Wheeling Park District

We are new to the Wheeling area and I was panicked about where to send my daughter to summer camp not knowing the area. I found the Wheeling Park District and from DAY 1 have had a WONDERFUL experience! Everyone is so friendly and I am very confident my daughter is in very good hands with the summer camp counselors. They are all AMAZING. The staff as well is very accommodating and have been very helpful. I also signed her up for swim lessons and signed myself up for exercise classes. This place is the BEST. We will definitely be coming back next summer for camp!

Nice facility, lots going on, busy day Saturday, friendly staff, was here for some basketball, SUPER loud buzzer. Nice seating area for the parents. Noticed the rotunda track above the basketball court, nice touch, good to know, had I known I would have brought my running shoes. Picked up on the fact that if the game score is a blow out, the staff in charge of keeping the score stop posting additional points to the higher teams score, subtle.

The Wheeling Park District is like a Planet Fitness run by a township.
By no means am I a meathead dumbell thrower or a hot scantly clad gym goddess but WPD definitely brings in some characters.
WPD has been my park district my whole life and I have come for numerous open gyms as well as a brief gym membership. The park district was the home to my many summer camp experiences when I was a little kid too.
The new gym was a nice addition to this extremely old location but everything else in this building remains the same as the original construction. It will take a complete overhaul of the entire building in order to renovate and I’m not sure the funds are going to be funneled in that direction.
I guess I shouldn’t be complaining as they allow anyone and everyone off the street to come in and use the indoor track for running on the second level. Personally, running in a circle 13.5 times to complete a mile is a nightmare to me. I’d rather run in –15 degree weather.

I take fitness classes here and my daughter takes bitty ballet on weekends. We also use their pool facilities.
Overall this is a great park district. Clean, very friendly staff, good selection of fitness classes in the evenings and on weekends. Wide range of kids programming at convenient hours. The indoor pool is wonderful, especially with small kids.
Everything is affordable, and much cheaper than the nearby BG and Northbrook Park districts.
Hours are somewhat limited, but this is a park district not a for-​profit gym so that’s to be expected. Also, they could have made more convenient parking. They have enough, but sometimes its quite far which is tough with a small child in the winter.

I must say. this place is growing on me.
As a kid I used to take dance classes and acting classes, participated in a play, ran on the track and even had a pool membership. But even as a kid i disliked the park district. here’s why:
The dance classes were pointless and not very educational… Let me point out that the last time I took a class there was in 2003 so may be things have changed…
The acting classes and the play i participated in did not teach me much as a child either. felt like it was just a big hangout and major crunch time right before the performance.
The pool was great… many pools, slides, even a lily obsticle course thing. I enjoyed it and still do once on a while.
I’ve never been to their gym but I’ve used the upstairs track, which is nice.
I love the open gym for badminton and pinpong. Only $ 2 for the 3 hours!
We got my grandparents a pass for the indoor pool and they love it. Social hour plus some exercise.
Since the renovations of the park district facilities things are definitely improving.
The staff is usually very nice and pretty helpful answering your questions… I do hate their answering machine phone system though, kind of complicated, but meh, not a day breaker.

NOT RECOMMENDED — I CANCELLED MY MEMBERSHIP! I used to give this gym a favorable rating, but with how incredibly poorly I was treated, I’ve downgraded this place to the lowest star rating and am going to another gym. Here’s an updated version of my original review:
POSITIVES — Very clean gym. — New cardio and weightlifting equipment (from 2008 – 2010). — Not overcrowded — Decent location (right in the Wheeling Park District) — Cost is reasonable if you sign up for a year plan, either as a full payment or monthly payments. (Residents are only charged $ 31/​month for the base price.) However, this does not include any classes! — Good building facility with lots of parking. — WiFi access — Excellent front desk help. (Very nice people) — Rave reviews about some of the trainers. — Not the stuffiness and impersonal nature you get with franchise gyms.
NEGATIVES — Hours are VERY limited. Only open until 5 pm on Sunday, and 6 pm on Saturday! — No jacuzzi or sauna — No group fitness classes included. (Those are all extra cost. However this can make sense if you don’t want to pay extra for that. And they do offer single punch card payments as well as a for everything. So that can be a plus.) — You have to walk out of the gym and through a building hallway to get to the regular locker rooms. (Their «private» locker rooms are an extra cost.) — Top management is extremely poor on guest feedback and customer service. I was encourage to submit my suggestions, which I did via both the suggestion box and emails over the 15 months I was there. All I ever received for my suggestions and questions about using social media and online video was a form response from the Park Director, Matt Wehby. (The standard «we’ll take that into consideration,» which is really a complete blow-​off. When I asked again if I could have a reason why they weren’t getting involved more with social media, he refused to give any answer.) An important lesson: Don’t ask your members for feedback if you aren’t actually willing to be genuinely responsive. — Very restrictive on doing any social media. Park District Director Matt Wehby is an extremely rude individual when you ask him about this topic. He was actually clueless that the Park District has it’s own Facebook page (albeit just for trivia). He won’t allow staff to connect with members via social media, or do how-​to videos, or testimonials — even though commercial competitors are doing it.
FINAL REVIEW — It’s way too expensive for all limitations compared with what other options are available, and the top management is not responsive to customers. Even by the standards of a being part of a community center, they’re really not as much into the «community» portion as they should be. I can only recommend this for the person who lives really close by and doesn’t want to go a couple extra miles to another gym, doesn’t care to work out at home, and only wants a small clean gym with no interest in group classes. But even then, I’m seeing a decrease in staff and classes, so this gym may go through further cutbacks due to the Park District’s director fear of progress.