Charles River YMCA

When I used to come here daily, before Planet Fitness that I currently work out at over in Dedham, everyone at the desk was SUPER friendly and the machines were ALWAYS all working. The weights area and fitness area were always clean and their were always open machines. Never an issue. The mens locker room was also extremely clean.
Only issues: I left a few years ago because of the price. For the price, this YMCA is not worth it. I have visited the Hyde Park YMCA (which is a better value), yet here you can only work out, then you have to drive 10 minutes to go to the pool. Everything should be together, and larger. Super congested and busy. And don’t even start about the parking lot. It’s TERRIBLE. There should be a One Way sign for the back little cut through. It’s SO dangerous.
Overall, good YMCA that I sort-​of wish I was still a part of, yet they need to redo the layout of their Needham locations.

As a new Charles River member, but long time YMCA member, I have a lot to compare it to.
The Wang YMCA has a large basketball court, the East Boston YMCA has beautiful studios…
and the Charles River YMCA has Paula.
Paula teaches step, and some other boot camp type classes. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be coming quite so often. She is upbeat, high energy, and just an all around great teacher.
The free workout area? Tiny. The machine area? Small.
Paula’s Step Class? I’ll stay an hour and half later at work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to go to her classes. You should, too!

The only reason this gets two stars instead of one is because she Preschool T-​Ball class was awesome. Coach Brian was great, my son enjoyed it and learned a lot. But I won’t be signing us up for anymore classes at the Charles River Y.
1) When I signed my son up for t-​ball, it named a start date of ⁴⁄₁₉. Inexplicably, when I checked again, the date was moved to ⁴⁄₂₇ but the last day of class was the same, so people had signed up with the understanding that the class ran one week longer than it did. (And that’s what we paid for)
2) Nobody called to tell us when classes were cancelled due to inclement weather. Yes, I understand that you can’t play t-​ball in the rain, but I wasn’t sure if they would move it to an indoor gymnasium so the kids could practice catching, and one of the times the rain had stopped so I wasn’t sure if they were still holding it. When I called to inquire, nobody there seemed to have a definitive answer.
3) One of the classes that was rained out was rescheduled and I was never notified. Apparently an email went out, but I scoured my inbox and spam box but never found it. When my son attended Music Together classes, they requested that parents reply to confirm they received emails about class updates, and if they didn’t receive a confirmation they would call those parents to make sure they received the information. This ensured that nobody showed up when classes were canceled and that parents knew when classes were rescheduled.
4) The other two classes missed due to rain were never rescheduled because of schedule conflicts with the baseball field. I emailed the sports director inquiring whether we’d be receiving a credit or our money back. She said she’d get back to me the following morning, but 6 days later I have yet to hear back.
So, basically, I feel like we were screwed out of four classes. The communication was terrible and a really lousy way to treat paying clients. I don’t trust the Greater Boston YMCA and will not be giving them any of my money.
On the other hand, my experiences with the West Suburban YMCA were always fantastic and I harbor no ill feelings towards YMCA in general. In the future, my son will do t-​ball there. It’s a shame that my feelings towards this YMCA have been so soured because like I said, the t-​ball class was excellent.

Visited here for a kids birthday party and quickly realized why I don’t belong to a Y. Place is a hole in the wall near center of Needham next store to a McDonalds and barely has spaces for parking. Inside the place is dumpy and dirty and the staff is a bunch of disorganized kids, not really too enthusiastic about their jobs. Equipment was crammed into a small room and the members looked miserable. Stick to a brand name gyn, its cheaper and you won’t suffer in a place like this.

Love the Charles River YMCA. Sure, its fairly bare bones, but it has the equipment and classes I enjoy, opens ridiculously early during the week (read: 4:30 am!) and is extremely reasonably priced. I’m a fan!!!

Pool is filthy. Changed hours from 5:30 AM to 6:00 AM at pool site so harder (impossble for me) to get work out in morning. Child care situation mismanaged by firing a competent Director who left and started her own competitor center and is doing great. They change direction, facilities, hours, programs with little consideration of customers and impact to them. Find another gym. Management here is totally disconnected and incompetent.