My friend recently discovered this place and figured, since I was in town, for us to get some badminton in. In hindsight, since we were going to do a Spartan Beast in West Virginia the following morning, we should have had the good sense to postpone...but I digress. The plan was to play Friday morning from 6:30 to 8:30am, so we reserved Court 1 on their website and paid the ~$60 fee. Seemed simple enough.
We arrived 6:30am on the dot. There wasn't anyone at the front desk, and instead we were greeted with a facial detection camera to allow entry. After our mugshots taken, we went into the court area. Four of the courts on the right side were pretty well lit, while the other three slightly less so. Alas! Court 1 already had people on it. According to one of the players, 6 to 8am were "drop-in hours". The website didn't mention that. Did the reservation system not catch this? Or were we the stooges??
Luckily, there were other courts open, so we weren't too bummed and played singles. This location benefits from having buckets of used birdies for drills and warm-ups. Later on, the other players invited us to play doubles, and we ended up getting our money's worth playing straight sets of six games with minimal breaks. All in all, a good workout was had.
It being summer and everything, I was pleasantly surprised the court was decently ventilated. No complaints about the quality of the courts and general cleanliness either, though the inclusion of a water fountain would have been greatly appreciated. If I'm ever visiting the area again while also not partaking in some grueling physical event the day after, I'll be back. read more