PongPlanet Table Tennis Club - San Carlos, California

Sung Park

I’ve taken private coaching from several coaches in the past, but Coach Daniel is absolutely my favorite among them all. He gives such an incredible attention to detail to every single movements of my body, I can feel myself constantly improving every week. I strongly recommend Coach Daniel to all levels of players.

As many would agree, I LOVE the community here. People are friendly and competitive, it’s awesome to make friends who share the same hobby 🙂

Paul Kang

Overall, the club itself is acceptable considering the price. Flooring can really use an update but the lower membership fee makes it acceptable.

That being said, the coach/assistant manager named Daniel is a wholly dishonest THIEF. I purchased a bundle of 30 minute lessons, which added one free 30 minute lesson. The total amount was paid upfront and I was told to reach out when I wanted to make an appointment for a lesson. This arrangement went on without a hitch until I had three remaining lessons (one of which was the free lesson from the bundle). I had returned from a trip overseas (something I discussed with Daniel multiple times before this) and I reached out to set up a lesson. I was told that there was now an expiration date on my lessons. This was never mentioned at all and there was no documentation that was shown for the lesson bundle. I complained about this as there was never any mention of an expiration date. Daniel told me that he would help me out and agreed to extend the deadline by a month and a half. I do want to stress again that this was never mentioned prior to this point in time. This is where things began spiraling out of control. I wanted to take a lesson sometime in the following week so I asked him about his availability. He proceeded to tell me that he would be unavailable for lessons for the next month due to summer camps that Pong Planet would be running. This felt off to me as it seemed highly unlikely that he would not be able to make time for a 30 minute lesson for a whole month. I asked a practice partner who was also a member at Pong Planet to reach out to Daniel about lessons. He promptly let her know that he would be available the following day to give her a 30 minute lesson. It became clear that he was a dishonest person so I ended up ending my membership the following week and gave my remaining lessons to the practice partner (cleared with Daniel beforehand).
Some time later, the practice partner let me know that she had reached out to Daniel about setting up a lesson. He initially responded immediately letting her know that he would be available the following day. When she inquired about using the lessons that I had transferred to her, he ghosted her. I really feel the need to stress that he cleared transferring over the lessons to her prior to this. After this fiasco, I, as well as two other members, quit our memberships and moved to a different club.

As mentioned before, Pong Planet is an okay place to play. The people that play there are actually quite personable and there are usually always free tables. James ( the owner) was always nice and went out of his way to greet people that came in. However, Daniel just makes this place not worth going to. It makes it worse that this guy is an assistant GM. He singlehandedly caused three members to quit just because he did everything possible to not honor three 30 minute lessons.

Ezra

Excellent staff and facility. The instructors are very talented, and great at coaching. My teacher was Daniel, and he has been very helpful. They have regular tournaments and open play for players not getting lessons.

Gang X

This is a great place to learn table tennis, play table tennis, and make good friends. I have played many many years, unfortunately pretty bad, table tennis. Starting from last Aug, I started to learn from coach Daniel once every week. During other time, I either practice at home or go there to play with any player available. Recently I find it extremely helpful to find some similar level players to practice together, especially the fundamentals that need a lot of time to fix/improve. I like to keep doing this for a few more years to see how much I can fix my old bad habits and improve my table tennis. The process is slow and long, but a lot of fun, when everyday you improve a little bit. Of course, the process will create some good amount of sweating, which help control the body weight as well, as a nice side effect.

Mike Greffen

A friendly club with a vibrant drop-in culture. Nicely spaced tables with high ceilings and a good floor. Daniel is a fantastic teacher, patient and very knowledgeable. A great place to learn and hone your skills!

Chris H

Good players. Friendly. People playing late on weekdays. Comfy couches and cheap sports drinks in the lounge. I'm taking a weekly class there from Amy and my game has improved remarkably. Seems really authentic, there is an enormous PRC flag on the wall next to an equally enormous USA flag. I'm going to sign up for another series of classes.

Spencer

Shoutout to Coach James. During our 1 hour private training session he intuitively explained all the nuances and subtleties behind the strokes. Nice high ceilings and great lightning. I will definitely be back again.

Frank Ciongoli

The staff at PongPlanet Table Tennis Club went above and beyond in helping me host a large corporate event at the facility for over 50+ individuals. The facility was nice and everyone had a great time. Keep up the good work!