The Orokawa Y in Towson

The Person named Marc Perry who is an employee at the Towson Y center in Baltimore, MD is extremely rude and unfriendly to the customer.

This is a great family gym to attend. I’ve been attending for about a year now. The Zumba instructors are the best! I love taking Aqua Zumba especially!
The only bad thing about this facility is that they don’t have Les
Mills programs.

For the price and overall quality of the Towson Y, I can’t give any less than five stars! My husband and I recently re-​joined, and for $ 73 a month for both of us (and pool access) — it’s a great value.
I belonged to the Y back in 2010, because I knew that I would be moving to another state in less than a year and didn’t want to renew at Brick Bodies — the Y allows month-​to-​month payment, with no additional fee for cancelling, so it was perfect at the time. We even took advantage of this last year, when our budget became tight for a few months. They recently welcomed us back with open arms and no joining fee!
When I joined back up last year after a 6 year hiatus, BOY was I impressed! The whole facility has been updated, it feels so nice and new! My husband and I looked at different gyms in the area, but both felt most comfortable with the atmosphere and community at Orokawa. The staff are always super friendly, and despite what I’ve seen in other reviews– we never seem to have trouble finding a place to work on cardio or a class to join.

Such a beautiful new facility and CLEAN! The cardio equipment is state of the art and the weight room is spacious and welcoming. The salt water pools are beautiful and the lighting tricks you into thinking it is summer unlike many domed pools that are dark and humid. If you are a spin enthusiast the Kaiser bikes are incredibly smooth and the two large group X studios are also bright and inviting. There are 80 group X classes a week! It’s the kind of place you find yourself looking forward to going to. I have belonged to many fitness clubs and this Y rivals the best of the best.

I have been a member of the Orokawa Y in Central Maryland for about a year now, and while I initially would give this location a 5-​star review (and recommended it whole-​heartedly to multiple friends and co-​workers), now I’m leaning more towards 4-​stars. That’s mostly because the gym/​pool/​parking are packed during peak times, which I initially didn’t realize when I’d work out during off-​peak times and/​or because I was taking group fitness classes and was shielded from the craziness of the rest of the gym. Disclaimer for this review: I’m an adult with a job, without kids, who uses the gym about 4−5/week.
PROS:
–Really nice facilities, which are clean and up to date. Tons of cardio machines, free and machine weights, dedicated spin room, pilates/​yoga/​dance studio with mirrors, another studio for similar classes but without mirrors, basketball courts, climbing wall, 6-​lane 25 yard pool and family pool, sauna… etc.
–Friendly staff
–Really really awesome instructors — Barb and Melissa are the best pilates instructors who really know their stuff, and the spin instructors are all great!
–The pool is just wonderful if I could actually get in it! (you’ll see below in the cons list)
–The sauna is nice to have (which is good because you hang out in there waiting for lanes to open in the pool :(
–The snack/​smoothie bar looks popular (never tried it)
–The climbing wall really can’t be beat — price included in your Y membership AND people certified to belay you (but, see cons list below)
–Spray bottles always available to clean machines/​etc (but during peak times, have to use paper towels instead of cloth towels)
–Coffee is brewed and a little station is set up near the door in the mornings. So nice!
–Fantastic price (especially if you have 2 – 4 people in your household). I’ve been a member of MAC, Merritt (DAC, Canton, Fed Hill), and Earth Treks Timonium — the Y price and variety of amenities can’t be beat. Plus you can go to any location!
CONS
–The Orokawa location is really really popular during any time people would want to go to the gym — after work, on the weekends, and during those times, there are tons of families and every single cardio machine is occupied and the pool is packed. There’s always parking but the parking lot gets congested, especially when people make up their own spots.
–The pool has 6 lap lanes but doesn’t usually have all 6 open for laps — for a few hours in the morning and at night. If you want to swim after work, there aren’t 6 lanes AND the pool is really popular. I don’t understand why family swim has to happen in the lap pool, since there is a family pool right next to it.
–The climbing wall is for 6+ years old, and every once in a while I see an adult on the wall — so I feel guilty if there are lots of kids waiting to climb, since it seems like I would be taking their spot. Maybe it’s just something I have to overcome, but the climbing wall seems like a kid/​family space rather than for individual adults.
–I wish the 5:15pm pilates were a little later so I could make it more often! It’s hard to get to that class unless I leave work really early. The class schedule seems skewed towards people who have flexible work hours (or who don’t work).
–During peak times, no cloth towels to clean machines.
–For those of you who are used to 24-​hour gyms, this gym isn’t open 24-​hours.
–You have to bring your own towel if you use the pool, unlike some of the more expensive gyms in the area.
CONCLUSION: I still recommend the Orokawa Y to people, especially if they are frustrated with their expensive gym memberships, but I give them a more nuanced description than «It’s awesome and affordable!». I will definitely be keeping my membership for as long as I’m in the area, but during peak times I try to take group fitness classes rather than compete with the masses for cardio machines & the pool.

