YMCA of Downtown Manchester

Great place! I love the group exercise classes, especially the boot camp classes and Zumba. I’d been going to a different gym regularly before coming here, but I feel like I’ve really gotten in better shape since coming here from the group exercise classes. There is a good variety of cardio equipment and I can always find what I’m looking for, even right after regular working hours. The facility is clean and the staff is always nice.

Very disappointed in the aquatics director. I emailed about finding a swim class for my special needs grandson. She returned my email and said when she returned from vacation, she would call me. I waited and emailed her again about 3 weeks later. I have left 2 voice messages and have never gotten a reply.

Fantastic place for fitness and community. I was a member at the Concord location and have moved to manchester for the last year or so. Gotta love the group yoga classes included in the membership, steam room and personal trainers are my favorite. Could be cleaner but they try hard.

I would not have survived my first New England winter without this place! The Kidszone saved my sanity and let my little one burn off pent up energy, while I enjoyed some time to attend to myself for a change! Kidszone staff is fantastic and caring and I always felt my daughter was in safe hands. This is a very old building with some eye sore areas (like locker rooms, jacuzzi, steam room, downstairs gym), but the upstairs gym has been renovated nicely and is clean and run well. The staff here is Amazing and I think that’s what makes me love this gym… the people make it 5 star worthy. They also have literally any type of equipment you need. The only other annoyance is the parking situation, the garage is an inconvenience, so I just pay to park on the street out front. All in all I say this is a great gym! I used to go to Crunch and Equinox in LA… maybe I’m just getting old, but I prefer the community feel here over cold stylish high end gyms out there. I love you see people of all ages here — young kids all the way up to a 93 year old man doing one arm push-​ups (no joke!). Everyone seems welcome here regardless of age, race or mental abilities and I love that diversity. Thank you YMCA!

I will preface this review by saying that I never tried the group fitness classes or the pool. I only used the main workout room on the main floor and the small workout room in the basement.
Okay, so I was a member of the Manchester YMCA for 7 months before I moved from New Hampshire to Houston. My move and seeing YMCAs in another city has made it obvious that Manchester YMCA is behind the rest. The YMCAs in the Houston area are megasized and modern with mini tvs on every piece of cardio equipment. They also have large parking lots which brings me to my first complaint about the Manchester YMCA: the parking situation. Because it is located downtown, there are only 2 options for parking: a limited number of street parking and validated parking in the Brady parking garage down the street. With all the snow and ice in the winter and the seedy weirdos that walk around downtown, I decided to do early morning workouts at 4:45am so that I could easily get parking on the street and avoid the parking garage. That early in the morning there is a group of about 9 «regulars» that come consistently each and every morning. Everyone is nice, including most of the women that run the front desk. Toi is by far the best worker… She is helpful and always has a ready smile. There are 3 main workout rooms: the large main room on the main floor with cardio equipment and weight machines, another much smaller workout room also on the main floor (mostly used by women… I think because the cardio equipment pieces are pink lol), and a medium sized workout room downstairs on the way to the locker rooms. They also have a very large basketball court, a fitness room where they do the group classes, and a pool. I never used those last three, but the pool looked great for lap swim.
I did most of my workouts in the medium sized room in the basement. During the winter months barely anyone went downstairs except for the locker rooms and therefore, I had the room all to myself in the mornings. By summertime, it got packed. Since I was usually the first person in the room each day, I got to see all the trash left behind by the last people the night before. My second complaint is the lack of responsbility on the parts of the members to clean up after themselves. On a regular basis I found towels left around, candy wrappers (?!!), plastic water bottles, and newspapers thrown around the room. One morning I even found an unused MAXI PAD stuff in the cup holder of the treadmill!!! That was the last straw… I went upstairs and showed the woman working at the front desk what I had found. I told her that whomever works out at night leaves his or her trash and also hides the tv remotes, and that that shouldn’t be allowed. She just smiled and said it wasn’t up to YMCA members to clean up after themselves… Um, I thought that was like rule #1. But whatever… Just know that this place is not the cleaniest and to disinfect before and after you use a machine. They also have a bit of a spider problem.
I guess for the price and the fact that you don’t have to sign a contract, the YMCA Manchester is better than other options in the area. But go take a look at YMCAs in other cities and tell me you don’t feel a bit jealous… Go ahead, I’ll wait

