For a facility that holds birthday parties regularly I was surprised at how many potholes there were on the road towards having fun.
I believe the staff needs to be a bit more educated about cakes; strange since they should be familiar with them. Their rule is 'It must be a traditional cake.' Please define 'traditional'? I didn't find this clear, and actually neither did anyone else I related this episode to. Apparently that means it cannot be an ice cream cake. Perhaps it would be clearer to change the rule to "It cannot be an ice cream cake"? Okay, that's all well and good, we don't make ice cream cakes, but when someone makes a fondant 3-D roller skate cake over the course of three days (watch the television show 'Ace of Cakes' if you need a reference point for how much work this entails) and transports it in their car nearly 25 miles (not an exceptionally easy task), they probably want to carry it in and put it on the table themselves. Wouldn't you? Watch a Food Network cake challenge if you want to see how devastating it can be to spend all that time (& $!) on a cake and have something happen to it while moving it- even just from one table to the next. Even if the cake in question is a store bought sheet cake from the grocery store- someone took time (& $!) ordering it and transporting it. Respect that; why wouldn't you let them carry in the cake and leave? Seriously? This should not even be an issue. I can't remember ever having a problem bringing a cake into a building before. Ignorant people abound, common courtesy suggests holding the door open for someone carrying any large object. Friendly people usually hold doors open and ask lots of engaging questions about how the cake was made. Cake is usually shared all around- pieces going to staff and other affable people. It's natural wanting to share cake with pleasant folks.
Yes, I should have called to confirm. Gosh, if I had known it would have saved me any misery I would have called 10 times! Somehow, I still think there would have been problems. I can't imagine why I wouldn't have looked forward to calling again, since the first phone call to even organize this whole shindig was so pleasant. I must have been the first in the history of Lynden Skateway Birthday parties to not have called back to repeat the exact same thing I had originally said in the first phone call. Too bad they didn't have my contact information to give me a quick ring since it was imperatively important- oh wait... they did. I saw it in the binder when I visited the prior week.
Literally everything was a struggle- from reserving a party to paying money ($!). And then after all of that, I must admit, enjoying myself was a struggle. The theme of the night seemed to be "Why is this hard? This shouldn't be hard... Why is this hard?" I guess you can get away with treating paying customers like this when there aren't too many other roller skating operations around. It's probably unwise though, since the customers in question would have otherwise happily spent MUCH more of their hard earned dollars ($!) in their facility. Funny how young adults without children have all this expendable income. If my friends and I return, we sure would appreciate less epic battles over every little thing and more fun. Thank goodness I absolutely love roller skating and the company of my friends, or I would have had the worst birthday party (or party in general?) of my life. Skating, Music, Cake, & Friends- 5 stars! Everything else.... sorry, but comparatively to all other birthday experiences, I feel I'm being more than extremely generous with 1 star; unweighted average for the overall experience totals 3 stars. It's not where you go, but who you're with that really matters. If things like this frustrate me, I usually say "I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed," but in this case it was honestly both. Very sad. read more