Aloha — Attraction in Amsterdam

I loved the karaoke but the rest of the service and food was terrible. No use of preordering food online since they forgot about our order anyway. I never post bad reviews, but the ruined date that was supposed to let me and my partner finally relax, is instead getting my first bad review ever. full story below.

When we arrived, we filled out the form. I asked if I could also order fries with the 24 nuggets that I ordered during the online reservation, because we wanted to leave immediately after the karaoke. A staff member told me that I can order them from the karaoke booth. The employee led us to the karaoke booth and explained how it works there. The first problem - the code didn't work, I had to leave during karaoke to solve that we couldn't order food. (the employee who escorted me back, told me that the code didn't work because we were supposed to be in another booth) We ordered onion rings afterwards, also hoping that the nuggets would arrive quickly since I pre-ordered them online. One microphone was always significantly quieter. We had to fiddle around with the settings for a while to fix it. 50 minutes in, we received the 7 onion rings that I ordered from the karaoke booth, but not the 24 chicken nuggets that I ordered online during the reservation process. I asked the employee who brought them if they could tell me what's the status with the nuggets - the employee said - no problem. Since we had 10 minutes left in the booth, I realized that the nuggets would come too late if they start making them now, since I wanted to go elsewhere afterwards, so I went to the reception to ask if the nuggets are already being made and if I not, that I wanted to cancel the nuggets and get a refund for them instead. I mentioned not wanting to grab a table, for which I received a look of “let it go, it's going to be out soon” from the employee who was supposed to find out the status of the nuggets (not the reception staff). Since I had only 10 minutes left of karaoke and I still had my partner waiting, I just wanted to be done with it and let it slide because I really didn't want to spend the last 10 minutes of karaoke arguing at the reception. 5 minutes before the end we received a plate of chicken nuggets. We had to grab the full plate along with everything else and find an empty table, because we didn't have time to eat them and I went to return the microphones, to which I learnt we were supposed to be accompanied out of the karaoke booth by an employee to check the status of the booth and another employee was sent there. (This wasn’t communicated before. It felt bad since I couldn’t check if anything was wrong before we started using it and I didn’t want to be stuck with a bill?) We grabbed a table and ate a few of the chicken nuggets, but they tasted like styrofoam. So at the end, almost everything - except the drinks - went wrong that day and we missed the rest of the program for styrofoam...

I had a disappointing experience in Aloha a few weeks ago after visiting before and previously everything was fine.

1st issue is we used the QR code to order food and drinks on the terrace, some drinks arrived but the rest did not and after 25 minutes we needed to go inside and bowl. We told the staff about this and they were accommodating and said they would bring them to our lane (which we had booked for one hour). The food and drink continued to not arrive after asking several times. By the time we had everything we had about 10-15 minutes remaining. They advised the reason for the delay was QR code orders take longer than normal ones.

2nd issue: is they no longer sold one of the items on the menu and it hadn't been taken off. No problem, but we still want the other items which we were still waiting on. The staff brought the cash refund to the lane, then said his hands were wet and would come back later. He never did. When we chased the refund he said he had put it onto our lane account so we could order something else, but this wasn't communicated with us. We only had 10 minutes left of our lane and based on the slow service we just wanted the money back, which we did end up getting in cash. Very strange.

3rd issue: the toilets are marked as gender-neutral, but two men of our group tried to use the toilets and we're shouted at and told to leave because they are for women only.

4th issue: When we got to our bowling lane we tried to stock it with balls of our preferred weight. We were told by staff we were only allowed X amount of balls in the area for safety, fair enough. Then someone in our group tried to add a lighter ball (and then take away a heavier one to not have too many in the area as we were told) and the staff took it out of her hands and refused it to her, even though we were a group of people who all were using light balls and didn't need 3 x 14kg balls that were already in the rack.

Pros: Kitschy vibe, close to Centraal station, big terrace

Cons: Slow service, bad communication from staff, not enough bowling lanes.

Summary: We left unhappy, the visitors were had in Amsterdam were disappointed that we didn't go to the bowling alley in Hoofddorp (which is madness). I'm not sure why so many things went wrong with our visit but they left a sour taste in our...

We organized a birthday party for a bunch of 8yo, bowling, snacks and glow golf. Bowling was nice, although it would be much better to leave 10 mins between bookings otherwise it becomes chaos. Our reservation starts at 14:00, parents drop off their kids 10 mins in advance most times, the previous reservation finishes at 14:00 sharp also and it becomes chaotic when previous kids are coming out, new ones waiting and then going in, cleaning the previous, ordering the new. However the biggest problem was the service. Finished the bowling at 15:00, we had handed over the snacks order to the receptionist way before 15:00 knowing that the kids will be anxious and hungry when done with bowling. 15:15 someone came to ask if we have an order… clearly it was not passed to the kitchen-8 yo were anxious, hungry, complaining and restless waiting on a table with nothing to eat, drink, do. As the food would not come for the next 10-15 mins or so, we asked the receptionist for our desert (they had it in the fridge) so kids can at least have something to nimble. 10 mins later the desert was not at our table (they just had to take it out of the fridge, less than 20 seconds), and when I asked the receptionist why this is happening she asked me to go inside and then someone would bring it. We ended up fighting because myself being at the corridor had nothing to do with someone getting the box from the fridge and putting on the table - btw I spent the whole time around at the corridor for my 2yo that was getting anxious in the big dining room so I was not going inside. We ended up fighting and she was swearing at me when I asked her to do her job. Finally food arrived, no lemonade as included in the package due to rush. After glow golf, lemonade came (syrup on the bottom, water floating, not even stirred and mixed), glasses came after we asked 3 times, water we had to ask for 5 times. I guess the place it was just overbooked and the kitchen staff and waiters overwhelmed but yeah… long story short very bad birthday party experience at least for an age group of 8...