Valley of the Sun YMCA

This YMCA is clean enough and SOME of the staff are nice enough, however, not much has changed since the other reviews posted here in 2012. The rate is outrageous — $ 100 to join and $ 42/​month for one person, $ 62/​month for two people. Hours are short and geared toward people who do not work an 8 to 5 job. I truly feel the residents of San Tan Valley are being fleeced as we have very few options in the way of a gym. Anytime Fitness is the alternative and unless you don’t mind being on display for the whole world to see this isn’t the place for you in the evening. The bright lights illuminate all activity in the busiest strip mall area near Fry’s on Hunt Highway. It’s pretty depressing after living here for more than 10 years we still have little or nothing in the way of options for anything outside of our own backyards.

Highway robbery indeed. We live in Johnson Ranch and this is our only option for lap swimming unless we drive up to the LA Fitness on Power. It was $ 100 to enroll (we signed up in early June) and costs $ 72/​month for myself and my boyfriend on a «family» membership. There was no option for a «swimming-​only» membership. I used to be a Lifetime Fitness member when I lived in Tempe and it kills me that I paid $ 50/​mo for a huge gym with awesome amenities like a sauna, tennis courts, steam room etc (and open ²⁴⁄₇!) and now I’m paying $ 35/​mo to get hit in the head with beach balls while I attempt to swim laps.
The good:
— it’s clean (no gross sweaty smell like other places I’ve been to)
— cardio machines are in nice condition and I love the touch screen displays
— the cardio & weight areas never seem too crowded despite the fact that this is 1 of only about 2 places to work out near us
— the lifeguards are cool about telling kids to get out of the swim lanes if you go up to them and say you want to swim laps
The bad:
— as the other girl said, good luck showing up early enough to get a ticket to take the spinning class. They only have 8 bikes I believe and every time we’ve shown up they were all taken, even 25 minutes before the class started on a Saturday morning. Also, the spinning class is located in the hallway. Which is really strange. The girl at the front desk said they were working on getting more bikes but with the amount of $ we all pay to go there I think they should speed that process up.
— this is the only gym I’ve EVER been to that does not have even one rowing machine. Possibly because they don’t have any space to put it. But come on, can’t you find one single used Concept2 erg? A used Model C or Model D would run about $ 500-​$ 600 dollars. Our dues alone have already paid for half of that.
— the pool is gross. It’s the local community pool for Copper Basin which means 1,000 kids at the pool every hour of the day. Including babies in diapers which makes me want to vomit. The water is cloudy and actually had an oily sheen on the surface last weekend. I guess it’s sunscreen from all the people but it looked bad enough to make me go inside for cardio instead of my planned swim. Last time I did swim I got a mouthful of hair and spent a lot of effort trying to avoid the 3 floating band-​aids. With the high volume of pool-​goers here they need to put some more effort into upkeep and get beefed up pool pumps and filters or something.
The totally-​piss-​me-​off-​thing: HOURS!
— the class schedule is totally ridiculous. It seems like they cater to people who are either retired or stay-​at-​home moms. There’s one «Java Jive» (?) class Tues/​Thurs at 5:15am otherwise everything starts at 8am. The weekday spinning classes start at 9:15am or 5pm. Seriously? We both work full-​time in Phoenix & Tempe, like a lot of people who live out here. Who can drive 60+ minutes to work, work for 8 hours, drive 60 minutes home and make it to a 5pm class?! They have 2 classes 7pm or later, one of which is Hip Hop Dance. Pilates is also offered at 5pm on Wednesday or 9:15am Friday. Again, those aren’t reasonable times for the majority of us who work Monday through Friday (primarily to afford membership dues here). And no, they don’t have any yoga class.
— THEY CLOSE AT 9PM ON WEEKDAYS. Last night we were there until closing and so were a lot of other people. Everyone was trying to get in a few more minutes on the machines before the staff came and started turning stuff off. It seems like there are plenty of people who would still be at the gym past 9pm if that was an option. And again, we pay a hell of a lot of money for them to have such limited hours. Oh, and the pool always closes 30 minutes prior to the gym closing. We showed up at 4:10pm on a Sunday thinking we could get a quick 30 – 40 min workout in and were told by the lifeguard that they’d be closing the pool in 15 minutes.
To the Copper Basin YMCA, if you’re reading this:
— please for the love of God give us more early morning & late night class options. Pilates. CROSSFIT! Spinning. Kickboxing. Circuit training. Yoga. Bootcamp. Anything that’s not Zumba or Hip Hop Dance. You have the room available and you could definitely find members who are qualified to teach a class — you could offer free membership in exchange for teaching there.
— keep it open for an extra hour during the week. Not even asking for longer hours on weekends. Just weekdays for those of us who work until 6pm anywhere other than San Tan Valley.
— get another spinning bike or two or three. It totally sucks to look forward to going to a class the ONE SINGLE DAY WE CAN MAKE IT only to be told at 8:30am that the 9am class is already full. That should indicate that there’s enough demand to justify buying some more bikes and/​or hiring another instructor so you can offer more classes.
— I wouldn’t be complaining about the class schedules so much if the pool wasn’t so gross.

$ 90.00 to join $ 35.00 a month for just one person and the problems only go on from there. I joined the YMCA because there are no other gyms within a reasonable driving distance from my home. To cover my husband, son and myself it’s $ 65.00 a month and to me considering what they are offering down there it’s highway robbery. I WAS a member for six months and during that time I was pretty meh about the whole thing. The gym and equipment are clean and seem in good condition but it was a very small space. If you wanted to take a class you had to get there like an hour early to get the coveted ticket so you could have a spot in the class. There rock wall was perpetually closed, I never saw a valid reason why. The pool was incredibly small and if you weren’t there to swim laps (good luck with that by the way) it was completely boring. I decided to save my membership dues and get a nice bike and a small home gym. Now, I’m not getting siphoned every month by the YMCA or the gas pumps and working out at home has really suited me.