River Bourne Health Club

I’ve been a member here for over a year now so I feel I’m in a good position to leave an accurate review. I will try and the short and to the point.

Short version:
I come here for the atmosphere and the friendships I’ve made with the PTs, facilities are great never a long wait for anything even at peak times. Theres pricing for a monthly member with a pay-as-you-go option, but full-time members get free parking.
More in-depth review below.

Facilities:
A great selection of cardio and weight equipment, with two or three new machines having been added since my membership. The staff seem very on top of maintaining and replacing equipment; and even at peak times I’ve never had to wait very long for a piece of equipment .

There are dozens of classes going on throughout the week, and Sofia runs the Milon programme which seems very popular. I’ve never personally taken a class but they take place either on the gym floor or in one of the studio rooms. Having observed some of the classes going on in the morning the PTs seem motivated and seem to respond well to the members and they leave looking absolutely knackered.

There is a good size pool, again I don’t go there often but there are many classes and also three swimming lanes, I’m not sure if they’re designated swim times for young children or not .

Staff:
I can personally say that I have made great friends with many of the PTs, Kieran the fitness manager, Ben, Jess, Harry, Sofia are all lovely lovely people, extremely knowledgeable, and even if they’re occupied they always seem to make time for people with questions or people wanting advice. Even if they’re just walking the gym floor if they see that you are unsure or perhaps doing something that would risk injury, they’ll come and have a quiet chat.
I’ll be moving away from the area, but I will make the drive back to this gym because it’s such a friendly and vibrant atmosphere.

Price:
As a full member depending on what promotion is on you can expect to pay between £45 and £55 if you go to the gym more than three times a week it’s best to become a full member rather than Pay As You Go as the monthly cost works out cheaper, I signed up doing a promotion so I didn’t have to pay a joining fee these promotions seem to run fairly often so always worth asking. Based on what the gym has, and the people who work here I would say this gym is very good value for money.
And full members get free parking.

Having undergone hip replacement surgery after years of immobility due to chronic pain, I am now very self conscious about how unfit and out of shape I am. So being able to engage in some "gentle swimming in a friendly safe environment" seemed an ideal place to start getting fit again, and regaining my self esteem.
Hence I took the plunge (scuse the pun) & signed up for membership at River Bourne.
On the advice of staff, I arrived for my first swim after 8pm 'when it was quiet' and although there were a few others swimming as well, it was pretty quiet as advised & I left feeling very encouraged - managing to swim 12 lengths of the pool in the slow lane.
So feeling encouraged & keen to do the same again, I came back the very next evening. Except this time, I found the slow lane occupied by a clearly proficient swimmer, who seemed to be getting very loudly barked at to go faster, by someone I can only assume was a trainer of some kind. The other lanes were also taken, by more of the same clearly proficient swimmers, who I feared - had I felt brave enough to trying sharing lanes with them - might well have capsized me upon passing. This left the 'general swimming' area where to my dismay, I could see more proficient swimmers, along with some others, which seemingly didn’t leave much room for me.
So with limited options, I was left trying to swim in the remaining narrow gap, (alongside the shortest length of the pool where the steps are), feeling like the village idiot who really should have known better than to try & crash the cool people's party. I felt about as welcome as a fart in a space suit, not to mention, ridiculous, out of shape & slow - No doubt no-one else's issue, except mine and the luck of the draw, but still not exactly the friendly environment for some gentle swimming I thought I had subscribed to.
Anyhoo four very short, self conscious & discouraging lengths later, I was out the door. and as of then, I'm still undecided whether to return.
Suffice to say, should I decide not to, knowing I'll have to continue paying what I could ill afford in the first place, to risk feeling even more of what I was trying to overcome, is disheartening to say the least. 😞

Needs an upgrade inside the changing facilities but otherwise nice friendly staff.

Great gym. Not too pricey and good selection of classes

Arrived on my first day and nobody showed me around or even told me where the changing rooms are. Tried to connect to treadmills but that functionality isn’t available and was told to use the guest function which means you cannot save your logins and preferences. Tried to book classes but asks me to add my username and password which hasn’t been provided to me. There is also nowhere on their app or website which allows you to register. Committed for a year but a sour taste introduction. Hopefully over time it gets better.

Very lonely gym, no help from staff. Just a little encouragement wouldn’t go a miss.

Me and my wife have been a gold member for almost a year now. We love almost everything about this place and to name a few:
The gym is fantastic but of course not perfect and as mentioned in other reviews the gym could do better with a refurbish. And it looks a bit like council manager rather than privately managed. But most of the equipments work well and we particularly like the milon circuit training which comes free with a gold membership.
My wife loves many of the free sessions that are available to members like zumba, circuit training, salsa dance, etc. I have gone to the hatha yoga on many Sundays along with my wife and we both found it to be very useful and rejuvenating.
My kid goes to jiu jitsu on Wednesdays in the evening and swimming lessons on Thursdays in the evening. Again, fantastic teachers and my kid has gone a long way now in swimming, special thanks to his coach Luke.
In general, all the staff are very polite with a pleasing attitude.
Surprisingly the cafe is great for a cafe thats inside a health club, we especially love the hot chocolate and the panini. We have been eating there for quite long that we become friends with the staff there, again they are all very polite and nice to all customers.
The swimming pool is 4 metres throughout and we love it so much that we can leave the kids on their own sometimes in the pool and have a nice swim ourselves for a nice workout. Speaking of which, they also have a session that takes place in the swimming pool which teaches you to use weights in eater thereby helping you lose more calories, my wife attended that once and was all in praises about it.
This has a become a hangout place for our family particularly in the winter months and we visit the cafe whenever we come to the library which is very close by.
One minor complaint is that the cafe gets very busy in the evenings filled with chatty parents occupying all the seats and most of them are not members and doesn’t even buy anything from the cafe. As per the club policy which is written outside in a board, the children had to be dropped off at the reception for their classes/sessions and then collected back from the reception after their session. But none of the parents seem to care about that and the club doesn’t even enforce that. They could at least consider buying something from the cafe as it would help generate some revenue for them.
Overall, we are very satisfied with our membership here. We moved to Chertsey from Staines just a couple of years ago and there are many good things in Chertsey to like and the riverbourne club is definitely one of the strongest.

Been a member for 20 years, attend at least 5 times every week.
Can't say much better than that!