s raining.»
(Note: to be fair, the Bally’s employee was very nice about it, and I’m sure just following standard operating procedure.)
I understand that in this situation I was at fault in 2 ways:
1. I didn’t think to manage my account online, and
2. I didn’t carry my wallet to the gym, with ID or credit card.
However, this experience annoyed me enough to write-​in a comment to the corporate office and to write a review here on Unilocal.Not a great strategy for gaining customer service loyalty. When you combine this experience with the fact that a lot of the equipment is not in good working order and dirty — the policy of «disinfect the equipment after you workout» is so not enforced (there is an eew factor) — I’m not motivated to renew my membership.
Not usually a complainer about places, but I have not been impressed with this gym. Even for $ 20/​month.

I live in this neighborhood so let me just say my review has nothing to do with the neighborhood and everything to do with this business. My husband’s keys were stolen out of his locked locker the other day. The thief found his car in the parking lot, stole his wallet and disappeared with both his keys and wallet. The staff was sooo unresponsive and aloof there that we are CONVINCED it is the work of someone on staff. In fact a police office we called to report the incident guessed the same thing. He said that this is the third time it’s happened there in the last few weeks and security there has been very unresponsive. They suspect the staff too.
There were also very very few people in the gym at the time. AND how did they get into his locker? That’s the one piece of information I still cannot understand.
Needless to say we are leaving this gym. They don’t care about their customers safety and in fact, are probably the direct cause for our HUNDREDS of dollars in losses.

Very very unfortunate incident that happened with me.
the location is not in a very safe area. I have been going there there for couple of months & one of the days I was in the cycling area near the glass wall… and there was a guy outside was sat there for 10 min and FLASHED HIMSELF.
when I saw… shocked as i was immediately notified the gym instructors… they shooed the guy away but was talking to the same instructor she said it’s happened before… so that is something very shocking to me…
Although the gym is Ok, you get machines when you want to… but I doubt if i’ll go back… coz this is huge safety issue…
the parking in front of the gym is limited & additional parking on the side… but it’s not safe :(
NOT GOING BACK.

I moved to the area recently and I needed to find a work out facility immediately. From outside the club looked like a nice place to work out. Boy was I wrong! I signed up for the $ 20 monthly membership special only to find out that they ran out of plastic bar-​code key chain cards. I had to wait over 1 month ½ to finally get it! Their excuse: corporate ran out of cards, I’m sure it does not take that long to create plastic bar-​coded cards. Here are my issues that I have this facility.
1. The work out machines are filthy. The facility does not provide a table for cleaning supplies to wipe their machines and puts it behind their reception desk. People use the machines and don’t have anything to wipe it down with! DISGUSTING.
2. The first floor is very congested with aerobic machines and does not have water fountains. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to know that a water fountain should be near the aerobic exercise machines, COMMON SENSE. The closest ones are in the locker rooms and up stairs. WTF?
3. One of the first things I notice was the staff has absolutely the rudest customer service. I once waited to enter the club before I had my key card for 15 minutes at the front desk without anyone even approaching me to see if I needed help. They walked by me 5 different times and didn’t say a thing! OMG. There are a lot of staff members on duty and 90% of them seem like they are not doing anything but sitting in the back room.
4. Weight lifting machines are out dated except for the new resistance ones (good). People drop the weights all the time and there are no staff members up there to regulate them.
5. The hot tub is not working and the lockers are out-​dated and dirty.
6. There is never enough parking spaces out front and you have to park in the mall parking lot.
All of this stems from the management and can be fixed so here are my suggestions.
1. Limit the amount of memberships you can offer to limit the congestion.
2. Provide multiple easily accessible tables with sprays and wipes with signs that reinforces patrons to wipe down the machines.
3. Build at least TWO or MORE water fountain on each floor and room.
4. Move all the aerobic exercise machines upstairs and the weight machines down stairs (so staff can regulate misuse of machines and aerobic workers are not gawked upon)
5. Regularly check to see if machines, hot pools, etc. are working properly.
6. Fire the employees that have brought down your service reputation and get some people who can flex a smile and do the work properly.
7. Can’t do anything about the parking…(sorry)
I hope this helps everyone and especially management.

I don’t know why people rate Bally Total Fitness Gyms, in particular this location so low. I cram to understand! You get what you pay for People! For $ 20/month…you can’t expect to get the Shang-​Gri La Gym & Day Spa! Geez… LOL! Consider yourself lucky to have a membership to a gym with a indoor pool, sauna, and adequate equipment at a reasonable rate compared to most overpriced gyms in the DMV! Yes, I must admit that the Ballys experience is not an oasis… and is close to a prison gym or something out of the disco era at some of the locations BUT… you can’t beat the price! If you don’t like the Ballys gyms try waisting your money at $ 75-​$ 99/​Month for a while… until you realize that you can get the same results for half the price at a Bally’s gym. Your gym experience need to be for the sole purpose of bettering your health, exercising, & working-out…not as some Turkish Bath or Swedish Spa retreat. Maximize your health and dollar in this dreadful economy! Dueces!

