I don't think I can say I've ever had a bad experience at a McDonald's, even at the drive-through, but our recent visit to this McDonald's wasn't stellar. We'd just celebrated my son's 4th bday at the Brunswick Zone right down the street. We were all hot and sweaty from playing mini-golf out in the 80 degree heat, and stopped at McDonald's before heading home to get the kids something cool to drink and take advantage of the 49-cent cones.
It was around 4pm and it was pretty busy. This McDonald's has an indoor PlayPlace and it was pure chaos inside the PlayPlace. I love children, I really really do and I'm usually very patient with them. I have two of my own, and I tote my niece and nephew around with us whenever we can, but there were tons of screaming, loud-arse kids running around and inside the play area this day. The kinds of kids that make me NOT like kids. Many of them without socks. It's a standard PlayPlace rule that kids must wear socks in the play area. I question the parents who let their kids walk around barefoot in public places at all, but also the McDonald's staff for not monitoring activities more closely. We've been to other MCD PlayPlaces where they will kick you out if you don't have socks, or make you buy some (if they carry them).
Our kids begged us to let them play and despite the kid chaos, I would have been willing to let them if I didn't also notice how filthy it was inside. Filthy. That's a strong word that I don't use often, but it's all I can say about this particular PlayPlace, on this particular day. We do love McDonald's in general and we scope out the PlayPlace locations specifically, and this was by far the dirtiest play area we've ever seen for a McDonald's. Disappointing. Not only was there food strewn around the floors (for barefooted kids to step on), but also on the play equipment (ketchup on one slide and on the shoe cubby!). Everything looked 'sticky.' Again, I blame the parents for letting their kids bring food with them on the play equipment, but also McDonald's for not keeping watch. And don't even get me started on the family bathroom located in the play area (that barefooted children were using)...ugh, gross. We used the regular bathrooms in the main restaurant (decent). The play area itself is geared towards older kids, at least 5 and up, slides and tunnels.
We took a seat at the tables that were in the middle of the restaurant - behind the order counter, in front of the playplace entrance, and next to the soda fountain. We had a pretty good view of all the goings-on within the place. The soda fountain area was sticky and messy. Straw wrappers strewn about, ice sitting on the counters melting, and splatters of the different beverages just waiting to be cleaned up.
There were two young ladies taking orders behind the counter. There were 6 adults, 4 children in our party. We each ordered soft-serve ice cream: some in cups, some in cones, 2 large fries, and soft drinks. Not that difficult an order right? Wrong. It took 20 minutes to get our orders out. 20 minutes. 20 minutes for ice cream, soda fountain CUPS (it's self-serve!), and 2 large fries.
My younger brother was with us, he worked at a McDonald's in high school and all he could do was shake his head...they just didn't have it together here. I stayed back at the tables with the kids, but when the others didn't return with our orders after 10 minutes, I went up to the counter to check on them. I saw the soda fountain cups sitting on one of the trays and asked if I could get started on those...I got a fierce shake of the head 'No!' from my brother's gf. She whispered that if we took it off the tray, it would confuse them...because they kept coming back to the tray to check and re-check the orders (and count and re-count the cups). LOL!
So finally, we get all our things...we fill our soda cups. We sit down and enjoy the ice cream, when suddenly, we hear a "SIR! SIR!" coming from the order counter. The young lady who helped us previously was looking at my husband impatiently, holding out a soda cup and cone (he'd gone back to order extra)...we'd already received this and he told her so. At that point, we all laughed, including the young lady. So, okay, we all end up with a good sense of humor about it, but c'mon. This is McDonald's...they should have their processes down-pat.
This location is not near to us, and fortunately it's not our neighborhood location because I'm reluctant to go back. But the food and ice cream was good, so I can't just give them one-star. Love that at least, the food is usually consistent no matter what McDonald's we go to. read more