Rio Del Oro Racquet Club

I was a member here for about three months last year. I loved using the expansive swimming and tennis facilities. Club was clean, locker room was spacious, staff were always friendly and helpful. There are lots of kids/​family programs here, as other reviews have noted, but plenty of well organized activities for adults to enjoy too — I would say there’s something for everyone at Rio. If I hadn’t moved out of Sacramento I’d still be a happy member. Recommended highly.

This is not a club for adults. The entire club is dedicated to childrens programs. Adults are an after thought. I have been a member at Rio for many years and much to my chagrin the kid programs are growing. Don’t even consider getting into one of the fabulous pools (they have 2). The weight room is good with 2 squat racks and free weights. But don’t go after 5pm. The «functional fitness» class uses the free weights & so I am left with nothing. BTW functional fitness cost more! the weight room is generally a mess with stuff on the floor. No one racks their weights.
The staff are very nice, and try to keep the place clean but that’s an uphill battle with all those kids. The kids/​girls take over the locker room and are rude. Parents do nothing to control their kids.
I play tennis. The tennis pros are great, always pleasant and approachable. The people who play tennis are clique.

I came here with the girls I nanny to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon.
Being that its nearly winter, it was very slow in the pool area. The girls and I enjoyed the heated pools and even more the super HOT hot tub. That was a real treat, and I could see myself spending hours just in there.
After the hot tub we headed to the locker room, this is my only qualm because I couldn’t figure out how to work the lockers in there. Not sure if this is user error (I struggle at times) but some instructions would of been great!
Next we headed to the Kids Club. This place is super awesome! I want to come and just hang out there. We played games, air hockey and did arts and crafts. Everything was in really clean and good condition, which is often not the case when it comes to anything «kid» related. There was also a little computer lab, tons of video games and an exercise corner. The staff working in there (blonde and has a nose ring, totally spacing on her name) was super nice and awesome!
I would gladly come here again and spend my weekends soaking up the sun.

Craig, forgive me, but I see that your fall pool schedule is available. It appears that from 6 – 7 pm Monday through Friday there is exactly ONE lane not dedicated to swim practice or masters swim. Am I reading that right? So to swim after work one would have to be lucky enough to nab the one lane or be out of the pool, in other words done with their workout by 6 or not begin swimming until 7pm. For a club with 14 lanes this is pretty lame. If I’m wrong please do educate me. Thanks.

I’m reviewing this club from the point of view of a parent with kids aged 5 and 13.
This club has served our needs well, primarily for the positive community for family activities, especially those related to the various swim teams. The swim coaches take a refreshingly positive approach so kids develop a love for swimming at whatever level of competition is appropriate for the individual.
Our 13 year old has formed close friendships with peers who appreciate having healthy physical activities in their daily routine.

I am a substitute instructor for group exercise classes at Rio, so my perspective is a bit unique in that respect, as I’m not a member of the club and have limited exposure to it. However, from my personal experience at Rio, I LOVE the group exercise room; the flooring was installed to replace the carpeting within the last couple of years, and it is great to exercise on! The equipment and the look and feel of the room is very organized, clean, and appears to be in like-​new condition, which I appreciate and think it shows how well taken care of the facility is. The class sizes are reasonable (i.e. participants aren’t packed in like sardines as with some group exercise classes at big-​box gyms) and the variety of classes offered reflects the quality of the programming. There are many amenities offered to members and there are several features of the club that are unique (which justifies the higher pricing than typical big-​box gyms; keep in mind that you get what you pay for in terms of quality). It seems like a great place for a family fitness facility membership. I would recommend checking it out, especially if you live nearby; this could be a convenient, neighborhood gym for you!

I’m only here on a two week trial membership because of a certificate I got. So far, I’m really impressed with the number of kids activities they have going on here during the summer. Tennis lessons, swimming lessons, a huge kids pool table area upstairs near the kids club. It has a lot going for it. IF you can afford the membership fee. It’s got a great family atmosphere here. There’s something for everyone here, but I’ve never seen so many kids at a gym before. There was even a swim birthday party going on. As far as a single college person goes, it’s going to be awhile before I can earn the type of income to become a full member. I’m just going to enjoy my trial. And as far as walk throughs, I never had such a nice person doing it before. Ally is genuinely a nice person and is an instructor herself. None of those cheesy sales guys who seem like their whole life is bent on just seeing you get the membership whether you want it or not. Ally was a no pressure type of person, and I really appreciated that. If I were in a different space in my life, I’d seriously consider coming here.

Well, it’s been about 4 months now and my wife and I are going to drop this health club. The place is just not worth it. The pools are unuseable for the most part because there are always hordes of kids in swim clubs using them. Same thing with the Tennis courts. Various clubs including the Sac State tennis team have them booked at peak times. The snack bar is unappealing and a makeshitft day care. I have to walk by the showers and thru a wet floor just ot get to the weight room. Why am I paying $ 129 again?

I joined for the summer because my kids wanted to swim there with some of their friends. It was pricy.
The pools are nice. I appreciated that they were not over-​chlorinated but were always clean.
What didn’t sit well with me was:
1) This is a fitness club, right? Yet the snack bar is full of crappy junk food. If I wanted to feed the kids lunch, there were lovely choices like hot dogs, slushies, and microwave pizzas. There were some nods toward health (a lame salad, a smoothie…) but I was disgusted that the menu was dominated by crap.
2) the crowd is seriously white-​bread middle class, and the conversations overheard at the pool were at times grating enough that I had to put on headphones and turn up the music to drown them out (women talking non-​stop about shopping, women talking about looking for the perfect Pug dog – seriously?!)
3) Slimy sales tactics. They can’t just list their prices for membership on their website. No, you have to call them and then they get your contact information and assign you sales consultant or some crap like that. No thanks.
4.) They offer video games for kids to play while parents work out or whatever. Huh? So we just fill the kids up with junk entertainment and junk food while we work on our perfect abs? This seems very, very wrong to me, but maybe I’m crazy.

