I had a birthday party for my five year old here from 5-7 PM on Saturday, November 12, 2011. Things went wrong from the time of booking the party online.
A representative called 48 hours prior to the party to verify my booking and what I wanted. At that time, everything was correct. Upon arriving, I find that the booking was messed up, the party area was not cleaned very well at all from the previous party and the service from our hostess and other staff members was absolutely horrible.
First of all, the birthday party area is WAY too crowded with tables crammed in tightly to fit as many people/parties in that area as possible. There was cake icing, ice cream and other things all over the carpet when we arrived. It was disgusting.
Our party hostess left a great deal to be desired. Our party had 11 children and 14 adults. She set the table for the kids but did nothing for the adults. She took no orders for food/drinks for the adults and I had to go and order everything separately at the cashier. The pizzas came out and were almost eaten completely by the time the appetizer came out. I ordered pitchers of lemonade for the kids and pitchers of soda/lemonade for the adults. Our hostess brought ONE pitcher for 11 kids and brought nothing for the adults. She left and was no where to be found for over a half hour. When I did find her, she was working behind the prize counter and paying no attention to the parties she was supposed to wait on.
I went to three different staff members asking for assistance in getting the drinks and all three said they'd be right over but did nothing. I managed to get an employee to give me two pitchers which I carried myself to the soda fountain machine, only to have a different staff member stop me in my tracks, take away the pitchers and say she'd bring the drinks right over. 25 minutes went by and still no drinks. I was pissed. Though the kids were having fun with playing games and eating pizza, all the adults were upset.
Finally, I was able to get drinks for the adults but by that time the food had been eaten and half of the adults went and bought their own separate drinks at the cashier just to be able to get a drink. So...I paid for 14 adults to have drinks and that went out the window.
About 40 minutes were left in our 2 hour party time window and nothing had been done about Chuck E. coming out for a party so I tracked down my original hostess and asked for plates and silverware in order to serve the cake - which I brought myself from an outside bakery and I was charged for a Chuck E. Cheese sheet cake in the end - but that's another story.
I called to verify with management earlier in the week that I could bring an outside cake and was told yes. Our hostess gave me attitude because I brought a two layer cake instead of a sheet cake which apparently was more difficult for her to cut because it was bigger. She picked up the cake and began to carry it away from the birthday girl and all her friends because she said she was going to cut it in the kitchen instead. Another mom and I stopped her because we didn't want her to take the birthday child's cake away just after she blew out the candles and all the kids were expecting to get cake. She mangled the cake trying to cut it with a plastic picnic-type knife. Now with all the cakes this place has to help cut, you would hope to goodness that they would invest in a larger plastic knife and not use something so flimsy.
I originally ordered about 28 cups of ice cream. Very few adults took any and about half the kids did. I asked if the hostess could take back the unopened cups of ice cream and credit our account but she said no. So I walked around and handed out ice cream cups to other people at other tables just so it wouldn't go to waste. There was about $20 of ice cream.
Our tab was charged for a sheet cake which we didn't take. I went back to the cashier after noticing the error on the receipt. She told the manager who preceded to not correct the error herself but passed off the duty to another staff member. Two staff members argued between each other about how I did or did not have a Chuck E. Cheese sheet cake. One didn't believe me so I told her she could come to the table to see my bakery cake still there. She ended up taking the sheet cake off my account but instead of crediting my credit card she gave me the money back in cash. Guess she didn't know how to do it correctly.
The kids played the games with their tokens and several of the machines ate the tokens and gave nothing in return - no game started, no tickets printed out, etc. The ticket-counting machine didn't work and ate tickets without giving a credit slip for the prizes. After several parents notified the manager, only did he try to fix anything.
The only thing good about having a birthday party here was there is enough parking in the lot and an adjacent parking garage and the pizza is better than just average. read more