Updated to 1 star (from 2). 1 day after my review, I got a passive aggressive email from management stating I am no longer allowed to attend this studio. A review is not a legitimate reason to deny entry and I will be reporting this.
Rules exist for how and why a businesses can use the privilege of denial. Some division manager reached out to me to discuss my review. Tried to reach her but her VM is not set up. Very professional!
Original Review:
Giving stars for the teachers here: 0 stars for the management. I never review local business negatively. If I don't have something nice to say, I don't, because I know first hand how hard it is to be a small business owner and a lot of customers just want to vent for the sake of it. Also, this isn't a "local" business in the true sense. This is a national elite brand.
Attended 3 all owned by this owner (Sudbury, Northboro, Concord). All were clean. Some instructors were good and clear in demonstrations and instructions, some not as good. All but a few were very friendly and nice. My experience here is all during Covid-19, where the experience would be very different from other times. Overall studios were clean and small, limited classes, very few non-classic classes, less equipment used than typical. i.e classes were altered not price.
They added a live stream component, which was only included with unlimited in person classes. The live stream classes were pretty bad, filmed during a live class, so the instructor had to wear a mask and you couldn't hear a thing and you couldn't see much. They appeared to be filmed with an iphone. At the time of my purchase, October 2020, there was not an unlimited live stream only option, only an on national franchise on-demand option called Go that is pretty much determined to be crap (check any review online or better yet reddit). If there was a local studio online only option that had on demand classes - it was not offered to me.
Their system is unsophisticated. They don't have a log-in screen like any normal on demand system, where you could be inactivated. For on demand classes, they send out a monthly password (generally a simple word: i.e the word "snow"). If you know that word, you get access all month. Keep in mind this is for a system that is close to $200/month. (only one I was offered in Oct, which is in studio and online)
I had to go out of town for 5-6 weeks. B/c of some of the equipment involved you NEED to have a certain set up to make this of any use. They say you don't need it but frankly if you try to use a couch, table desk to do this, not only are you wasting your money but you might injure yourself. 90% of this kind of exercise is form. My first class, I overhead plenty of regulars saying that online classes were not that great.
There was a week gap between when I froze my membership on Dec 9th, and when my 60 days was up Dec 17th. This week was PAID FOR. I was told in December that if I canceled my membership I would be given a "courtesy" where I could use the studio for a week when I returned. I knew their crappy password system and knew that would likely mean I could only use in studio.
I returned in mid January, but waited until Feb 1 to try and use remaining classes, knowing that they would give me a headache to use the online portion, even though it was paid for. I asked the girl at the desk if they now offered a on demand online membership and they now did. So I told her I would use my prepaid 9 days and then just sign up for that online only membership and PAY FOR IT. If they think that people are not sharing passwords online and this is their way of getting around it, by blocking customers access who have proven they pay for services and want to support their business (past tense in this case), they are delusional.
Studio wouldn't give me access to the app to book classes. I was told I would not have access to the online b/c of the password issue above. Worst case if I didn't sign up for the "online only" after these 9 days ended, which I had full intention to do, they could just revoke my password if their system was not so basic it's embarrassing. I told her 10x I was going to sign up for "online only" after my 9 days were up.
To make it worse, I was given a mouthful from the front desk. "We are giving you this as a courtesy. You didn't pay for this" (Yes I did) . We can't give you access to the online b/c then you have the password and we can't revoke access. etc." I had to call the studio to tell her which classes I could go to this week each time b/c denied access to app. Keep in mind we have 2 snowstorms this week, it is zero degrees today, and we are in a pandemic with even less suggested contact than before.
If they had a system more 2021 than 2011 they could have revoked my access after a week if I didn't sign up for unlimited like I said I was going to. They are not doing me any favors and I have no intention of every spending a dime with them again. read more