Planet "Rip Off"

Call it morbid curiosity or just plain stupid, but I booked hubby and I a walk about in the Planet Fitness up the road from our stunning new house. After a false start due to hubby not being well, last night we drove the couple of km's to the imposing structure that is Planet Fitness. We were greeted by a very, well lets say "not very feminine young lady" Were told to complete a form in a 3 copy book, when asked why, she didn't really know, mumbled something to do with "fill in the persons details who may be taking out a contract" OK, so hy ho, book filled in. Our "host" arrived, "not what I would call inspiring" skinny young man with over exaggerated grin.
Off we went on our grand tour. The gym was relatively busy, full of the usual suspects, sweaty, straining, spinning wanna look good types. To be honest it looks a whole lot bigger from the outside, everything seemed very cramped inside.

One of the highlights of the tour for me was this very strange little lady, doing what can only be described as a a John Cleese version of squats, in a sort of walking fashion, complete with heavy padded bar on her shoulders. She was followed up and down what I thought was a walk way (clearly not)  by a lanky unfit looking "instructor" who looked like he was concentrating more on the floor then what his client was up to. As she puffed passed us, I couldn't help but think to myself, "well we wont do the personal trainer option"

Our grand tour ended at a sort of meeting area with large semi circle seating "for us would be clients" and a chair and table for our host. Then the fun really started. First we were both asked some general questions about our health and what we wanted to achieve. When it came to state of health, we were asked did we suffer from high blood pressure, high cholesterol etc. I stopped our host saying that hubby had never had a cholesterol test, and I believe he should. Surely this should of sounded alarm bells? But no our gracious host just carried on ticking boxes on the form (one form for both of us - maybe they have a paper shortage) Maybe they should invest in some laptops...

After all the questions were out the way, it was time for the big "Reveal" This youngster actually folded said sheet in such a way as only "option 1" was available for us to see. I mean come on, where did he learn that clever little trick. Obviously option 1 was the cheap package but totally unsuitable, as it basically gave you access to nothing in the gym, at times that were completely opposite to what we had just told him we wanted to train. But fear not, as with a flick of his wrist our host revealed option 2.

The list of benefits was mind blowing, every little thing was mentioned, I was waiting for "use of toilet facilities" to appear on the seemingly never ending list. Our host did a fantastic job of taking us pain painstakingly through EVERY point, even writing upside down for our benefit to emphasis certain points. I had to suppress a giggle when next to the last point "parking" our host confidently wrote (upside down - FREE) Wow he must of practiced that one for ages.

No surprises the price of option 2 was more then double that of option 1. Hummm what to do. At this stage I politely said to our host that my hubby and I would like to go away and consider our options. Being that the contract is for a minimum of 36 months, I believe it to be a big investment and not one I was going to be rushed making a decision on.

Then came the cherry on the top. The word promotion came out the hat! Next thing we know our host is dashing off to fetch his "promotions manager" We had stood up by the time he returned with said manager and were pretty much told to sit again. Begrudgingly, fearing I may be thrown into a spinning class for not obeying, we sat back on our moon bench. The promotions manager then launched into an absurd tale of the exclusive packages being available, these mysterious packages were apparently sold out for this branch BUT as he was amazingly good at his job, he would do us a huge favor and get us one from another branch, and then transfer our membership back to his branch. Wow talk about service... but wait there's more, this offer was only available till 6.30pm, (it was 5.55pm) and no, that's not all, he would waiver the joining fee, halve the monthly cost, throw in 2 "holiday vouchers for R2500 each AND lastly but not least 6 months free subscription to a mens a ladies magazine.

Up till then I had been mildly amused, however this was the last straw. Do Planet Fitness think people our complete idiots? How dare they insult peoples intelligence with their cheesy sales pitches and (about to expire exclusive offers) What really cheesed me off was the mangers reaction when I stuck to my guns and said we wanted to still think about our investment. He pretty much rolled his eyes at me, and shoved said piece of by now pretty much unreadable piece of paper at me.  (yes he also had to scribble all these NEW benefits with the super secret, not to be missed, going to self destruct special offer all over it) How dare I refuse his offer. He sulked off, our host fearing the worst (no sale) stuck his grin back on and escorted us right to the door, only now he looked slightly desperate too.

Will we be joining Planet Fitness, ah no thank you. We will stick with walking our dogs and running on the beach. All free, we wont  turn into pumpkins at midnight and we can stop doing it when ever we want.