We decided to book a birthday party at this location for my 6 year old son. We also have a membership for our two kids and have gone a handful of times over the past 2 months. When we wanted to book the party, the staff didn't have any idea about what the party included or anything about booking. They instructed us to go online. So we booked the party online and paid the deposit. Today, we had the party. We showed up at 2:00 like the instructions said (half hour early), and stood at the counter. The employee checking us in was scrambling to find out paperwork and initially said we would be in one of the fenced areas. We reminded him we paid for a room, and then he looked at the paperwork again and realized the mistake. He then told us the room would be available the last hour (4:30) and to return at 4:15 to start setting up.
We returned at 4:15. I stood at the counter for 5+ minutes without any assistance. Multiple employees were seen in the back high-fiving, doing secret handshakes, and messing around. I made eye-contact with an employee wearing a black polo shirt, and he didn't come over to ask if I'd been helped. Finally, three employees came to the birthday counter and I asked one of them which room our party was in. He began scrambling through some crumbled up papers and said we were in room 3. All our balloons and party items were still on the cart behind the counter and hadn't been touched. At this point, it was 4:23 and the website says that the party host will handle all of the set up and clean up for the room. Nothing had been touched and I asked the employee if we could take the stuff to the room to start setting up. He gave me a blank stare and said he wasn't sure. He then walked away towards the kitchen and came back a few minutes later. He told another employee something and that employee mouthed the word "Shit" to the other employee. My assumption based on what I saw is no one had begun to set up the room. I asked if we could start setting up since we were told to start setting up 15 minutes before. His reply that we are supposed to set up 5 minutes before, even though it was the same employee who told us to come back 15 minutes before start time. So I told him I would come back in 3 minutes at 4:25.
I came back to the counter at 4:30 and stood there another 5 minutes because no one was there. Then at around 4:35, they said the room was ready. We went to the room and were told the pizzas would be ready in 5 minutes and he would bring us the drinks. Pizzas didn't show up till 5 and we didn't get drinks until a few minuets before pizza. The "party host" delivered the pizzas and drinks, and provided us some candles. The candles were the only thing he did extra and seemed to actually care about. Then at 5:20, the party host asked us if we wanted to check out then and pay. 10 minutes before out scheduled hour that we were late getting to.
CONCLUSION:
In the end, the staff at this location is full of teenager and young adults. Many of them don't seem to care about giving the customer a good experience. Many of them care more about socializing with other employees and friends. The bathrooms were disgusting, the floors are dirty, the place is a mess. This experience SUCKED and I will never give them my money. We paid a lot of money for the top-tier birthday package and got a room with some tables. That's it. The party host sucked, the employees suck, this place sucks. The only reason this place is still in business is because they have cool trampolines and other equipment other jump places don't have. But when those places get some better equipment, DEFY will go out of business. Unless they change some things, this place will not survive.
When checking out, a manager asked if I wanted to leave the party host a tip, to which I laughed. He asked about the experience and I told him many of the things I have described here. He asked if it was because they were busy and I told him we have had similar bad experiences when we have gone mid-week with the staff. They don't care. They are there to collect a paycheck and don't care about anything else than the bare minimum. I don't believe my review will be a surprise to the management or owners based on what this supervisor said.
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