California Wow
California Wow Fitness Center Thailand
“The World’s No. 1 Fitness Centers”
Open Monday-Friday 06:00am – 22:00pm and Weekends from 06:00am – 22:00pm
Website: http://www.californiawowx.com
Call: N/A
Address: I frequently visit the Ratchada Esplanade branch, but there are 8 locations in Bangkok. There are: Chaeng Wattana, Ekkamai, Esplanade, Pinklao, Ratchayothin, Siam Paragon, Silom, and Sukhumvit 23. There are also fitness centers outside of BKK at Chiang Mai and Pattaya. (EDIT: Many of the California WOW fitness centers are closed due to some bankruptcy situation, only ones open now are Sukhumvit 23, Siam Paragon, and Chiang Mai)
California Wow is a well known fitness center in Thailand, possibly the most popular. I joined in March 2011 and so far my “California Wow Experience” is good, but not great. I’m not sure about all their branches, but the Esplanade branch is usually very busy. The locker rooms are big, but the space when dealing with lockers is very small. The benches are the worst ever, you can’t even set things on them. But as for fitness equipment and services, they are plentiful. Their services include XXX Pole dance, personal training, pilates, kickfit, Wow yoga, group biking, kick boxing, and many more.
I did experience some problems when joining California Wow. The people I spoke with were really a bit pushy, trying to push me to spend a lot of money that day. For example, trying to push on a 60,000 baht fee for long period of time, I was only asking them to join for 1 week (to test their services to see if I like it or not), yet they were pushing for 60k, though I did end up joining at some 24,000 baht for 2 years, for 2 branches (Ratchayothin and Esplanade). And if you forget your towel, you’ll be fine because they let you borrow towels for 50 baht per day (a bit expensive for towel renting, but oh well). If you have joined California Wow please post your join day experience, and your overall experience with CaliWow please, comment here.
Some good things, I like there are so many machines, so many to choose from, whether you are going for cardio, strength, abs, arms, legs, they do have it all! Also, if you are a True Home Wifi internet user, you can login to the True Wifi using your user/pass (you should have it from your True Home Wifi information). Also, a little extra perk, I sometimes see the most famous actress/model in Thailand, Chompoo Araya A. Hargate working out there.
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- The California Wow Lockers
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- You can see the workout machines are plentiful
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- Some good exercise bike machines
I was at California Wow working out last week, and I was approached by a California Wow trainer, who was really wanting to show me some muay thai moves. So i thought sure lets try.
After about 25 minutes, they wanted to sit me down and discuss getting me into a personal training course. I was interested, but to be honest I actually thought it was going to be free or at least pretty cheap since I’m already a Caliwow member. They pitched their 1st price at 60,000 baht, for 36 classes (1 hour per class). I thought it was pretty hilarious. And they were VERY pushy, bringing around a few other trainers, and even bringing the Lumpini muay thai champion guy over to me trying to help get the sale.
I really lose respect for Caliwow for allowing this to happen. How could they even try to push a 60k baht muay thai class from a champion muay thai trainer to an overweight farang who’s just trying to get into the routine of normal working out and fitness. Pretty low-so and I’ll be going back there today and letting them know I have absolutely no interest in joining any courses, classes, sessions, trainers, and everything else they want to “offer” to me.
Cali Wow, you guys should really clean up your business tactics, attempted to throw this 60,000 baht price at me is fine, i can say no, but makes me sick to know how many other people might have said yes to this. Sickening.
Does anyone know if there is a gym/fitness center, or steam/sauna that is open 24 hours in Bangkok? I have been trying to find something with this for a LONG time. Thank you
Steve that totally sucks man!!!
James, California Wow is definitely not an open 24 gym. Mine here in Esplanade Ratchada opens 6am – 11pm Monday – Friday, and then later/earlier on weekends, like 8am – 10pm or something like that
..have you tried looking into Fitness First? or some more local style thai gyms?
UPDATE: they are now only open until 10pm at night, they cut down 1 hour 🙁
It looks like California Wow is having some financial/bankruptcy issues with Bangkok Bank.
List of the California gym clubs that are closing. These clubs will be closing in June, 2012:
– Ratchayotin California Wow Bangkok
– Chaweng Wattana California Wow Bangkok
– Sukhumvit 23 California Wow Bangkok
– Silom California Wow Bangkok
List of uneffected California Wow gym clubs:
Pattaya Cwow fitness won’t close.
Chiang Mai Cwow fitness won’t close.
Bangkok Pinklao Cwow fitness won’t close.
Bangkok Paragon Cwow fitness won’t close.
Bangkok Ekkamai Cwow fitness won’t close.
Bangkok Esplanade Cwow fitness won’t close.
Thai Visa forum thread:
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/550884-california-wow-fitness-bankrupt-sued-by-bangkok-bank/page__hl__%20california%20%20wow
Another good article (in thai language):
http://www.thanonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=122729
I was at the California Wow at Esplanade today, it’s been closed for a few days now. There is a sign there that says only:
“California Wow 02-7893222”
And the doors are closed 🙁
Here’s more info about the closures
https://gotbangkok.com/2012/07/23/california-wow-continues-to-fail-its-customers/
Horrible, frustrating, disappointing 🙁
The Esplanade California Wow is now closed.
I personally was told I needed to pay 2888 last week, to renew my lifetime membership (we agreed to pay that once/year). And now a week later they closed.
+1 for being scammed by Caliwow and crew