I signed up for my first gym membership at shapes because I like that they had a women's only section at the time. They were very happy about getting my papers done and even pushing for the fitness trainer. I met with her once and she wasn't even helpful. looking back on the experience she was just showing me some machines on a whim. Afterwards I couldn't schedule her because she had no slots.. then she left and I wasn't substituted or anything. talk about waste of time and money. As this being my first membership the person helping me was telling me that my student membership would end in 6 months and at that time to just stop showing up basically. So that's what I did. I ended finding out they were taking out money for my membership and when I inquired at the front desk. The staff didn't even give me the time basically saying she can't do anything. She just brushed me off. I inquired by email to the headquarters and they were no help either. They couldn't find my existing membership and they had no idea who helped me make my membership.

I also had a friend who also experienced getting cheated 300 dollars from shapes. She wasn't happy. Neither of us got our money back.

I've also been told by a former employee of shapes that all they do is pressure the membership even if they have to blurr the lines with their clients. Terrible.

I will never recommend anyone to Shapes as all they want is your money. There is no customer service. I now go to Goodlife Fitness where the staff are so happy and welcoming. The personal trainer i had when i joined Goodlife actually made a proper schedule and showed me full body workouts, scheduling and diet/supplement tips. I definitely reached my fitness goals there. He even contacted me through mobile to discuss times we could train that would work for my schedule.

My husband and I have been Shapes members for almost two years now, after having had family memberships at both Rady Centre, and YMCA - we opted to move over to Shapes because of the lack of equipment at the Y and inability to get our kids into reasonable classes/child care while we were wanting to work out.

We pay reasonable fees (less than the Y for the both of us) and have unlimited childcare. My husband uses the free-weights, but I use the classes primarily on a daily basis (Mon-Sat).

Positives about Shapes are

- Great Classes - there's always a group cardio or weight class on and the classes are phenomenal
- Great instructors
- Women's only side at Pembina and McPhillips make it a more comfortable environment to work out in
- Nice hot yoga facility
- Lot's of equipment - rarely if ever a wait time to get on a cardio machine

Negatives

- Not enough child care slots. You need to be a vulture on the phone at 8am to be able to book in for the following morning, and if they don't book up, they close the slots off - also, if they have more than 1 or 2 babies and not enough staff (because the mostly rely on volunteers), they cannot take in more children.

-The boot/shoe area in the front entrance is disgusting

- The smell of the mens change room permiates the entire gym - it smells like a combination of feet, a** and Balls. it's disgusting.

- The bathrooms and change areas are disgusting. Not because of a lack of cleaning - the cleaning staff are always in there, but the women who use this facility - especially Pembina, are pigs. It's disgusting. Even my 3yr old knows to flush a toilet after he goes. I do not understand why grown women behave in such a way.

- Pushy and Rude sales staff. This is mostly a problem at Pembina, where the staff are rude unless they recognize you. Try to call on the phone to ask a question and the day time staff will be snarky. It's off-putting, combined with being spoken to like you're some piece of garbage (instead of a paying member), they then try to hard sell you on things that you have no interest in. It's really irksome.



Overall we're happy enough with Shapes. If GoodLife beefs us their centres, we'll likely switch over, unless Shapes develops a better childcare policy because if you're paying for unlimited but can't get in 3 out of 5 days that you need the care, there's really no point in continuing on.

If you're young and single and want classes, Shapes is a good enough place to do it.

My advice, don't consider signing up for shapes if you are not serious and motivated to stick with them. As for a personal trainer they are only good for helping you find a workout plan and how to use the machines effectively but aren't worth having for a long period of time, because eventually you'll get a hang of doing things on your own and having to pay that extra ($73.00 bi-weekly) and up ontop of the basic membership fee ($20.00 bi-weekly) is just not worth having when could join the various different kinds of workout classes that have no extra cost all included in the basic membership fee. You'll be stuck with that large amount to pay for a year. Shapes has a good facility and friendly staff, but when you got a problem concerning their mistakes on your account, good luck, they aren't as fair and friendly as they were when you first signed up.

