I joined this place about a month ago, after moving to the Solon area. My bf's father swears by the rec center as he calls it, and I REALLY wanted to like it too. I have been a member of a few gyms in the past, including the YMCA, and a similar Community Center type facility where I was living.
Within a week of joining the rec center, I realized I had made a big mistake here are the things I've noticed, the good and the bad:
Pros:
- Nice meeting facilities, for seminars, even weddings, they have nice areas.
- A rock climbing wall in the middle of the center.
- The layout of the pool is original, nice entries, lazy river, slide, hot tub, lap area.
- The towels, washcloths are provided to either wipe down the equipment, or use if you want to wipe off sweat, they same to be well laundered and in good condition generally.
Cons:
- Price! This is by far the most expensive center I've ever joined, and for the price, I expected certain things, such as say exercise classes? Buyer beware, you have to pay EXTRA for any class you want to take.
- Cleanliness, I shutter as I write this, I've never been to such a filthy gym, in all my life. The locker rooms are disgusting, the showers look like they may get cleaned once a week in the communal area, the shower curtains are moldy and not big enough to cover the entry, the private/family locker rooms are the worst though, there is a film on the floors of the showers that is orange and slimy, there is dirt in all the corners, bugs crawl in and out of the drains, and on MANY occasions in the main locker room bathrooms, at 5:30am (when they open) I've gone to use the bathroom, found the seats up, as though they've been cleaned, pulled them down to find dirt, urine, once I even found blood, are you kidding me??? If you're not going to clean the toilets, don't bother putting up the seat to give the illusion.
- Maintenance, the shower heads are almost all broken, they hang down and only hit the wall with the trickle of water they pour out, it's a joke, I can't even rinse conditioner out of my hair. There are ceiling tiles missing out of many of the locker rooms, paint pealing all over the place, and almost never paper towels in the dispenser, this morning there was a roll of toilet paper sitting on the empty dispenser, guess they at least tried?
- The "gym equipment" I should have noticed this when I went for a walk through, but I didn't, so maybe that's my fault, but about 60% of their exercise machines are home gym pieces, why is this a problem? They brake ALL THE TIME, and no one ever seems to fix them, there's always tons of out of order signs on equipment, and none of the machines match, they've got at least 6 different brands of treadmill, only 2 of which seem quality, and at least 5 different brands of ellipticals, all of which seem pretty rickety. The strength equipment is a good brand, nautilus, which I like, but it's in serious disrepair, aside from changing the weight, all of the other adjustment features have worn out or broken, so if the seat or the leg, or the handle, or anything else is in the wrong position, and you're too tall or short, you just can't use that piece of equipment unless you want to awkwardly position yourself to somehow balance in just the right position to reach (which of course means you're not isolating the right muscle, and not doing the work it's supposed to do.)
- The pool, I guess this goes along with both maintenance and cleanliness, but the water is sooo cloudy and questionable. Anyone who has had a pool in their backyard know the look, it's when you go out to the pool warehouse and buy the bag of shock to jump start your pool back to normal clear water. I noticed the cloudiness a little a few weeks ago, but this week it's gotten BAD, like you can barely see the bottom bad, just not something I'd venture in to voluntarily.
- The staff aside from 1 person in particular who was extremely nice to me (a younger African American gentleman) the rest of the staff is rude, condescending, and acts like it's a huge burden whenever you ask them a question. I have been conditioned to avoid the staff at all costs.
- Some of the clientele (mostly the older retirees that go here) are very rude to younger people, to the point of harassment, on many occasions in the morning one older man who works out has come in while I'm on a certain machine (there are 2, and the other one is always open) moves my stuff, puts his bag down and stands over top of me with his arms crossed until I move... the staff has observed him do this to many other people, but since most of the staff is older too, they act all chummy with him, and never do anything.
- The "juice bar," pretty simple, it's not a juice bar, they sell soda, chips, candy bars... enough said.
All in all the Solon Rec Center COULD be a really nice place, it has good bones, a good layout, nice building, great area, just badly run! read more