Gold’s Gym

LOVE the Body Pump Classes with CIARRA! She is fluid with the routines and great at queueing so you know what’s coming next.

Just started GOLDS FIT classes ! Justin has been our coach both times I’ve gone. Would like to give him a shoutout for being so welcoming and such a good coach. He makes you feel so comfortable when you’re just a beginner and his workouts have been nothing short of EXHAUSTING! I am motivated to be a healthier me thanks to these classes! If you’re thinking of signing up I HIGHLY recommend. They’ve created such a good atmosphere :)

I came here since I was out of town and wanted to work out on vacation. The staff was very helpful and friendly. They offer weekly and daily passes for non-​members which gives you access to the whole gym and classes except for their GoldFit classes. The gym was clean and there were always a lot of machines and weight equipment available. I will definitely come back here and have recommended it to people I know who live here.

I’ve been working out here for over 3 years, mostly every day. I’m glad to have a full service gym near home. The front desk staff, sales staff and the trainers are all very friendly and professional but I wish the management team would strive for excellence instead of settling for mediocrity when it comes to the maintenance of the equipment. What I mean by this specifically is that no one seems to care that many of the machines do not work properly — it’s just accepted as the normal state of the gym. Management is well aware because I have complained regularly throughout the years. They simply don’t care or their degree of caring is not commensurate with the amount of money it would cost to fix the machines.
Examples:
Eliptical machines along the back wall upstairs — there are 15 or 16 machines in that lineup and the TV screens only work properly on maybe a total of 5 of them. This is the norm for over 2 years. I don’t even bother complaining anymore (in person, via email, via survey) because I have been told so many times that it was about to be fixed that I actually feel embarrassed for the people who keep telling me this.
Cardio Cinema — there are 2 eliptical machines in the back row (closest to the door) that make horrible noise, completely disrupting anyone’s ability to watch and enjoy the movie. One makes a clunk clunk clunk sound and another machine makes a loud, shrill grinding noise intermittently as the workout program changes. It sounds like it needs some oil in the gears. This has been like this for over a year. I have complained numerous times and it is always met with surprise (how can they seriously be surprised?) and a promise that the technician will be in and will fix it (which, of course, never happens).
Bottom line: If management were striving for excellence, then the employees would each be assigned to a section of machines every few days to jump on for a minute and test. That way they see which ones are not working properly, write it up, get it fixed. If it is not fixed within a set number of days, then the employee escalates it. If the technician says he fixed it, the employee checks to see if he really did fix it. If it is determined that he can’t fix it, maybe you escalate to a better technician. If the better technician still can’t fix it, then the machine gets replaced. It doesn’t just stay broken for years because it’s easier and cheaper to ignore the handful of people who bother to complain than to do the right thing.

Brandon Wright trained my son for two years, starting at age 11. Under Brandon’s training, he grew his confidence in lifting, his strength, and his agility. Brandon is the consummate professional. He is on time, organized, and very knowledgeable. What impressed me most, though, was having Brandon as a role model for my son. Brandon taught my son about training but he also showed my son what it’s like to be a good, honest, and hard working man. My son’s respect for Brandon grew over the two years and that meant the world to me. If you want a fantastic trainer and strong role model, ask for Brandon Wright.

I was very excited to join this gym for good until I met their sales representative. He kept hiking up the prices to show me what an awesome discount he was giving me. An example– enrollment fee is $ 59 which was on the screen and he said, «It’s actually $ 69, the site is not updated!» Really!!! Who do you think is an idiot?
The gym itself is nice, timings are great but I am not happy with the way sales staff works.

Equipment– good
Group fitness– crowded but good
Childcare– terrible
Management– a joke.
Sad because it is the only decent size gym with childcare in the area…

My experience with the personnel has been very good. The personal trainer I work with is great, the yoga class and body pump classes are excellent. My issue is with the corporate stranglehold that is applied to the employees, and some of the equipment needs improvement. All personal trainers are required to wear only black? Really? I want to work with a person, not the grim reaper. If they don’t comply with this overly stringent dress code, they are subject to disciplinary action. Really? When the employees are happy, the gym members have a better experience. When they’re oppressed, the members notice. Not good.