Onto my experience...
My sister had wanted to join the Shapes Fitness centre on McPhillips. Due to the fact she has never worked out at a gym in her entire life nor did she feel comfortable going alone she asked me to come join with her so she would have someone to work out with until she felt comfortable on her own. I knew of course that I wouldn't be staying with the gym for long because I like getting my exercise by going to my martials arts class. And find myself physically fit enough and the gym just isnt my thing. We went down to the centre to talk to the manager there. She was all smiles, very friendly but very pushy. I specifically asked the manager because I was only going to try it out with my sister for a short time, what options did i have for a contract? She said my only option was to sign up the 1 year contract they have and that after one month i could cancel out at 'anytime' after one month. We then asked some questions about the basic membership as well as the '1 month trial personal trainer'. My sister had asked the manager many times if the personal trainer is strictly for 1 month and that she only wanted it for 1 month and the manager said "definitely after 1 month your trainer will be canceled". I then repeated numerous times that I would only be signing up for the 1 month only and she assured me that my membership was only for 1 month. She then gave us the contracts to sign and while my sister went ahead and signed, I sat back and read the back of the contract. There were some parts I questioned to clarify with her so that i fully understood. It said i was signing up for a 1 year contract and as i read on it stated that I could cancel after the 1 month trial. It also stated that I would have to cancel my membership with the head office and that a written letter had to be mailed to them. I
(There is no mailing address to them) then asked the manager about it. She said "I can do that for you, you let me know when the time comes and I will cancel it for you. This is where I went wrong. I put so much trust into these words. It's hard to believe you can't trust what the employees of such a big company say. The term 'the customer is always right' does not apply to these people. Anyway. The second week after joining our training sessions had been scheduled and printed out for us. because i work during the day my sessions have been scheduled in the evening. I went to the centre to find out that all my training sessions had be wiped out of the computer system and been completely deleted as well as my sister's. None of the staff *** knew what to do and just told us to work out on our own and come back the next day in the morning when the manager works. Now that really ticked me off, like come on, the head office couldn't at least call me to tell me my schedule has been deleted? Wasted my time. So we came back a few days after during the day (on my day off) to talk to the manager to see what was going on. Apparently the voided cheques we gave them bounced thus having cancelled all our sessions. She told us to go to our banks and try getting the number again and maybe that would fix it, but before that to pay through the interact machine they had so they can reschedule. After doing so we drove to our banks go verified everything and the cheques we gave were correct, we then drove back to the center and the manager tells us that everything is correct and that it was the head office's screw up. Think about all the time wasted doing this and the fustration. We then decided we didn't want the personal trainer and just stick with the basic plan but the manager said we can't and that we have to go through the full month. We decided to put up with it and went ahead. The training as well as the equipment were great. Our trainer was a nice guy and easy to get along with we told him the stuff we went through and he even said "Yeah those guys are stupid" they caused a lot of people to quit and also hasn't been happy with them for quite a while.

Two weeks before the month was over we started to make phone calls to the manager about cancelling the personl trainer as well as my 1 month membership but everytime we called they said she was either busy, out on a break, out in the back doing something, all times of which they said she would call us back. We work during the day and workout in the evening by the time she is not even there. The one chance we got to come down to see her in person she was coming out of the facility and she had said she had to head out and would call us later on. Not one phone call over the past 2 weeks. We even went and asked the staff members on what we could do and they had said "I'm sorry, only the manager handles these situations" and were not helpful at all. 1 month and 5 days gone by, my sister tries calling her back again, she finally answered and rudely said "It's out of my hands now, you'll have to talk to head office", gave the number and hung up without any explanation or anything. We call the number given and the girl tells us its too late to cancel but we can try sending them an email about what happened and that it would take up to 1 week to review our case. We sent the email right away. 1 week and half goes by no call or msgs from them. So I called them back and they had said "because we are busy doing renovations we haven't been able to review your case yet". 2 weeks and a half go by and I'm still paying but havent gone to the facility have the 1st month. Still no call, so I call them back and they still have not reviewed. She told me that they would either email me or call me back. I told her that something needs to happen asap because I'm going back to university soon and do not have the money to keep paying for this. 1month and 1 week go by and Im back to being busy with school and work right after. I forgotten about the shapes thing, for a while then remembered. Called them back only for them to say "I'm sorry but the lady who handles these cases is on vacation and won't be back for 2 weeks." Like why would you only have 1 employee who works on this? Two weeks gone by again and I call. They tell me "I'm sorry but we have reviewed your case and have decided we aren't going to cancel your contract. Despite what our employee told you, because it's in the contract we can't help you." They also claimed they sent us a letter already a while ago but we have received nothing. I told her that and at all times was very polite and calm and she then said "well i don't know, check with your post office or something" and hung up. Like really what else could I do? and in my eyes I don't see how its 100% my fault. Why am I the one having to chase them? Fed up, I went to the bank and asked what I could do, the bank teller told me she had problems with them too (what a coincedense) the year before and how the bank has been having so many problems with them too and adivsed me to be firm. She said what she could do is close my account and issue me a new one. Being desperate I went ahead with it. Now am being harassed by their shapes citadel credit.

**Editor's Note: portions of this review have been removed in accordance with the ChickAdvisor review policy

well It's been about 6 months since i've signed up for shapes..and yeah in the beggining they are awsome...i didn't have any problems paying 35 bucks bi-weekly...until a month ago when they had fired my trainer...and they never even told me about it until the day i was suppose to have a session with him. That was also the day when they signed me up with a new trainer and 24 more new sessions...the girl had told me my new bi-weekly payment of 65 dollars..and i was like..ehh i guess that's aite...but now for 2 payments they've been charging me 83 dollars with out me knowing they never told me...that on top of the 65 dollars i'm still paying for my previous bi-weekly payment...it's soo frustrating because i know i'm not the only one ***...there alot more other people...but we all can't do anything about it because we signed the contract. So how can we put a stop to it. How can we??

**Editor's Note: portions of this review have been removed in accordance with the ChickAdvisor review policy

Great selection of equipment, huge space but terrible reputation, pushy sales staff and questionable membership practices. I wouldn't get a membership here if they were giving them away.

I agree with you, prairiegirl! I had a similar experience. I still like the facility for the variety and always enjoyed the aerobic programs. But I will also never go back. You can get comparable services at the YMCA downtown, or get fewer frills but a better price from the U of Manitoba's Frank Kennedy Centre (LOVE them) - students pay $100/yr.