I have been a member of Harbour Pointe Badminton Club for almost a year now.
I'm seeing a lot of brief 5-star reviews from people who basically love this place, and a few 1-star reviews from people who were upset that the club was enforcing their policies.
In my opinion this club has the right to enforce their club policies. Also, personally I feel that all club policies were clearly explained to me when I joined. Some people are not good listeners and/or do not read thoroughly and/or have a sense of entitlement that the policies should not apply to them. This is not the fault of the club.
I have actually had quite a few negative experiences at this club as a member. However, I haven't reviewed the club until now because I wanted to give the club several more chances prior to reviewing the club. I feel like I've been to the club enough times by now (probably around 20 times total, give or take) to write a thorough and balanced (and hopefully helpful) review.
Here are some of my experiences at the club so that you may be able to better evaluate whether this club is a good fit for you:
1. I have seen several reviews saying that these reviewers did not have to wait for a court.
My husband and I have actually had to wait for a court several times.
Whether or not you're likely to be waiting for a court really depends on whether the free times in your schedule are compatible with the club's less-busy times or not. My husband often only has one day off per week, and we are usually only available to play badminton in the evening on that day. That's one of the club's (relatively few) very busy times. You may want to ask the staff members when the busy times are (not always completely predictable, but somewhat predictable) to see how that fits with your schedule. The club also holds events, ladders, and tournaments so if you want to play during those (unless you're part of them), you're out of luck. Sometimes there is short notice for these events being held, other times there is a lot of notice or else it's a regularly-held event.
2. My husband works long hours, so I specifically asked the club managers/employees if this was a good place to randomly show up alone and find someone else to hit the birdie with me when my husband is not available to join me. The answer was a definite yes, but I found that the club is not a good place for me personally to just show up and hope to find someone to hit with. Probably 90%+ of everyone I've seen there is already there with a partner to play with. People have been more friendly and interested in playing doubles (when I'm there with my husband) than singles. I have had to wait for quite a while to find a singles partner (over an hour usually). Once I went home after being there for over 2 hours looking for a singles partner and never getting to play at all. I talked to the manager and he suggested umpiring and/or attending ladders, but again those times and days haven't worked with my schedule (and also my schedule can frequently be very unpredictable so I greatly prefer drop-in play).
3. The courts themselves are a great place to play badminton. My husband and I joined this club because we were playing together outdoors weekly, and we were sometimes annoyed, inconvenienced, or hindered by rain and/or strong winds. It is great to have a nice indoor playing space.
4. Almost every member at the club is very polite and fair about surrendering the court to us when we do have to wait for a court and when their playing time is up. The time allotted to play on a court, if there is a wait, is 20 minutes. We always want to play longer than that, so we often end up waiting 2 or 3 times in order to get our full work out in, which we find to be somewhat annoying, but it's definitely not as annoying as attempting to play badminton in the pouring rain when we can barely see where the birdie is coming at us from.
5. Every manager and every employee at this club have personally always been great to me. I found each one of them to be caring, personable, helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable about the club's events, policies, products, and culture.
If you have any questions about this club that I haven't addressed in my rather lengthy review, feel free to let me know and I'll edit my review to include your question, if I have an answer. read more