Melissa H.
Yelp
Ice-skating bowlers rejoice! What a great find this place is!! On our last night touring London, the hubs and I decided to check out this spot and were completely amazed to find a decent-sized rink and lots of bowling lanes, not to mention a bar and lots of restaurant seating.
The hubs wanted to bowl, but they were slammed and didn't have any lanes available for well over an hour, which was no biggie--I decided to skate in the meantime.
It's been YEARS since I rented ice skates, so I was a little nervous about what I would find. Thankfully, the rental skates fit fine and were much lighter than the ones I recall from the 90s. I was easily the oldest person at the rink, but it was super fun. While we were there, they had only half the rink available for skating (the other half was being used by amateur curlers who seemed to have no idea what they were doing but were clearly having fun), so skating was half price at £8.50. Not bad! Some skaters were holding hands, falling regularly, and generally obstructing traffic, but it wasn't too terrible and I was surprised that I skated for nearly an hour before my stomach started to tell me it was time to eat.
After returning my skates, I checked out the bar where I ordered the Inedit Damm "spiced" lager at the bartender's suggestion. It wasn't at all what I would call spiced, but it was good enough, so I had two. It was almost time to bowl, but when I learned there was only a limited menu at the bowling lane that didn't include any of the dinner items that the hubs and I had been eyeing (delicious chicken wings/monkey fingers, fries, onion rings, fried pickles, hot dogs, etc.), I asked my friendly bartender if I could order take-away. He said no problem and then asked where I could be found when my order was ready. I sheepishly explained I'd be bowling and he said it was no trouble to bring it to us there. Great service!
Bowling is a different story. It's quite pricey to bowl--about £20 for one game, no matter if you have one or four people. When I found the hubs at our lane, our names had already been entered on the screen by the front desk, so all we had to do was bowl. The bowling ball weights were in pounds, but all we could find were 6- and 10-pound balls (I prefer 8 lbs). Right away a server approached and the hubs ordered a white Russian milkshake. Hands-down the worst part of the night was that we had FINISHED our game and he still never received his drink! I felt so badly for him (also because I beat him pretty good in bowling and he could not cry in his drink because he didn't have one).
We asked what the hold up was on the drink and learned the server never put in the order. WHAT?! Yeah, I got and finished the second beer I ordered but he got nothing. We wanted to play another game since we still had plenty of food to eat and he was waiting to get his first drink of the night, so I went to the front desk. Since there appeared to only be bowlers at every other lane, it seemed we'd be able to play another game right away (for another £20--ouch), but the front desk said it would be nearly another hour before the next open reservation. I went ahead and purchased the game since I didn't want to risk waiting any longer, but when I delivered the news to the hubs, he was bummed and we knew neither of us really had the energy to bowl another game when the morning alarm was going to be coming soon and the train to Heathrow was departing early.
I got a little pushback from the front desk when I told them I'd have to cancel the second game, but the manager was friendly enough and recalled that I'd spent an hour on the ice before we got to bowl our first game, so he was somewhat sympathetic and gave me the refund with no issues.
This place would do well to make the bowling more efficient and ensure bowlers are actually using their lanes at the appointed time. It seems wasteful that so many lanes were dark and empty while we sat there ready to play but couldn't.
While I certainly had a fun night and would recommend you check out this spot, even if it plays to mostly a young local crowd, I recommend you temper expectations with the bowling and drink table service (the hubs was pretty ticked that the check included gratuity without our permission, especially with the serious screw-up).