They recently upgraded a lot of their machines on the second floor so I’ve bumped up my rating from 2 to 3 stars.

The old saying is «Location, location, location!»
That is the only thing that I use this gym for — its location.
If there were another HALF-​WAY decent gym in the area, I’d be gone in a heartbeat. Honestly I’m sitting here, and I don’t even know where to start.
1. Cleanliness — NO. The women’s changing room is always atrocious, with paper towels and toilet paper shoved everywhere, dirt and water all over the floor. At one point, I walked into the changing area and there was clumps of hair and what appeared to be semen on the floor.
Also, only gym I’ve ever seen that doesn’t offer sanitizer and rags for the machines after you’ve used them. They don’t even help you help them clean up after yourself.
2. Safety — Ugh. My biggest problem with this is right as you come out of the women’s changing room into the pool area. Out in the pool area, just beyond the women’s door is a shower that people use to rinse off the chlorine. That’s all well and good, but there’s a drain right inside the women’s locker room, so all the water from that shower leaks under the door and just puddles right inside the women’s changing room. There is a sign that says ‘Caution! Wet Floor’ but there is never an attempt to fix it — no rubber mats, nothing. I’m terrified every time I walk through there, I shimmy my feet along the floor because I’m so afraid I’m going to slip. And seriously — a wet floor sign will not save you from a law suite because you have yet to make an attempt to FIX THE PROBLEM.
3. Upkeep — Again, the women’s rest room. 90% of the time, the garbage cans are overfilled. At least half of the changing room and bathroom locks are busted. The floors are always dirty. About 10 of the lockers have been broken into at some point and are bent and mangled.
4. Staff — I’m sorry to have to rip on the staff there, I’m sure there’s some people that work very hard there. But there are some people that don’t, and I think the main problem I have there is with the policies. For instance, there is no staff member who goes around to the weights area to make sure they aren’t being abused. People up there think that they are ‘all that’ and let these heavy weights drop, which will damage the machines and causes the whole floor to shake (which is a pain when you’re in the next room trying to do yoga and then the entire room shakes with a loud BANG). No, no one even addresses that.
But as I said, the majority of my problems could be addressed by good management.
So why do I continue to go, you ask? Like they say, it’s all about location, location, location.
:(

Last time I was at the Silver Spring location I saw the front desk unattended for over an hour. People walking in and out, whether they belong in there, have memberships or not, it did not matter. That makes me feel so safe and secure that anyone can just stroll in. Especially since I have already been the victim of a locker theft!
Get off your lazy and cheap ass and run a business like it’s supposed to be. Ballys should be a case study for management courses on how to NOT run a business and Ballys needs a big lesson in customer service!

Bally’s in the Wheaton/​Silver Spring area has a few things going for it: proximity to metro (across the street from Wheaton station), lap-​sized swimming pool, and plenty of equipment. The parking situation is quite favorable also: between the two lots (one directly outside, the other, a short walk), one’s likely to rapidly proceed without spot searching-​induced aggravation.
Alas, there are also a few sizable negatives. For one, some astute individual tuned the volume broadcasts of the TVs to stations that are not only too close to one another (87.5, 87.8, and 88.2) but also of unfortunate proximity to existing FM stations – so if you are hoping to put on some headphones and actually hear the broadcasts, good luck!
As someone who likes an occasional group exercise class, I’m dismayed at the limited schedule, especially evening classes that do not require an additional fee. (Pssssst…Bally’s staff! Please expand these!) Speaking of expanding stuff, an extension on weekend working hours would be nice. This has been a sad trend lately for Bally’s all over Maryland, especially with how much we pay for membership, but a 6 pm close is extreme.
On a personal note, running a few miles, biking, etc., is fine but I hate lifting weights. Thus, the fact that all of the resistance machines, weights, and similar equipment is on the 2^nd floor up what feels like a tremendously steep staircase, puts a damper on even the mildest of desires to modify my workout routine: each time, I conveniently «forget». Besides, how can I spy the best time to use a piece of equipment without being able to see from afar whether it’s being utilized? I prefer the set up at some other Bally’s branches where the equipment is split among levels.
Lastly, this arrangement of only cardio machines on the first floor and only strength training equipment upstairs promotes gawking of those working out on the 1^st floor by curious patrons so, especially if you’re a girl, don’t look up – or risk developing the desire to actually go to the 2^nd floor to work out some muscles of the personal mouth-​piece.
Overall, none of these factors will keep me from going to this particular gym but certainly there is sufficient room for improvement.

