Macdonald Elmers Court Country Club

I also invited my mother to come because she was interested in a membership at Elmer’s, therefore she wanted to ‘test the waters’ – if you’ll pardon the expression. So I paid up my full month’s membership online and I added an additional day pass for her, which I also paid. I had a confirmation and reference number and was instructed to show this at the reception. So, we drove the 7.6 miles there, I chose this health club despite the distance because I BELIEVED it to be very pleasant (I have visited in the past, but it seems to have gone downhill since). We had our swimming things ready and we were excited to try it out. When we got there however, we were very quickly disappointed when we were turned away! I was told by the member of staff on the reception that they were no longer accepting these memberships and therefore, we would have to pay £15 each for a swim if we wanted to enter.

He explained that they had terminated their agreement with payasugym and that they had informed this third party company about this before. He also said that many people had attempted to go with this membership. He said that the health club is now a “members only” club. He wasn’t unpleasant and he was apologetic, however, I do feel that this is a snooty, pretentious club – when it isn’t actually that great. I’ve been to health clubs that exceed the standards of Elmer’s Court, so I don’t think they can afford to be this way.

Also, he told us that it probably wasn’t worth paying £15 each to go for a swim there because it was busy… there were lots of children in the reception and the noise levels were out of control. Which begs the question; what is so special about this “members only” club? So… we drove the 7.6 miles back home, feeling disappointment, deflated and unfairly treated. My mother and I have certainly been put off becoming members here and we will be communicating this to our family and friends.

My points here being; – Yes, it could have been an error of the third party “payasugym”, however, if Elmer’s court knew that the company hadn’t terminated the agreement and continued to send people to them, why did they not take further action? –

Why could they not take ownership of this mistake and allow us to swim as we had travelled all this way in good faith? –

Why are Elmer’s Court not concerned about the amount of people who have been inconvenienced and turned away? They are affiliated with this third party company and previously had the partnership with them. –

Why is Elmer’s Court only a member’s only club unless you pay £15 each to get in? – Why did they ever agree to partner with payasugym in the first place if they were too fussy to let non-members in their so called “members-only club”. –

Why were potential future club members (like ourselves) treated as though we weren’t good enough? The staff member didn’t even offer us the club member options. Perhaps he assumed we weren’t able to afford it? – he moved swiftly on to the next customer. –

They claim to be aware of the problem, yet they allow people to be conned out of £54 p/m under their name. – But then again, we are not important because were aren’t “club members”

The whole experience made me feel quite unwell. I’m considering informing The Echo/ Lymington Times to prevent others from being conned in such a way by these two bad companies.