Virgin Active

Been registered here since March and have decided I will not be renewing unless big changes are made. The gym floor is fairly standard for commercial gyms with nothing that makes it bad or overly special. The pool is also pretty standard but they do close lanes at times for family swim and lessons. There is a hot room that I don’t overly use but also seems quite nice. The female changing rooms are extremely clean as they consistently have people cleaning them. The cafe is also quite nice with good selections of both smoothies and food. The issues that I have with the gym are with the bits most important to me: the climbing wall and classes. The climbing wall is autobelay only and is actually a fairly decent height but has the most diabolical, god-awful setting I have genuinely ever seen. I have been to countless climbing centres and outdoor crags and have not experienced anything remotely close to how lazy and uninspiring the setting is here. I no longer go to the yoga classes here as there isn’t anything here for advanced students. The barre class is also overly beginner friendly. The main issue I have with classes is the reformer pilates classes. There is one non-introductory class a week for people only able to attend evening classes and it feels like the starting part of the hunger games trying to get into that class - which is such a shame because Tiff is a phenomenal instructor. There used to be four classes across two days in the evenings but these have been axed with no replacement despite always being full. If you want morning or middle of the day classes you won’t run into the same issue. All in all this is a fine (but expensive) gym if you don’t care about classes or climbing but I would not recommend if you had any interest in climbing or doing evening classes.

Been registered here since March and have decided I will not be renewing unless big changes are made. The gym floor is fairly standard for commercial gyms with nothing that makes it bad or overly special. The pool is also pretty standard but they do close lanes at times for family swim and lessons. There is a hot room that I don’t overly use but also seems quite nice. The female changing rooms are extremely clean as they consistently have people cleaning them. The cafe is also quite nice with good selections of both smoothies and food. The issues that I have with the gym are with the bits most important to me: the climbing wall and classes. The climbing wall is autobelay only and is actually a fairly decent height but has the most diabolical, god-awful setting I have genuinely ever seen. I have been to countless climbing centres and outdoor crags and have not experienced anything remotely close to how lazy and uninspiring the setting is here. I no longer go to the yoga classes here as there isn’t anything here for advanced students. The barre class is also overly beginner friendly. The main issue I have with classes is the reformer pilates classes. There is one non-introductory class a week for people only able to attend evening classes and it feels like the starting part of the hunger games trying to get into that class - which is such a shame because Tiff is a phenomenal instructor. There used to be four classes across two days in the evenings but these have been axed with no replacement despite always being full. If you want morning or middle of the day classes you won’t run into the same issue. All in all this is a fine (but expensive) gym if you don’t care about classes or climbing but I would not recommend if you had any interest in climbing or doing evening classes.