Bongo's Fun Center — Attraction in Fort Walton Beach

Super sad experience tonight. After growing up at this skating rink (both me and my husband) I’ve never felt so disrespected and confused. 1st the girl working the register is very rude and completely out of line, disrespectful making derogatory rude faces not only at me an adult, but at my children. And look, I literally NEVER leave bad reviews, but she’s getting one! . We brought our 3 kids here tonight, driving from Santa Rosa beach through Destin traffic for over an hour. Unaware of the new policies, prior to arrival my husband and I had planned to get dinner while we let the kids skate for and hour 1/2. We Didn’t arrive until 7:30 and it closes at 9 now. Way too early for a skating rink if you ask me, but I digress. Due to their new supervision rules for 15 and under, We canceled dinner plans and decided to grab taco town a few blocks down the road once everyone got in and situated then return straight back as we were STARVING. within minutes my 13 y.o. Daughter called and said they were flagged down and very disrespectfully told to remove their skates, wait up front, and call their mother to PICK THEM UP. literally 2 minutes after I pulled into TACO TOWN to grab some food Togo. I rushed back without my food and When I arrived to Sk8 2 minutes later, I found out my 16y.o. son was also forced to remove his skates and told he can’t skate without an ID showing his age. HES 16 and visibly old enough according to their policies. He also said the lady was rude and talking in his face demanding ID when he told her his age (as if he was being disrespected by stating his age). Mind you, this is a 16 year old, straight A high school student standing 6 foot tall clearly old enough according to their own rules . I just paid $60 10 minutes ago for my kids to skate and was literally making a 5 sec. trip for tacos. This girl “and I mean young adult/child ” was so rude and disrespectful. She disrespected my 11 y.o. child to tears and quite literally had no compassion or cooth. If this is a Christian company, I think they should hire Christian employees that work with a reflection of love and compassion like Christ for the kids that enter their establishment.. This girl was definitely not IT and as a business owner myself I can promise you, she’s most likely a family member/granddaughter to the owner that fell in to an entitlement position, because no one would willingly make that attitude and immature behavior the face of their company by CHOICE through a normal hiring process. As I attempted to explain that I simply was just unaware of the new policies, I received eye rolls and bully type gossiping from a group of immature employees as I was waiting for the food my daughter ordered. Honestly, I felt so bad for the kids b/c they waited all day to go skating but I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.. For someone that’s mother skated at this rink in the 60’s, me in the 80’s and 90s etc.. I was just completely confused. I have so many loved an cherished memories here. I have also celebrated many of my 5 children’s birthday parties here. I have spend plenty of money here. I truly despised the treatment my family received tonight from Sk8. It was actually sad for me. I can respect an establishments rules and strive to live my life with a respectful nature... but this experience was a complete waste of money and we all left from our family outing (15 minutes later and $60 poorer) worse than we arrived feeling very sad, disrespected, bullied and taken advantage of also, out of options as to how to spend our Friday night after an hour 1/2 drive there. Although I made the decision to leave almost immediately after arriving, a refund was refused by this girl. MIND YOU, I have 5 kids and have celebrated my children’s birthdays here for years as a loyal customer ( 30 years. ) This was a bust and I wouldn’t waste my time or money. Terrible customer service. Btw, they expect that the first thing you do upon entering the building with excited and busy kids is stop to read all of their signs... if you don’t you will...

Grew up in this town- seeing they have new owners. You should train your employees better. Came to bring my son and his 3 friends for his 16th birthday. His 3 friends were dropped off to us as they are leaving with us. Because they physically didn’t see them drive with us, she stated with a smirk ya can’t do that. Went to speak to “manager” who hardly looked old enough to run a skating rink. He had a straight attitude- and stated if I chose to walk out and walk back in with them I would forfeit the money we just paid. Not legal what so ever. I understand leaving kids unsupervised. That is not the case. If you have a policy in place- the employee should tell you the rules before selling us something. We would have waited in the parking lot for his friends if that was the case. What a way to ruin a kids birthday and let down your locals. Also you should give receipts to every customer instead of telling us after the fact. And lo and behold at the bottom of the receipt it states no refund of admission if minors left unattended. Where does it show anything about a child exchange with another parent. What if we had a custody agreement and parent could not drop off in front of the other adult? Very big legal issues. As a business owner - these rules should be told before selling tickets. While they may be stated online- next time I’ll make sure to meet at the gas station- so it looks like they drove with me lol....

The stars we gave Ft. Sk8 go to the DJ and to young man who issues skates for customers (Bauer). Both are super nice and make a skating rink what it should be. Outside of that, Ft, Sk8 turned out to be a disappointment, even after given the opportunity to redeem themselves. The counter sales girl made a mistake on a transaction which wasn’t a huge deal, we all make mistakes. However, in seeking to have it corrected she made no attempt to correct it nor did the first crew leader we sought resolution with. We finally, after an hour of wasted skate time (@ $16 a session, had the correction made but only with excuses and no attempt to maybe comp atleast one persons session. When I attempted to get a phone number to call a higher up, we were told to look online for the number and even then, I had to manipulate the recording to be able to speak to someone. Again, my call was handled it seemed almost with ignorance. As if customer resolution never crossed this persons mind. I believe the owner to be a nice reasonable person but all attempts to talk to her were blocked. If we had the option to skate at another rink we would. Made me wonder if they take advantage of knowing they are the sole option for skating in our area. Very disappointed. Thank you DJ and Bauer for being the reason...