The people who answer the phone are incompetent and rude. The people who work membership are pushy, snotty, and harass you to within an inch of your sanity. I know that gyms are aggressive about membership and that gyms like this think they’re the best thing since sliced bread. But there really isn’t any amenity worth signing up at this place. There are tons other places around town to join. Anything is better than giving business to these types of people.

A friend of mine enticed me to work out with him at Rio del Oro recently and I enjoyed the experience. Brad is a bit of a night owl and works out late and it was so pleasant to not have to line up to use all of the cardio machines. It sure is an improvement on the 24-​hour fitness clubs I’ve belonged to where the equipment is about 20 years old and there are no towels of rags to wipe the grime from the benches and seats. The equipment all seemed to be relatively new and none were broken or malfunctioning. The pools at Rio Del Oro are quite impressive — and unlike the comments in other reviews — there was hardly anyone swimming — almost had the whole Olympic sized pool to myself.
Only complaint was that the custodian on duty felt it necessary to start up her vaccum cleaner about 1 hour before closing. Is it really necessary to force the patrons to endure that noise just so the custodian can get home a few minutes earlier. Need a policy to let members and their guests to enjoy the piped music or the wheezing of some older member — than the shriek of that infernal machine.
I think this club deserves a higher rating.

If you’re interested in tennis or swimming this club seems to be quite the place to come to. When I have been here I have used the tennis courts only so I can’t really speak to the quality of their weight room etc. However, the tennis courts are in good shape and they have quite a few of them. They have a centrally located lounge area so that friends of visitors may sit and watch the matches in progress on a number of courts at the same time.
The staff there is polite and towels are always available when needed at the check in area. The locker rooms are clean, although a little on the small side but will be more than enough to suit most peoples needs. Overall, not a bad place to play tennis if you have matches there and you have friends that wanna come watch.

I just moved into East Sac last month and was looking for a place to workout and play tennis at and I had a friend tell me about Rio. So I decided to one day make a trip over to Rio and ask some questions about the club and see what they have to offer. I was met at the door by the Marketing Director, Ali Vinyard. She first off gave me a tour of the beautiful facility. The she talked about the history of the club and even took the time to introduce me to some of the tennis players that were gearing up to play on the courts. It is safe to say that whenever I am not working, I am at Rio Del Oro playing tennis and working out. I have since joined, made so many friends out there. This club is awesome and I want to thank Ali Vinyard for getting me hooked on the club and for being so helpful. She is very good at what she does.
–Andy

I called to ask about rates, no one was there and I left a message with some dingbat lady. She later called back and I was told I had to make an appointment. I said I was just shopping around at this point, and was curious on a ballpark rate. Still nothing — must come in.
I declined and was going to look elsewhere. For the next 4 months their retarded membership sales lady harassed me every week — during the morning, afternoon, and even during the evening! I told the lady not to call anymore, and then she basically mocked me for not wanted to join their great establishment. Real classy — definitely wont join. Ever.

I was pretty sure I was going to join this club as soon as the weather warmed up, but I wanted to shop around a little bit first so I’d be ready to commit as soon as the nice days started.
My boyfriend and I went by in February to get the basic details. This is where it goes downhill. We stopped by once and asked about rates and facilities. We were informed that no one on duty could tell us the price, and they tried to pressure us into filling out a form full of personal information, no doubt so they could harass us endlessly until we actually joined. We declined and decided to stop by later. We came again (both times during normal business hours — and not around lunch time) and had the same problem.
We tried calling several times over the next week or two, and finally we got someone on the phone. They told us the price (I believe it was around $ 170/​month for the two of us and his daughter) and the woman on the phone was extremely pushy and borderline rude.
Privately, we decided to join as soon as it was warm enough to swim. However, over the following weeks, we received calls and messages constantly. I had been lead to believe that this was a high-​class establishment, but they were coming at us like shady debt collectors.
The facility looked acceptable (a bit run down in some areas and definitely overpriced, but it’s not like there are a lot of choices for tennis clubs), but the hard sales tactics were so lame that we no longer want anything to do with them.
I don’t usually like to go online and write bad reviews, but I’d like to save others from having a similar experience — don’t give them your phone number unless you’re absolutely sure you’re going to join right away.

I hate this club, people who work there are mean, people who go there are mean. why waste the energy? Lighten up ya’ll!

Over the telephone, after I inquired about day rates to use the pool and hot tub, «Christy» responded by laughing and said «this club is for members and guests of members only.» Just goes to show that you don’t even need to step foot into a place like this to experience rude service and pretentiousness. Boo.

This is a great gym that is never too crowded, towels provided, great selection of machines, weights, etc. I kinda don’t like how you have to walk into a totally separate building to get to the workout machines & etc. The staff is friendly and helpful — and the club has a great feel to it. Out of the Sparetime clubs I’ve been to I’d say that this one has the most families coming into it. I always see many kids running around and in the pools. It is probably the most busiest as well.
I actually stopped coming to this location since I moved out of the area. But I’m sure it’s all still the same =).

I love this gym. The staff are friendly, people are fairly friendly, the place is always clean and there’s great commodities– several pools, lots of tennis courts, two squash courts and lots of machines in workout room. The pool is a good place during summer too. They sell budlights for $ 1.50, so it’s a good place to park it all day and work on your tan, swim, etc.