This place is pretty awesome. I’d like to give a solid 4.5 stars.
The facility is recently renovated. They have free weights, machine weights, a while cardio room. There are an amazing amount and diversity of classes for free with membership. Add to that two indoor heated salt water pools, a sauna, a juice bar, a rock climbing wall, and outdoor fields and you have surpassed the average gym. In addition to all of this, they have free onsite day care for the LOs, family-​friendly activities that the Y is known for, and just an awesome staff in general. For Christmas this year I am also treating myself to a personal trainer — 7 sessions for $ 70 which I consider to be a great deal.
All-​in-​all I can’t recommend this place enough. So why not 5 full stars??? Like many places, maybe all gyms these days, there is a saturation of membership that means you have to be a little aggressive to get some of the highest demand classes, as well as daycare during peak hours (they do have a nifty reservation option though for under 2 years old), and the special extra programs (they do open these to members before the general public but you still need to be on top of it to get a slot).
The price? $ 80 a month for our family of 4. Given the amount of included perks (mentioned above), as well as access to any other Y in the area (I can think of 3 others that we have already tried and 2 others that are on our list to try in the near future due to proximity to hubby’s work and to our friends in EC), I think this is a phenomenal deal. If you decide to join after reading this give them my name. I think perhaps we will both get a deal!

I come here 4 – 5 days a week and it’s rare that I find myself frustrated with the lack of towels or the lack of available machines.
The staff are always pleasant when I walk in the door and seem to be on task when it comes to keeping the place running fairly smoothly.
I recommended this gym to my boss who has 2 young children. She ended up joining and loves the perks of the pool and childcare.
For the $ 52/​mo price (includes pool and classes), I couldn’t be more satisfied. Check it out! They have tours if you’re interested.

The facilities are exceptional but my family is finding that it isn’t as family friendly as it should be. We’ve been three times and there has been a greater than 30 minute wait for our 18 month old two out of three times. Once on a Saturday, which is understandable, and then tonight, a Tuesday, at 6pm.
Last night, we showed up thinking our 10 year old could run on the treadmill. He isn’t fond of going to the child care area with his little brother because we haven’t seen any kids his age there. The only thing he can do in the fitness area is use the cardio equipment. So we were happy to find a group activity for him in the gym that hadn’t appeared on the
website. When my wife went to sign him out of that activity, she spoke to some other parents and asked how they knew about it. She was told that the schedule on the website is always wrong and you can only trust the paper schedule. She told me this and I thought it must be wrong. How would a paper schedule be easier to maintain than a printed one?
Today, she looked on the website schedule again and found a «family gym» scheduled for 1:30pm — 7:15pm. We figured we’d try to drop the toddler off at the child care center and, if there was a wait again, just go to the «family gym». They didn’t have room for any more toddlers and added us to the wait list. We headed for the gym and found both sides of it being used for «games». There was a version of the schedule posted that had «games» for that time slot as well. I went to information and asked about discrepancies in the schedule. I was told that a lot of people say that but we’re just reading the schedule wrong. She got me some paper schedules and showed me how to read them. I can read a schedule and so can my wife. We don’t need a recent high school graduate to show us. Then, she took me over to another person and asked him to pull up the website schedule and show me how to read it. Neither of them were rude or anything. They were just making assumptions about us without really considering that the problem was with the schedule on the website.
This guy asked if I had been viewing the schedule on a tablet or mobile phone. I said I didn’t know because my wife had looked at the schedule. He said she must have looked at it wrong and showed me that there was an «open gym» scheduled for later tonight. I informed my wife and she wasn’t buying it. She pulled up the schedule on her phone and showed me that there was supposed to be a «family gym» happening at that moment. I took her phone back to the guy I had been talking to and showed him the schedule. He was convinced that it was because I was viewing it on a phone and pulled it up on his computer. Sure enough, there was the family gym that we were there for but that wasn’t happening. He had no idea why that would have happened but said he would e-​mail their IT department. By this time, we’d been there for close to 30 minutes and still had no word from childcare that there was a spot open. We left. There goes 1.5 hours on a weeknight, 30 minutes there and back plus a 30 minute wait. This is not how a family oriented gym should operate. We need to be able to plan our evenings and I don’t think it’s too much to ask that they have an accurate schedule posted the same day.