Sigh… I’m a Bally’s member and I moved to Silver Spring. This place is barely acceptable. I live less than 5 minutes away, so I’ll keep going here no matter how badly they suck.
I typically lift weights, and I hate having to wait 20 minutes just to use a bench. Even more aggravating is searching all over the gym to find your weights. I guess the concept of re-​racking your equipment after you’re done is lost on most of the people here.
As others have said here, the parking sucks, its just how it is. Just park in the lot near the mall. Its a bit of a walk, but you’re going to exercise anyway.
But its close, and I have a Bally’s membership, so I’ll guess I’ll deal. That’s just how it works.
Also one last note: if you are even a mildly attractive woman, be prepared to be stared at by most of the males on the second floor of the weight room. Several guys there late weeknights have no problems just standing there and staring. So if you lift weights, you better not be bothered by it. I normally don’t notice stuff like this, but was extremely obvious.

Worst gym experience ever.
— wayy over crowded, one time it took a 20 minute wait to find a free elliptical
— closes early and VERY early on weekends [something like 8 PM on saturday and SIX on sunday? ridiculous… if i feel like working out i should be able to at any hour of the day]
— WORST possible staff. I hate to point them out one by one, but the few i encountered had a sense of bitchyness to them.
— I am a dancer and they would always kick me out of the studio early. floors always dirty.
— bad parking lot, you have to circle around to find a spot.
— 2 bucks for a vitamin water… just walk up the street to cvs and get it for a buck
— old weight equipment on the second floor, and when you try to find a pair of dumbells you always end up getting 1 of 2… oh haha, and dont even waste your time trying to finding a bench.
with all this said, i would never consider getting a membership here. if you want to see for yourself, i suggest getting a 1 month guest pass. after 30 days im sure you will agree with my 2 star rating.

can’t get a bench, no free weights in my range available. member since 2000 and no love. guys kicking me off the cables. jerk-​offs. where are the dumbells from 10−12−15−20−25 that i need? always missing.

I just joined this club and I’ve been every day this week and I’m going again tonight. The cycling class kicked my butt. Yeah, it’s true — it is way crowded during the week. I haven’t had to walk yet since I just wait in the lot for a little bit and people come walking out. I came in around 7:30pm the other night and I wanted a treadmill, but I got an ellipse trainer instead. You just have to be flexible. I’m already used to it.
It’s a very nice gym. I used to be a member at Gold’s Gym in Crofton, but when we went to transfer to the one in Downtown SS, I couldn’t do it! I wouldn’t have gone to that gym. It was small, dark and you walk up 3 flights of stairs past a caged-​off area. Creepy!
The amenities here are nice as well. They have a juice bar, a pool, sauna, a whirlpool, lots and lots of machines for the lots and lots of people, and 2 large group fitness rooms. They also have a lovely schedule of free and pay as you go classes. It fits the bill for a gym that I can actually look forward to going to. Knowing that so many people can get off their butts to go there kind of motivates me get up and go as well.

Yeah, there are tons of old people here (one of them told me that he doesn’t pay a thing because he signed up back when they had lifetime memberships — lucky bastard.) And yeah, things get crowded in the afternoon and evening (good luck trying to score a treadmill when you first walk in.) But I’ve got a flexible schedule, and this place is in my neighborhood, so it gets my vote. Four stars because it’s local for me, and when I go it’s pretty easy to get to the machines/​weights I want to use.
The place is set up nicely; cardio downstairs, pool in the back, weights and classes upstairs. The machines are decent, but the free weights section is a mess, with nobody seeming to understand that you need to put the dumbbells you just used back on the racks Next To Each Other. Plus, there’s always some chump on a flat bench just sitting around staring at himself in the mirror. You know the type, the kind that gets upset when you ask to jump in for a set. Share the bench! Just a thought.
Anyway, don’t know much about the classes because I do my own thing. The pool is small, but practically empty during the day. The hottub isn’t bad, but sometimes there’s a few older guys in there that seem to only be there to see a gal in a bathing suit. Any gal.
I miss the old Ballys inside the Mall. That one had a track. A teensy, 9 zillion laps to a mile track, but still. I guess the pool at this re-​do makes up for it. I guess.

I’m not sure why it’s listed as Silver Spring when it’s known as the Wheaton Bally Total Fitness. But it’s a gym located on the grounds of Westfield Mall Wheaton or as I still call it Wheaton Plaza. If you ever come here between 2:30PM and 8PM put your walking shoes on. Parking is impossible. The facility is pretty nice. Built about four years ago, it has all the all the equipment you’d ever want to use. The only problem is that there are five guys in front of you waiting for the same station. Another bad element of this gym is that all the machines are the same old machines that they used in their old building. The dumbbells are the only things that are brand new, but they only have up to 95lbs. And good luck finding plates you need. No one re-​racks correctly. And everything is covered in sweat. The worst part of this place is the men’s locker room. You have old man ball sac to your left. Old man ball sac to your right. And old man ball sac sitting on the bench in front of your locker. No concept of wrapping a towel around your waist till you actually get to your clothes. Old wrinkly man, I don’t know or care if that’s sweat or bath water dripping off you. But old wrinkly man I’m going have to step in a puddle if you don’t move from in front of my locker. And old wrinkly man I don’t want to buy a new combination lock, please make sure no moisture gets on it. I hate you old wrinkly man.