California Fitness Lot 10 - Disappointing

Yesterday I went to the spanking new California Fitness at Lot 10 for the first time. After moving to its new premises from Menara Standard Chartered, I would expect the place to be better than before. But alas, this is not the case.

The new California Fitness at Lot 10 is a disappointment.

First of all, for folks like me who gets to Lot 10 by walking, there is no lift that takes you directly from the Ground Floor to the club on the 8th Floor.

I had to take the lift to the 7th Floor and then walk across the car park to take the escalator on the other side of the car park to the 8th Floor. I wouldn’t recommend using this way because it’s dangerous to walk across the car park, especially if you’re female.

My favourite way to get to the club is to take the escalators or elevators to the 4th Floor.

When you get to the 4th Floor, look for the escalator that is near London Weight Management and Cenosis.

When you reach this escalator, continue going up till you reach the 8th Floor and you'll see the club entrance on your left.

But if you're driving I don't think it would be difficult, as you can park on the 8th or 9th Floors, which is where the gym is.

Now let's get down to details.

Everything in the club, I repeat everything, has been scaled down. For example, the entire female changing room is now smaller compared to before. The number of lockers, shower cubicles, changing rooms and toilet cubicles have all have been reduced. The sauna room has also become smaller.

This is ok if there’re a small number of ladies around. But it can get pretty cramp during peak hours. And tempers can flare when everyone seem to be in your face everywhere you turn. For the first time ever as a member of California Fitness, I had to wait for my turn to use the changing room yesterday evening.

Previously when the club was in Menara Standard Chartered I could go to a little corner of the changing room, strip and put on my workout attire without anyone staring at my breasts. Now with a much smaller space I have to resort to using the changing rooms. I don't want other ladies comparing their breasts with mine.

Since the days of Menara Standard Chartered, there have been a number of locker break-ins. The management of the club then started encouraging its members to use the big silver locks, the ones where the key sticks inside the lock when it's unlocked.

The funny thing is that in this new place, the management have installed some lockers that can’t fit the big locks like mine. Are the management dumbbells or what? Pun intended.

When I found that my lock can't fit into the locker hole, I had to look for another locker that could fit my lock and shift all my stuff to that locker. So leceh.

I also bumped into Sergio, a fellow gym member yesterday. It was his third time there since the club relocated to Lot 10, and he too was disappointed with the new gym.

Previously in Menara Standard Chartered the guys used to have a spacious workout area with lots of machines to build a body like the Governor of California. I call it the Testosterone Zone.

Now all the machines and dumbbells have been cramped into a small space and these poor fellas have no freedom of movement.

If you want to pump iron during peak hours you might have to wait for a long time to be able to use the machines. Maybe that’s why they have installed internet terminals beside the Testosterone Zone – for people to kill time while waiting to use the machines. Oh yeah, did I mention that the internet access is also bloody slow?

Sergio also told me that the reason people were still members is because they have signed a one year or longer membership with the club. When their membership expires, there's a high possibility they might change clubs. Only time will tell if California Fitness at Lot 10 will lose its members in the long run.