S S.
Yelp
I unfortunately had the worst experience imaginable as a parent when throwing my son's birthday party this past weekend. Imagine coming to the location and it's pitch dark inside and doors are closed. I called the Event Coordinator 30+ times to let them know my guests should be arriving soon and no one is here at the Irving location. When I finally got a call back after texting the number, they got someone to finally open the door. In that time I had so many guests and kids all waiting outside now for over 30 mins. Humiliation and embarrassment is an understatement. I have never seen such unprofessionalism from a venue. Their response was that the general manager had a medical emergency but why they were relying on only one person to open the door is mind boggling. They knew there was an event at 10am so that means no workers or anyone would have been there at the time of the event. They compensated me by only making me pay the 50% deposit that I had paid upfront and not having to pay the remaining 50%. That still doesn't compensate me for the unprofessionalism and common courtesy to own up to their huge mistake. Workers were extremely rude, incompetent, and barely seemed like they want to be there. I asked the worker 4 times to see when the Orbit, ziplining, and other areas would be open and they just kept saying they don't have enough people here. Again, you have a child's birthday party and the owner was aware so why they weren't staffed for my event, I have no clue. Their speaker system wasn't working when I asked to even make the announcement to have the kids go up to the party room so we had to go around the entire venue to make sure we got everyone from our party so that they didn't miss out. They wouldn't compensate me for my event planner having to stay extra when she was perfectly on time and followed their rule of set up time at 9:45am. When I asked for the pitchers of water for my guests as the Event Coordinator had said we would get, she didn't get it out for another 30 mins. I had a guest wanting to buy a water bottle and she wouldn't open the snack area in the back. Luckily I had brought my own water bottles, overheard this conversation, and was able to get some water for my guest's daughter. Overall extremely unprofessional owner. I would never book a party at this location again.
UPDATE: I am entitled to post reviews so do not mention false allegations of threat. I don't agree that it was 15 minutes but since you claimed and threatened of videos disproving me, I will tell you that it was closer to 10:25-10:30. Even then, 1 minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes is absolutely unacceptable. I never thought to ask for 100% compensation, however another manager there thought that to be fair and said he spoke with the "OWNERS" (which is where I am getting that word from for your information) would only give me 50%. Hopefully you as a manager and others that were there can learn from this to avoid this as there were so much more that could have been done to ensure a smooth sailing event even after the unprofessional late start i.e. making sure all attractions are open, water is already out, speakers are working, proper staff in place and ready to work, and not relying solely on one person to open a venue. At 9:45am, I was calling repeatedly to desperately find someone to talk to to find out what's going on. Instead, it should have been you or the Event Coordinator (just so everyone is aware is not at the event to actually coordinate the event and was completely unaware of what had even happened) to make sure doors have been opened possibly having a confirmation call check with the opening manager assigned that the venue is ready prior to client and guests' arrival. I would assume the opening manager gets there much earlier so not hearing from this manager would have given you a much earlier notice that there was something wrong. A lot could have been done to avoid this and it wasn't so just making others aware.
UPDATE to their second response: Again, that is a lie that I verbally said that. It's a shame that a business would not own up to their mistakes. I have NEVER gone to a birthday party where the host is standing outside waiting for the venue to open. Such an embarrassment for a business. Their response is that this has never happened before but unfortunately one time is too many for an incident like this to occur. Instead of owning up to this, they are continuing to post about the same thing that's not even true and not even acknowledge the other valid points I mentioned which speaks to their unprofessionalism. All I ask is that you consider changing some of your policies so that another parent doesn't have to go through this.