I’m not a fitness guy. Far from it, in fact. I am and always have been a fat, nerdy guy. For this reason, I find most gyms alienating, intimidating, and demotivating. As Jim Gaffigan said of super-​fit people at the gym, «What are you doing here? You’re done! You succeeded!» For this reason, though, I truly appreciate the Orokawa Center. I feel like I belong here, because everybody belongs here.
I don’t take advantage of even a tenth of the opportunities provided by the Orokawa Center — I mostly go and use the weight lifting machines and sometimes go take a swim. So take what I say here with a grain of salt, I suppose, because I’m really not an expert on this place. In addition to what I do there, there are cardio machines, classes in yoga and zumba and every other exercise that ends with an «a,» club sports, and all that sort of thing. I don’t have or want kids, but there’s daycare on the premises (apparently), and also classes for your wailing children to take. What I want, though, is some basic strength training stuff — lots of back and shoulders, lots of leg work, a little arm and chest stuff. For this purpose, the selection of weight machines at the OFCY (Orokawak Family Center Y) is perfect. The machines are all hooked up to some electronic system that tracks and records your lifting, which I choose not to use. But if you’re into that kind of thing, it’s definitely available. There are tons of free weights in various shapes, sizes, arrangements, but which I haven’t gotten into yet. I think there are guys who are paid (or volunteer?) to hang around and spot people or give pointers, but I haven’t looked into it. Oh, and the pool is nice, but you have to be a little assertive with the other swimmers sometimes. «We are sharing this lane,» not «do you mind sharing?»
For my purposes, though, I like the OFCY (I don’t know what the proper acronym is). I can show up with headphones on, scan in with a tag on my keychain, work out, and leave without having a single conversation — if that’s what I want. Often, that is what I want. Nobody bothers me here, nobody is too friendly or bothersome. No one is selling me anything or trying to get me to sign up for stuff. The front desk staff member says hello, wishes me well, but asks no questions nor bothers me. This is more valuable than you might think, as anyone who has signed up for a commercial gym can verify.
There is a great sort of etiquette and camaraderie at the OFCY. Just to be clear, I don’t mean that everyone is clapping each other on the back and joking about the local sports team of interest. I mean that people are deeply respectful and polite with each other, almost to a fault. Every now and then, you’ll find someone camped out on a weight machine, checking his/​her facebook feed on an iPhone, but for the most part, people are focused, respectful, and diligent.
Here’s a great thing about the OFCY — separate locker rooms for anyone under the age of 16. They have family changing rooms, for those who have chosen to procreate, and I have NEVER seen a child in the men’s locker room.
My one gripe with this place — and really, this may be an artifact of my going there in the mid-​late morning/​midday hours — is locker room etiquette. I think it’s great that so many people (particularly the older men) there are comfortable with their bodies. I wish I had that kind of self-​confidence, to walk around and socialize with all my bits and pieces hanging about. I really wish I had that self esteem. Here’s where it gets weird, though:
1. I saw an old man hanging his man-​parts into the Dyson Airblade automatic hand dryer. Just drying off his grapes, smiling over his shoulder at anyone who happened to look. This man was at least 70 years old. I admired the athleticism necessary to trip the motion sensor but not trigger the automatic shutoff that happens sometimes, but I was deeply disturbed by the ribaldry of his behavior. I of course said nothing to the staff, because I once worked in a movie theater and had to throw a mental patient out of a movie theater for pleasuring himself during «Muppets in Space.» I wouldn’t wish that sort of awkwardness on anyone.
2. I saw another older man shaving his face at the sinks in the locker room. Normal enough, you might say, but this man, in an effort to keep his genitalia from getting mashed against the sink as he leaned in to shave, this man had lifted his genitalia up and onto the counter. His man-​parts were dangling into the sink while he shaved his face.
3. If I’m wearing headphones and looking only directly in front of me while changing at my locker, this should be a clear indication that I have no interest in conversing with naked old men. Hence, these old men shouldn’t be surprised when I am brusque with them as they repeatedly attempt to engage me in conversation.
That’s my take on the OFCY. I’m probably using about a tenth of its functionality, but I like what I use.

3.5 stars if I could.
I’ve been a member of the Y since I could breathe, my mom had me in swimming classes as soon as I was able to swim so I’m definitely a lifetime member, love the Y. This isn’t my original home Y but I’ve been coming here since I go to Towson.
If you have a weird schedule like me it’s best to go during the day or earlier in the day because after school/​work it can get pretty crowded.
I took of stars because it makes me miss my home Y, it’s not as nice but they are doing A LOT of renovations that probably won’t be done by my graduation :(
Also, I’m all for kids being active and staying healthy but 7 – 10 year olds on the treadmill?! First of all I don’t even think thats healthy. Second, at my home Y you’re not allowed on the machines under 16. It’s really irritating when there are kids playing on the machines when its crowded and you have to wait for one. There is literally a kid daycare right across the hall for kids to play while their parents workout. I really don’t think little kids should be allowed.
I loveeee the classes here! I was really scared to start the CXWorX class one day but the instructors are SOOO nice and really want to help you and make sure you get the best workout.