Completely unethical membership team…read more I originally signed a 3-month membership. At the end of this, I decided I might renew. The membership person told me I could transfer to their Diamond membership (1-year, rolling) and pay a transfer fee so that my 1-year membership would be effective from my original join date (on the 3-month membership). This sounded a good idea. Pay a £10 transfer fee so that I could be on a 1-year membership that would end (so long as I cancelled it in time) about the time I planned to move out of the area. The membership guy gave me the date I had to cancel by (25 August) if I didn't want to roll my membership onto another year (and, basically, have to pay for an entire new year's membership whether I liked it or not - something a lot of people get stuck with when they sign on to Virgin Active gym memberships, but I was sure I wasn't going to get duped by this, having been very careful with all the Ts and Cs, getting verbal confirmation of everything before I signed on the dotted line). I put this cancellation date in every calendar and diary I had just so that I wouldn't forget. I happily went about my business. 25 August approaches, and I fill out cancellation forms online. No one calls me. I call Wandsworth Virgin Active to cancel, and they tell me I should come in. I make the special trip out to Wandsworth - for I do not live there anymore - to cancel and I'm told my membership isn't due to expire until December and that no one can resolve my issue for me since the membership team all went home. Um, no. I call in the next day to speak to a membership person, Angelina. All she does is speak over me in a monotonous, bored tone of voice for 10 minutes, telling me that I was given the wrong information and that a verbal agreement isn't the same as a written agreement. I ask her to find my original signed agreement and see what's written on it when she says she's 'looking at my agreement' and I find she's really only looking at their electronic records. And she says she will. Yeah, fucking right, she will. She says I should just send in proof that I have moved out of the area and that they will forward it on to their head office to make a decision about the remainder of my agreement. I told her I'm cancelling my Direct Debit because I'm not paying them another dime, and I don't care if it goes to a debt collector because they are a completely shady, unethical company. I could send them proof of my address changing, but that is BESIDE THE POINT. It's shady, Richard. SHADY. Branston, I expected more of you.

I bought a trial pass for this gym at the weekend and will not be joining. I should start by…read moresaying that I am not a fan of gyms (or exercise) and mostly went to check out the pool. This will explain number 1 on my highly personal list of Reasons I Didn't Like Virgin Active, Wandsworth: 1) The gym area was full of rows and rows of smart looking exercise equipment, all arranged over one enormous hellish open-plan floor, with zones notionally marked out by paths which zigzagged around the space like a PE maze from my nightmares. It is like some mental workout factory full of sweating people jogging on machines, bending weirdly on mats and receiving shouty personal training. My eyes! My eyes! Too much to take in, and I think I'd prefer a more intimate little local gym with walls if I was to join one. I can see that it might be quite funky and motivating if you were that way inclined though. 2) The entrance is via a petrol-stinky multi story car park. 2) The staff when I visited were all incredibly rude and inefficient. 3) It all felt a bit cheap, corporate and impersonal. The pool was small but clean and pleasant enough. I appreciated the lounging chairs, sauna, steam room and jacuzzi. If you ring ahead it's £7.50 for a day pass, so with all the spa facilities, snazzy gym equipment and a cafe, this is a bargain worth trying. However, I didn't like the vibe of this place at all, so as they say on Dragon's Den, "I'm out".

I've been a member for over two years now and continue to be amazed at the inconsistent customers…read moreservice. The front desk staff tend be great, but otherwise it's an absolute crap shoot. Some trainers are fantastic, other rude, some class instructors great, other will send you running out of the room. Some managers are great, at least one in particular is rude and poorly trained and endangers health and safety when they sub classes. If they didn't have a pool I'd drop them, good doesn't outweigh horrible experience in customer service. Take care of your fundamentals: Train all staff consistently, treat customers with respect, put safety first, please.

Very unfriendly front desk. If this is how the gym functions with rude, ignoring people, then it is…read morenot worth the £90 per month they expect me to pay.

Paola's is a cozy, cute studio discretely located on a residential road in Fulham. On your first…read morevisit it may be a bit difficult to find but if you look out for the line of girls in lululemon you'll know where to go. The studio offers a range of classes from barre, Pilates, yoga, TRX, and much more. The classes always seem full and all of the instructors I have had have been good. The studio is decorated adorably and they have any equipment you would need (i.e. no need to bring your own yoga mat). They have a really great unlimited package for under 25's which gives you access to everything at a very reasonable price. Everyone at the studio is very friendly and welcoming my only complaint would be that the instructors are not extremely hands-on but the classes are normally quite full so it's understandable. I highly recommend anyone in West London to check out Paola's for fun classes with good music in a studio with great atmosphere.

From the owner: Paola's BodyBarre teaches a unique Barre, Pilates, TRX and Yoga method in studios across London…read morefounded by celebrity trainer Paola Di Lanzo.

I stayed at a hotel nearby, and visited this gym recently. I went to Gymbox earlier in the week,…read morebut I found it significantly underwhelming compared to this gym. First this gym is 24 hours, so props to that. Second, it has 2 floors, a ground floor for mostly cardio and the lower level for weight training and a crossfit/functional weight area. The price is reasonable too, but the sign-up process is pretty tedious. Because the facility is so automated, so have to enter a code to get someone to show you around the place. There's a couple of kiosks available to sign up, but I recommend just signing up via the website if possible. I didn't understand how to get into the place until I had it explained to me, since I come from the US, where they have no such automated door system in place. Apparently you enter in a code, press the OK button, and you step inside the pod, and the other side will open when the first side closes. In addition to being more automated, it also reduces the airflow from the outside, which I presume indirectly saves them air conditioning and heating, though the airflow actually might be a drawback when you go downstairs to do barbell / free weight training, because it kind of smells slightly. On the whole, considering it's in London, and the alternatives are simultaneously more expensive and smaller, this is actually a good deal. But even though the weights are re-racked (which doesn't happen all the time stateside), they were all in the wrong place. It's almost like people just put it wherever there was space, no matter whether it was even a matching or pair space for the dumbbells. But once again, for the price and location, this is really small potatoes. I could see myself going here more often if I were staying here longer for a visit.