Pro — clean, spacious, variety, location, plenty of parking, friendly
Con — cardio equipment needs upgrade, some members are dangerous via unsafe behavior around weights, worst gym for racking weights I’ve ever seen as you’ll get workout simply organizing and carrying weights from station to station

I have 4 active gym memberships in 4 countries right now, so it’s safe to say that I’ve spent enough time in various gyms to appreciate the good and the bad. With that said, coming back to this gym was refreshing for me.
I read through most of the reviews on here and a lot of the complaints seem to be over trivial things or problems that were likely a one time anomaly. The only recurring complaint that I think is accurate is with regard to billing issues. If you cancel you’re going to end up going it on their website. It’ll take 5 – 10 minutes of your life and you may get charged for an additional month.
Now for the good. Contrary to a lot of complaints, the equipment is in good shape. Most of the old stuff has been replaced, and there’s enough of most machines to avoid a wait at any time of the day aside from maybe 5pm on a Monday or Tuesday. The staff is great. The patrons are friendly to the point of it feeling like a community. The price is very reasonable (I think I pay $ 30−35/month) and the gym is open during hours that accommodate my ridiculous sleep schedule. This place meets every expectation I could have from a gym.

Brandon Wright is an excellent trainer at the Bee Caves location. I had not worked out for many years and was not sure what I could do. He helped me get started and on the right track to become a more active, healthier person. My confidence has improved a lot and I actually look forward to working out and the feeling of accomplishment when I am done. Thanks Brandon!

So now if you forget your card, they won’t let you use your drivers license anymore. Have to have their phone app. I don’t take my phone to the gym. What a bunch of rule-​bound idiots. 24 hour gym uses your thumbprint and phone number, which eliminates the issue entirely. Come on Golds, quit making it harder to use the gym. I wish 24 hour gym had bought this building instead of Golds.

I just joined here about a week ago and so far I’m loving it! The facility is very well-​kept and clean, and any broken machines are quickly fixed and attended to. It has everything as far as free weights, cardio equipment, weight machines, saunas & more (except a swimming pool).
It hasn’t been overly crowded at any specific time, which is nice to avoid the 5 PM rush-​hour. I haven’t tried the classes yet but they have quite a few options available. They also have a good kids club with great caretakers and staff.

I have been working out at this location since it opened. The gym itself is getting way too crowded, however and is starting to get run-​down. I tripped over a cord they had upstairs behind the «Stair Master» today and was furious that they have cords out and in disarray for people to trip on. Here is a prime example of what you have to deal with here: equipment hogs, women that go # 2 in the toilet, then don’t wash their hands (I’ve witnessed this weekly), people sitting on the equipment, talking on their phones, or texting, etc., and when you kindly ask them if you can work in a set, they get attitudes, and clueless morons who interrupt personal training sessions so they can chat with the trainer they are friends with. Oh, and for some reason, this location has small fans in every corner that blow hurricane-​type winds right in your face when you’re trying to exercise. Let me give an example of how this is annoying. Say you are on a an elliptical machine in the back of the gym all by yourself, working up a sweat and getting your heart rate up, then all of a sudden some asinine gym patron strolls on by and turns the hurricane fan on without even asking if you’d mind and it is turned right towards your face, not even towards the idiot who turned it on. You can’t breathe, then you get cold sweats and you have to get off machine and go ask them to turn the fan off until you are done and the preying mantis that had turned it on gets in your face and starts challenging you to a duel. Well, you practically have to head butt them to get them to listen to reason, so you are forced into a screaming match with «Miss Anorexia Nervosa» who won’t back down, even though you could snap her in half like a twig. That is VERY typical at this location. I’ve seen patrons come to near blows over the fans. Common courtesy would go a long way here, but you just don’t see that in existence here that often. There is a huge «entitlement» attitude at this location. Last week a guy was hogging two machines at the same time and he didn’t want anyone working in between, so he would remove the pin and take it with him, so he didn’t have to share. It’s not the gym’s fault, but the patrons make this place unbearable. The manager won’t post signs or rules. I have suggested many times for them to post signs in the restrooms for women to wash their hands after they use the restroom, but they won’t do it. You shouldn’t have to tell a grown woman to wash her hands after using a toilet, but, in this location, it should be required. Today when I went to this gym, it smelled like sweaty a** & bleach and I got nauseated and had to leave. About a month or two ago, a woman did a «Jackson Pollack» all over the back of the toilet & wall and then skipped on out to the floor, so she could get a good spot in «BodyPump» class. No hand washing from her «artwork» was witnessed. They need to open up another location to accommodate all the annoying crowds that are moving here in droves from, well, CA!

Usually clean and the employees are nice. Very convenient location and never super packed. Main complaint is that some of the cardio equipment is old and needing repair/​to be replaced. Treadmills squeak, moan, and have loose belts that make running hazardous. I’ve put in a request to fix this issue. Hopefully they will soon.

