Ellenton Ice and Sports Complex — Attraction in Palmetto

You can always tell when a business is all about money. I took my kids to the DJ skate on December 16th and I alway go on a Saturday night for their DJ skate because my girls love it. Well tonight it was so packed that it posed as more of a safety hazard then a night of enjoyment. You have kids stopping in the middle of the rink, standing in the middle of the rink, and skating like crazy past you and in front of you. Young kids acting crazy of course. While I get that I brought my kids to this on my own accord, it has never been this packed on a Saturday night. And I go almost every Saturday night!! So I respectfully asked the general manager Emma for not a refund, but a voucher to bring them on a less chaotic night to finish out only the time we paid for, but didn’t get to enjoy, and she said “no, we don’t give refunds or vouchers”. I said are you serious, have you seen the amount of people you let in? Shouldn’t there be a limit for safety? She said yes and I’m about to stop letting people in soon. Wow, so what’s the limit, if this many people have not reached it yet?! Crazy!!! So, I asked for someone above her. She said there is no one above her, that she is it. So I asked for the owners email or phone number. Well, no one there seemed to know the name or info for the owner. How convenient!! Long story short, this is not okay to allow this many people into an ice skating rink when there are little ones there. All I asked for was a voucher to go on a different night so my girls could enjoy some ice skating. Not a family friendly place. No values, or standards here. Someone is going to get seriously hurt and all for...

When you come here, you will think that minors run this place based on the lack of efficiency and how unkept it is. But you’ll quickly realize almost everyone who works here is adults. It is so dirty, unorganized, and frankly operates like we are still in the Stone Age. You have to show up 20-30 minutes prior to the start of class so you can stand in line just to get your sticker, which is required to get skates, which is required to get on the ice. As a new family that signed up for classes we showed up 5 minutes before only to wait in line for 15 minutes, and since classes are only 30 minutes long, the class was practically over! The line is filled with people trying to fill out paperwork, things that take longer, etc. They will have 5 people behind the counter but only 1 person addressing the line. In this day and age, there are plenty of technology advances that this rink could invest it to make this flow better. For example, you could offer registration online or you could have a QR code that is scanned and will print your sticker. If you don’t want to invest the money, which I can tell they don’t just looking at their facility, maybe just think of better ideas like have registration separate from check in!

Other than that the coaches are fantastic. The rink is great. The classes even went above our expectations. However, they need to update the facility. The bathrooms are terrible, the food in concession is disgusting, and as you walk around you’ll see all the things that are broken, stained,...

UNCARING, UNPROFESSIONAL and UNQUALIFIED staff! Don't waste your time or money here!

The GM, Emma, just reached out to tell me that an AD from "Fun 4 Sarasota Kids" for "free" tickets to their Frozen Ice Show is NOT their advertisement and she's unable to honor it. She is unwilling to apologize for the error or correct the issue, in a customer service capacity.

Then proceeded to insult me and demean me for coming in for the "free" tickets when that was what the AD INSTRUCTED US TO DO! I went down to show them the ad since my phone call only went to voice-mail and no one reached out at that point. Once again, going out of MY way for them to reach out to correct the issue with the third party. There was NO APPRECIATION or APOLOGY!

The fact that this was NOT there ad is besides the point! The way they handled it is atrocious!

The correct response should have been:

" Thank you for bringing this to our attention! We will reach out to handle this with the 3rd party but as a courtesy, we can comp you 2 tickets to the show for the inconvenience. If you want additional tickets you will need to purchase them. Thank you again and we appreciate your interest in our events. Have a good day!" Take a note lady... that's how you handle a situation like this. You're welcome for the free training!

Unprofessional management comes from the top down and clearly the lack of staff training is abundant at...