Hollywood Bowl Bolton — Attraction in Bolton

This review is based on the arcade area only which is operated by Hollywood Bowl. After doing a spot of shopping at the Middlebrook retail park with my 5 year old daughter she spotted the arcade and in a very excited manner asked if she could go in and play some games. I agreed but unfortunately the experience turned in to a nightmare. The arcade has video game machines and games of chance where you can win tickets (ticket arcades spoil a lot of the fun and are not value for money but a lot of the arcades have moved to this) Upon arrival we found that about 30% of machines had signs saying the games were out of order a little bit dissopointing but we proceed to play. I exchanged a £20 note at a vending machine and instantly felty luck as a lady said that she had inserted some money but didn't get any change. We then proceeded to play on some machines only to find the first 2 took the money but didn't work. No attendent in site. Not wanting to waste time we played on another machine and won some tickets. My daughter was excited and wanted to try and win some more. We went on the 10 pin bowling machine and between us did a good job and was due a lot of tickets only it didn't pay out and said it had run out of tickets. I asked around a few members of staff and the passed me on to reception who wasent interested and said they would send someone over 15 minutes later my daughter was board and we tried another machine near by, same issue. After a few more plays we managed to win about 500 tickets. You can't get anything of any value with 500 tickets but a 5 year old child is always excited to receive a prize. We finally headed towards the ticket machine to convert the tickets to a receipt to collect a prize. After inserting a long line of tickets and watching the machine chomp them up and count them part way through the machine bloke down. What a surprise. Not a staff member in site. Please avoid at all costs, its a waste of time and money. If your worried about covid_19 your mental health probably...

If I could give it a 0 I would. I come here twice a week with my 2 daughters came today and my daughter wanted one of the stuffed octopus teddy’s in a machine, now I know these machines are set to only pay a teddy out after every £30-£50 which is fine I was happy enough to play and pay that much seeing as my daughter wanted the teddy so much, when I’d put over £70 in the machine was paying out and the teddy bounced of the plastic instead of down the prize shoot. It did this twice on the second time a member of staff saw it and called her supervisor over to see if he would give us a teddy, he said “I don’t have the keys” so couldn’t give us what we’d played and paid for! Which is aload of rubbish as the lady before him showed us the key. So I asked to speak to the manager when he started getting very rude, he then said “I will but it’s pointless she’ll tell you the same” we carried on playing till she got there which ended us putting another £15 in, she said until the teddy goes into the hole it’s not a win. Well if the teddy went in the hole I wouldn’t have a problem would I! £85 I put in and the lady after me put £20 in and still didn’t win, so the machine is set to only pay out after over £100+ which is daylight robbery and illegal, I will be going to trading standards money grabbing greedy people will never be returning utter theifs.

Not to mention every other...

Normally have a great night with friends but after a run in with a very rude adenee ruined the night, asked for assistance and she initially came to help but then walked off without checking it worked. So had to go find help again, unfortunately same lady came back and just walk up to me and rudely said "I told you this machine is working", took all my inner power not to be sarcastic and I explained in a polite tone its not working and still showing error. It took the very helpful and pleasant manager to get her to help us if you call it that. The machine wasn't dispensing the 129 tickets that we had won she then proceeded to rip off a small amount of tickets and throw them at us, I tried to explain that this was not the same amount as what we had won she rudely told me that she wasn't counting the tickets manually for us after some convincing she the rip a bit more of and threw them at us all the while her face was plastered was one of irritation, she clearly did not want to be there. Though I did get some lovely help from the manager helping me get cards out of a machine that haven't dropped out, the manger was very helpful and I thank her for helping so much but the other staff member seem like she couldn't be bothered with helping anyone and that if she had to it was a great...