Celebrity Fitness, The Mines

So lepas yaya jalani workout selama beberapa hari di Celebrity Fitness yang super best ni, kesan positifnya, yaya lebih bertenaga balik dari kerja and takde lah flat habis macam selalu. Masih bertenaga dan boleh duduk sembang dengan ayah seperti bercerita kenapa personal loan kawan dia yang yaya kirakan tak lulus. Kiranya masih bertenaga lah macam tu.

I paid for day passes at Midvalley while on a business trip.

Gym is relatively well maintained but need to check if the equipment has broken cables that can stratch your hands.

Changing rooms are clean although shower cubicles and changing cubicles are small but ok. A lot of hair blowers. Haha! Not sure if the guys rooms have it but the ladies, yes.

Padlocks for the lockers. There are a lot of lockers. CF does have some extras at the entrance but they usually run out.

Midvalley one is big and I remembered seeing one trainer walking around. I saw more during the evening time. I also sometimes sneak into the "personal training area" because the medicine balls are there. 3 trainers saw me using it and didn't chase me away so ok lor.

1 big towel 1 small towel per session. 

One of the staff will hog the telephone so if you're unlucky to get one of them, it's annoying. 

I had tried workout at True Fitness, Fitness First and Celebrity Fitness. Hence, my following post will briefly compare True Fitness vs Fitness First vs Celebrity Fitness. 

Branches location

Fitness First has 13 branches in Malaysia and 100s all over the world. 

Celebrity Fitness has 14 branches in Malaysia. 

True Fitness only has 5 in Malaysia. 

Well, no competition here. Fitness First won the point. 

Fitness First   2 / Celebrity Fitness   1 / True Fitness   0

Member fees

Fitness First definitely is the most expensive compare with Celebrity Fitness and True Fitness. 

Last I heard Fitness first charges the passport membership as RM185, True Fitness charges RM180, Celebrity Fitness charges RM175.  

However, the charges are very depend on how good the relationship do you have in the fitness network. My friend can even get free for workout at Celebrity Fitness. 

Fitness First   0 / Celebrity Fitness   2 / True Fitness   1

Facilities

Well, there're almost the same situation during the peak hours. 

True Fitness is known to owned many equipment. So this round goes to True Fitness. And I found Celebrity Fitness had less facilities such as swimming pool, steam room and etc are limited compared to Fitness First. Hence, Fitness First is slightly better than Celebrity Fitness. 

Fitness First   1 / Celebrity Fitness   0 / True Fitness   2

Staff Service

True Fitness staffs are pretending that they 'care' about you, but eventually they don't actual care who you are. I used to be there for 1 month trial. But eventually they stop my trial after 1 week because they save my data as 1 week trial even though my summit 1 month trial document to them. HOW CARELESS they are.   

Fitness First and Celebrity Fitness staffs are quite friendly I would like to say. But you will feel 'ma fan' if you forget to bring Fitness First  membership card, because they'll require to fill out annoying data form for confirmation. In Celebrity, all you need to do is provide your mobile number for confirmation. Much more convenience! 

Fitness First   1 / Celebrity Fitness   2 / True Fitness   0

Form above comparison, Celebrity Fitness wins 5, Fitness First gains 4, and True Fitness is 3. 

Celebrity Fitness has an extensive number of outlets all over KL. They have 14 different outlets in KL, such as Bangsar Village 2, Cheras Sentral, Kepong Village Mall, Lot 10, Mid Valley, and Wangsa Walk, to name a few. Besides priding themselves as being a gym for local celebrities, another advantage to joining Celebrity Fitness is that members are able to access all of their gyms within the nation. Celebrity Fitness also offers yoga, cycling, and aerobics, while some select outlets have the luxuries of a swimming pool. The usual array of cardio and weight training machines are present as well.

We were told by a self proclaimed person in charge at Celebrity Fitness 1Utama that we can "make all the fuss (we) want" about this matter. Since we have nothing to lose, here we are making a "fuss". 

To mark our year with a positive start, three friends and I decided to join a gym. In mid January we went to Celebrity Fitness to enquire on how to join and become a member. Now one would think that they will have their prices clearly stated in black and white, but no. They have nothing of the sort and we ended up having to negotiate for hours on the amount to pay for their monthly membership fee, with their sales representative – Maggie. 

When we were about to sign the contract of agreement, we noticed a clause on the contract saying that "Celebrity Fitness has the right to increase the membership fees without prior notice". At that point, we decided not to sign and asked Maggie about the clause, which all of us clearly disagree with. She verbally promised us that there will be NO increase of membership fees, and even mentioned that even if the fee does increase, it will not affect any new member signing up this year. To further convince us on how sure she is on this matter, she told us that since she works in the gym, we could always go to her should any matter arise, and she would help us solve it,. 

That was a month and a half ago. 

Yesterday, when my friend and I went to the gym, I wanted to pay my gym membership fees for March. I was told by the girl working at the payment counter that my membership fees had been increased! Needless to say, my friend and I were puzzled. Immediately we requested to speak to Maggie. 

When we asked her about the price increase, she said it was because of the increase of government tax. As much as we would like to believe her, the ruling to increase the government tax had already been implemented and started on January BEFORE all of us signed up. Yet, she did promise us that there will be no increase of membership fees. Moreover, the increase of government tax is just 1% but we were asked to pay 4% 5% extra monthly, of what our current monthly gym membership is right now. 

After a slight negotiation with Maggie, I asked to speak to the branch manager or a person in charge of the branch. However, she told us that she is the biggest of ranks in that branch, and impolitely told us that we will have to "go to Jakarta because there are no managers or the likes in Malaysia." 

When we question her about what that we can do, she told us bluntly that we can make all the fuss we want, but we will still have to pay the amount they are asking for, and started a lengthy speech saying that ALL fitness centers in Malaysia are increasing their membership fees. However, when I asked a colleague of mine who is a member of another gym center earlier this morning, she told me that she hasn’t heard of such a thing from her gym center. 

We also questioned Maggie how many times they can/will increase the price in a year; she kept quiet. When we told her that we wanted to cancel our membership, we were told that we will have to pay a penalty of RM400 if we wanted to do so. She also reminded us that the contract we signed clearly states that they are allowed to increase our membership fees without prior notice; contradicting to what she promised us verbally when we refused to sign up for the package a month ago. 

I wonder how many other unknowing consumers have they tricked into signing up using this tactic, and how many have kept quiet and just pay whatever the fitness center is asking them to pay from time to time. I know verbal contract is a valid contract. But right now, she is in a way backing away from her words and forcing us to pay the amount, which might increase again in the not too distant future! 

Since we were so nicely asked by their self proclaimed person in charge to make all the fuss we want, we hope that this message will manage to reach everyone out there and be aware that Celebrity Fitness is scamming people in such a way to join their gym and ‘extorting’ money out from its members. The price increase of a few ringgit is not the main issue here, but the way they are doing business is. 

If the "real" person in charge is reading this, we really do hope to hear from you: On why the sudden increase of price; on your staff who gave us empty promises and scammed us into signing up; and how you can compensate us. 

On the other hand, if there’s anyone out there who knows what we can do about this, and how can we go about doing it, please do advise.