I highly recommend Brandon Wright as a trainer. I started off aged 55 and 25lbs overweight. He started with routines that initially seemed overly easy and progressed to more challenging as time progressed. In retrospect, he knew how to keep me committed.
He encouraged me to be accountable to myself and struck a great balance between encourager/​pusher. Thank you, Brandon for helping me get on the right track and achieving my goals!

i was really hopeful that this gym would work out for my family. I must say we had a very poor experience with this facility for a number of reasons.
First of all the childcare area is completely unacceptable by any standard. I would venture to say that they would likely fail an inspection by the city’s health department. On top of that, the ratio of childcare supervisors to children can reach unsafe proportions. I have seen 25 – 30 kids under the care of 1 – 2 adults. The attention that is paid to the childcare area by gold’s is atrocious. I cannot in good conscious bring myself to leave my children at such a poor facility.
We too have had issues with the billing department. This was something that I had read about beforehand so we were very cautious with the activity on our account. Sure enough we encountered multiple problems regarding billing. Also when we did cancel our accounts, it would almost a full two months that we would be charged if you include the last month that we payed for beforehand.
UPDATE:
We canceled our membership on their website per their recommendation, printed a confirmation page and brought it to the bee caves location. We paid the remaining balance on our account and were informed by the friendly staff that we were finished with our financial obligation. This was the end of march.
Just got a call from a collection agency saying that we have an outstanding bill and that the website confirmation that we used somehow never reached them. They say what they actually needed was a signed letter requesting our account be closed and that it be sent to them through certified mail only.
This was the first we have heard about this. Given that we spoke with the front counter clerk AND operations manager regarding closing our account, it is hard to believe that it was not mentioned.
Continually disjointed by the way this golds has handled their billing/​account relations.

This is one of the four Gold’s I go to in Austin and the one I frequent the most. I come here after work on weekdays around 3:30. At that time the crowds aren’t that bad, but it starts to get packed around 4 – 4:30. The gym isn’t really that big and they’ve made it smaller by adding the cardio cinema (which I like) and a Gold’s FIT area. This takes up a lot of room now and the equipment is jammed packed in the place. They got rid of some of their floor space for exercise to make room for the FIT area. This does not make me happy. There isn’t a lot of room to do floor exercises anymore. There is a small space upstairs with some mats and free weights where I go now. There is also a women’s center, but it’s really small and not very many machines in it. The cardio cinema is small, but it works for me. I’m not a fan of the movies they show, it’s a lot of repetitive stuff. Movies repeat every 2 – 3 weeks it seems, with a few new ones in the mix. The gym is pretty clean compared to the others. My big annoyance is the machines don’t always seem to work. Some treadmills have a «bump» in the belt and it’s hard to run fast with that. The elliptical machines work, but the screens or buttons don’t. Many on the back row upstairs work, but I can’t change my level, stop, pause, change workouts on them bc the screen buttons or the buttons on the handles don’t work. A big negative is no wifi. This is the only Gold’s out of the four I go to that doesn’t have wifi. Well, they do have wifi, it shows up on my phone, but you can never log into it. It always says it isn’t working. I’m surprised bc this is a nicer Gold’s and they don’t provide wifi to their customers. They did renovate the bathrooms. I feel like they are semi clean. The locker room has a dry sauna. I’ve never used it, so I can’t comment on it. Another negative about this place is the customers. Bc of the area, you get a lot of «fake» women, many who wear full blown make up here. I’ve heard it called «fake-​travis.» I think they care more about how they look and talking to the men who drive fancy cars. The men here you can tell care about how they look, and the bigger the better it seems. I don’t feel like the customers are as laid back as the other gyms I’ve been to. The employees are not as friendly as the other Gold’s I’ve been to. But I try not to interact with anyone, get in and get out. Beside the employees and customers, if this place would fix their wifi and machines, add more floor space back, it would be close to perfect for me.

I go here 3−6x a week.
What works:
— Good clean facilities with a wide range of equipment and classes.
— Knowledgeable trainers (Sherri is especially fantastic!)
— Lots of variety.
— Really outstanding staff.
What needs improvement:
— Archaic systems that result in double-​billing and «accidental» charges. Not to mention the front computer is often down in the morning. Really frustrating when you want to fix a billing issue.
— Questionable sales staff that won’t give a clear answer on gym membership fees or extra classes. Just tell me what the price is please.
— The new Golds boot camp area has REALLY loud music that competes with the current music playing in the gym. It seems overboard and is annoying.
— Gym equipment is usually clean but I wish they’d replace more of the worn out padding on the equipment more often and add new Yoga balls. Why only a few for the whole gym?
Overall, I like it.

Super angry that management ignored my request to make the cardio cinema a little lighter. We’re not talking about ruining the movie, just being able to see the equipment and not fall.
I know it’s mixed with the patrons, but why would they make us fight it out when they could step up and have a set light level. It’s pure and simple a safety issue.
Otherwise, the gym is okay, not as nice as the new Westlake location, but clean.