I’ve had great success in saying I’m cancelling/leaving because I’m moving away. I picked a random area I knew wasn’t close to any of their chains and said I loved everything but unfortunately needed to move on. I’ve had 3 different chains immediately end the contract for me over the phone or in person doing this with no hassle.
The time I tried to quit one to swap to another gym, I had to make 3 calls, email multi-paragraph statements of why I was leaving and wait multiple months before they finally stopped charging me.
Excuse me, battle for bikini bottom and the shrek 2 game were FIRE.