Oakwood Athletic Club

Archived Q&A and Reviews

March 2009

I'm trying to get some more information about the Berkeley YMCA Babygym for babies 6 months plus. I've checked out gymboree lately and wondering if the class is similar to it. Do you think younger babies would enjoy, my son is almost 5 months. any information about the class would be helpful. Lily

We just went through this exhaustive search ourselves. We finally ended up joining (or adding our name to the wait list) the Oakwood Athletic Center in Lafayette. It is a 13 minute drive from Montclair as long as the tunnel isn't backed up. They have fantastic child care for ages 6weeks - 12 years old and your kids can stay for up to 2 hours while you work out. Childcare comes with membership..no extra charge. Two saturdays a month they have ''kids day out'' where members can drop their child at the daycare and leave the gym from 12-4pm. One Saturday a month they have ''kids night out'' where for $20/child, parents can leave their child at the daycare from I think it's 4pm-8pm and leave the gym. You have to remain within 15-minutes of the gym in case something happens, but this gives parents some time together for a very reasonable price!! The outdoor pool stays open until 10:30pm, is clean and when I went (january) was very quiet...I'd imagine it could be busy in the summer heat. The baby pool is pretty puny so I'm a bit concerned about summer weekends at the club and finding room for my daughter to splash around. Luckily I do have Bay O Vista to visit if I really want her to have time in pool. The fitness/weight room is enormous and very clean and well-tended. They don't have tennis courts which was a bit of a bummer, but they do have raquetball and they have pickup basketball and volleyball if you're interested (my husband is). They supposedly have social events for members and they also host children's bday parties for members(90 minutes, $250, cake cream and 45 minutes of the 90 minutes is instructor-lead gym play-time for the kids). We're sad it's not in the neighborhood as we'd like to make friends socially with some other couples and their children and live close to those new friends, but it's a beautiful gym, very well run (appears to be), and very clean. My daughter spent about 90minutes in the childcare area (she is just shy of 2 years old) while we toured and tested the gym. When we went to pick her up, she was happily playing with one of the women/girls in charge. R

April 2003

Hi We are thinking of joining the Oakwood Athletic Club, does anyone have any experience there? Worth the price? Also, did it take a long time to get in and could you negotiate the fee? We can't seem to find a good gym locally and the Y is very crowded in our experience. Thanks! emilyevers

We were members of the Oakwood Club when it first opened. We ended up quitting a couple of years ago, as we weren't using it often enough and our young children did not like the daycare. Now that they are a bit older and we need the exercise more, I just called and found out they have a 2 year waiting list at the moment. Given that, I doubt there is much room for negotiation on the fees. The facility is very nice, and I have many friends who belong and like it very much. Claire