Decided to have my daughters 5th birthday party at Main Event last month and was ecstatic about the package. Someone helps moderate the kids bowl, gets them all set up, takes you to a party room after, feeds them, they clean up and then send them out to the arcade. Pretty low muss, low fuss for the parents and adults.... SOUNDS GREAT!
Here's more of how it ACTUALLY went:
Arrived when they told us to, waited 15 minutes for the lanes to be ready- no biggie. Get the kids shoes and get them set up on lanes (2 of them) and get them going with bumpers and ramps. Little shaky- but got it going. Then our party host disappeared... New kids were showing up, needing shoes and needing to be added to the lanes... Okay, don't stress... we got this. Then the party host on the lanes next to us decided to take one of the ramps from one of the two lanes we were bowling with and make us share the one. Why? who knows. Turns out they had more behind the desk, but she just didn't feel like going to get them. Who do we complain to? Who will help us right now? that would be our ever-absent party host. Finally she comes back. Kids are bored and ready to get to the room to eat pizza and cake, which its about that time. She moves us to right behind the lanes and tells us that we will have to wait as our room isn't ready yet... ummm... okay? As we are huddled with a group of 10+ 5 year olds right behind the lanes they are rushing in the next party to the lanes and madness ensues. Kids are fighting, parents are glaring... just becoming a disaster. *Rooms ready now* we all file back to the room and I am just filled with relief that the stressful part is over, until I see the size of the room. This is like the size of one of those one bedroom efficiency apartments in new york. I mean, we are talking parents are having to stand out in the hallway because they cannot fit in the room with their children.... Turns out ONCE AGAIN they had a planning error on their part and had to split off a room with a partition because another party was held over too long as well... We had to pull chairs from another room and put them in the doorway and the hallway so parents could sit for a minute and eat the pizza we provided for them (at 15 bucks a pizza mind you).
When checking out I decided to just try to get the hell out of dodge and pay my tab and be done with the place, but the manager asked if everything was alright after seeing I was quite obviously not happy. He told me he'd give me a slight discount (thankfully) and send me some coupons for free bowling so we can come back and be satisfied. I assumed there would be at least two coupons for bowling. 2 weeks roll by and I get 1 bowling coupon and laser tag coupons. I have arthritis in my knees (yes I am only 24) but I do NOT play laser tag and I guess I am of the mindset that if you tell someone you are sending them multiple bowling coupons... that's what you should do.
I called to talk to the GM this morning, and I should have just saved my breath. He couldn't have cared less. I told him I didn't want more coupons- and wouldn't give him my address- it would just have been nice to hear that MAYBE this isn't standard, or maybe that they cared...
Moral: don't bother having a birthday party here, and don't bother coming here if you want any sort of customer service... non-existent. This is the place you come to if you want gross food and overpriced entertainment all conveniently located under one roof.
Sad part is- we used to come here alot despite it being so pricey and always so busy, but not anymore.
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