BonaVenture Skating Center - Always Clean - Family Friendly - Fun Park - Birthday Parties — Attraction in Farmington Hills

I had been to Bonaventure for a kids' birthday party last year and was given a few buy-one-get-one-free admission pass cards, So I decided to take my two boys over there today (Saturday morning session).

Worst decision EVER. Here's why:

1). As others have pointed out, everything is over-priced. Sorry to speak of another rink in a Bonaventure review, but Bonaventure charges $3 for popcorn, a full $2 more than where I normally go - Northland Roller Rink. Same for the hotdogs. What's with these prices? Am I at the movies?

2). Too many games. This is how I know automatically that Bonaventure is not a place for serious skaters. Is this a roller rink or a Chuckee Cheeses?

3). The floor is WAY to slick. It's like someone sprinkled baby powder all over it. I noticed a couple of spots on the floor where old polyurethane remained - from the days back when it had a 'proper' finish. Other than that, the floor appears to be virtually bare! This is inexcusable. I couldn't even perform to my fullest today because the floor was to slick for my wheels to grip. Put a proper finish on your floor, Bonaventure!

4). The music is awful. Not awful if you're a pre-pubescent girl with no sense of rhythm or pre-adolescent boy on a sugar rush. But insanely, indefensibly, intolerably awful if you came to actually, ummmm, I don't know... SKATE to a comprehensible BEAT!?!?

5). The floor guards are a joke. I fully understand that kids just learning to skate will often skate opposite the flow of traffic. Kids are just dense that way. Mine included. But the floor guards did NOTHING to stem the tide of kid after kid after kid who put both themselves and others in harm's way by skating blindly into oncoming skaters and cutting across the middle of the floor.

6). Which brings me to my final and equally as important critique: The skating "Crutches" they charge $5 for kids to use in a backwards attempt to help teach them balance. I CRINGED when I saw those things. I literally stood there shaking my head watching as unknowing parents put their kids on these things thinking they were doing them a favor. These devices DO NOT teach balance. They teach dependence. Anyone who uses these for prolonged periods of time will develop a dependence which will make it very difficult to learn balance on their own. Parents: This is NOT how your kids will learn to skate. Like modern luxury cars that parallel park themselves (hence, reinforcing and rewarding ones lack of basic driving skills) these 'walkers' will ruin your child's ability to learn for themselves how to balance themselves on skates. Stop worrying about them falling. That's going to happen. That's how they learn what not to do.

I must add one more point: Bonaventure, stop letting patrons walk across the floor in their shoes. No roller rink worth it's salt lets people come out on the floor without skates. That's Roller Rink 101, people.

Finally, let me qualify my comments by saying that I am an old-school free-style roller skater. Quads, never blades. I've had my boys taking lessons for the past couple of months at the same place I took lessons when I was a kid (Northland Roller Rink), but figured I'd give Bonaventure a go this one Saturday. Never...

Summary: over priced, horrible customer service, no table space, dirty bathrooms.

When we first walk in, I’m floored by the high prices. For those not skating it cost $6 with is supposed to come with a few arcade credits. We approach Conner, who is working at the front desk. He keeps telling me my total before I can finish letting him know what we need. He charged us $6 for not skating, but didn’t charge anyone else for not skating. When I confronted him, he stated they must have said they were with a birthday party. Which was untrue, there were five other adults in our group who didnt get charged. 20 minutes later I asked him how we use our arcade credits, he said to use our cards. I informed him that he never gave us cards. He then asked for my receipt, so I walked all the way back to the table and came back to the front window. I handed Conner my receipt and he asked why I was giving it to him. After looking at the receipt, he read off everything we paid for and said we didn’t get arcade credits. I pointed out the price sign and he said he had to get a manager. We went to get the skates and trainers we rented. We were given skates and no trainers. When I asked for the trainers, I was asked for the receipt, that she kept after getting the skates. They is limited tables. We ordered four pizzas, chicken, and four pitches of pop. When our food was on the cart, Conner came up to us and took the cart with our food on it. There’s no table space to place the food. We were standing there holding trays of pizza and pitches of pop. After skating was over. I returned the skates to get the shoes back. The lady gave me the wrong kids shoe. There’s no organization. The bathrooms are disgusting. The food wasn’t good. The carpet needs cleaned. I have $10 in arcade credits I will never use because I’d rather trash them then spend...

I started to come here occasionally a little before 2010 and every weekend for 3 years until COVID hit. Unfortunately sometime during COVID a lot of the employees left and the place has sadly been on a decline ever since.

The first major issue I noticed was that they stopped cleaning the floor consistently which get really bad in the winter because parents will walk with their children while having their outdoor shoes on and this causes it to get slippery.

Another big issue is lack of supervision by the staff. Kids will take toys and candy that they won from the arcade games and just drop stuff in the middle of the rink. Can’t count how many times I’ve picked up a Now and Later wrapper or seen a kid play with their bouncy ball or some other toy paying no mind to those around them. The staff also don’t collect the skate helpers (triangular white PVC thing with wheels you can grab onto for balance) when kids leave them by the entrance to the rink or even worse right in the middle of it.

On top of all of the negative things like other businesses the prices went up (general admission, I have my own skates so I don’t know rental prices) increasing a couple of dollars during COVID.

Overall the experience isn’t what it used to be and with the price steadily increasing over the years it just isn’t worth it anymore.

The reason I gave it a two star and not a one is because if you have children and don’t mind spending the money they’d enjoy it. They play kid friendly music, have arcade games, and a play structure for...