I am a workout junky who craves access to everything from cardio classes to lap swim to boot camps. The YMCA Downtown Manchester branch provides access to these activities and more at affordable prices.
Becoming a member was easy and enjoyable, with staff member Toi taking the time to give me a tour of the facility and respond to my numerous questions. She even let me take a look at an Aqua Zumba class in action, which left me with a very positive impression of the club atmosphere. I signed up for membership immediately after my tour.
The workout rooms are spacious and well-​appointed with a variety of cardio, strength, and stretching equipment. The attendants and staff on the floor are always pleasant and helpful. The large flat-​screen TV’s provide the opportunity to catch a tv show, a game, or the news while getting a great workout in.
They also offer a wide range of classes, but they tend to start at odd times (12:05 pm, 3:40 pm, etc.). I am sure this is to accommodate their busy programming schedule, but it can be a bit more confusing than gym schedules that start on the half hour.
On Zumba: I am a regular attendee, and the class quality here is pretty good. The three instructors cooperate in preparing routines, so they are consistent with each other.
For lap swimmers: The pool is small and the summer lap swimming schedule is quite limited. There is not much this branch can do to rectify this, given their spacial constraints, but it might not be the right club for avid swimmers.
The bottom line: The YMCA downtown is a nice club in a convenient downtown location. The facilities, offerings, schedules are not exceptional, but they will work well for those looking for a wide variety of activities in a friendly environment.

Preschool and Kindergarden (child development center or CDC) program and top notch — my kids were well prepared for elementary school and beyond because of their program! And the teachers were all great.
I use the gym and the child watch room — the staff there is excellant! The more we go the better, the staff knows us now and we feel like part of the community when we are there.
The only down side is the parking. Parking in the garage is tough with little ones, and there is never enough street parking. Pick up for the CDC was really bad, there are supposedly 10 minute parking spaces that are for pick ups and drop offs and they are always used up, and the city parking enforcement frequents the area and will ticket you for parking illegally!

Uneven for a whole family facility. For adults– much better fitness areas since recent renovations. Some cool new biking machines you can ride and sort of compete on video screen at same time. Large, airy, clean and busy workout room. nice lobby renovation with coffee bar (untended, not kept clean enough). In Manchester, no tennis or raquetball, just swimming and machines and some classes. Free parking in garage.
I cannot seem to find many classes at different times/​days for my needs in terms of something like Zumba or yoga– if you miss the one time slot per day, that’s all they have.
During the school year not much programming for kids between 10 – 16 unless you are talking about soccer, basketball etc type lessons or clinic. No supervised open play for kids. No racquetball court here or any Y near us :(Parents night out things are scheduled and then canceled with no notice.
In the last two years seeing fewer kids here since Boys and Girls Club of Manchester renovated. Perhaps b/​c of this Y canceled kids’ camps and vacation week programming on short or no notice, leaving me seriously in the lurch– was forced to use Boys and Girls Club and the kids liked it better.
Not enough lead time when scheduling camps and vacation camps.
Communication lacking when trying to schedule camp for kids. Camp admin poorly organized. Several instances of mis-​billings, very late after the fact billing, failure to refund funds. Summer Camps are expensive and most start out of Goffstown Y which is geographically undesirable and a carpooling nightmare in the cramped driveway.
Kids leadership program is good, they change the ages every year (?) and mostly runs out of inconvenient Goffstown. Bus to Goffstown only at weird area drop offs and times not available to leadership program kids. Buses also ran very late several times b/​c driver stopped 20 mins for one kid with emotional issues to go to bathroom (kid should have been banned from bus, camp leadership unresponsive).
I have a loyalty to this place since my older kids used it and know the staff, but it seems like we will be going elsewhere in the future.

From the perspective of an athlete: greata tmosphere, people, location, equipment and facilities. I recommend the Y to friends and colleagues.

Recently renovated huge workout room loaded with treadmills, ellipticals, freeweights, machines, etc. Area is well kept and clean. Four flat panel TVs to watch while working out, bring your own headphones. Lots of classes to take if you show up during scheduled hours. Pool too. Showers and locker rooms downstairs. Gets crowded around lunch time and early evening when people get off work. Other than that there’s not much fighting over machines.
p. s. Don’t forget to wipe down the machine after you use it. Just because I always do and hate when others dont. Poor hygiene. tsk.