Sparkles Family Fun Center

Sparkles is a mismanaged disaster of an establishment. We went on MLK day and found out there they were having a "12 and under for free day" so there was a line of people waiting to get in at 1:00 when they opened. The people at the front counter were spending 5-15 minutes for each family or group to get in. After waiting in line for about 45 minutes we noticed that they started taking people from the BACK of the line and bringing them in the exit to pay at a different register. These were people who had only been in line a few minutes. We suggested they take people from the font of the line but the employee insisted that their way was better so I asked to speak with the manager since the crowd was getting angry. The manager never came to speak with us. Once we finally got in the front door I sought out the manager to ask why he never came out and he told me that he was too buy. I commented to him that he was busy letting in people from the back of the line and he agreed that's what he was doing. I told him that made no sense and he told me it made sense to him. It seems that he was more concerned with people leaving because the line was long and he would lose revenue.

next topic, skate rental: for some reason they will only take 1 shoe from you when you rent skates. I ask them to take both and I was told to to get a locker for the other shoe. Why? There is clearly room for them to store both my shoes where they just took 2 skates from? I suppose this is just to make money off the lockers. Of course, when we tried to get quarters to pay for the locker we were told that they were all out of quarters. Note that they were only open for about an hour. So, everyone just leaves their shoes and coats laying all over the place. This is a BIG safety hazard. The actual skate I rented worked pretty well but the wheels could have been cleaned.

Next topic, Laser Tag: We paid for 2 games of laser tag. This was fun but not without it's own set of issues. First game there were no score sheets available afterwards so we were told if we needed to look at the score read out on the gun and remember it. My score was about 9000. Next game, my gun wouldn't work on some of the targets. I told the employee and he told me I wasn't hitting the right spot. I stood still and tested the gear with another player and I couldn't kill him but he could easily kill me with a single shot. My final score was about 4000. the gear is clearly inconsistent so don't plan on playing a serious game here. They did, however, have score sheets for the second game.

Next topic, Merchandising: Every 10 minutes there's another special coming over the PA that's going to expire in 5 minutes. It just seems that they are pushing all kinds of crap all the time. Also, the fire alarms were going off every 5 minutes and they couldn't get that to stop.

Next topic, Skate Return: I noticed that they didn't disinfect my skate when they gave them to me or when they were returned. Nasty.

Next topic, Water: No water fountain in the place. You are forced to wait in a 10 minute line to buy a 25 cent cup of water at the concession stand in a styrofoam cup. An unnecessary environmental abuse.

Overall, the place in decorated nicely with a good amount of lights and wall murals but all this is lost is the experience with the employees is lousy.