Andretti Indoor Karting & Games Grand Prairie — Attraction in Grand Prairie

Short version: Logistically, worst birthday party experience ever. Fun, but planning was a pain. I highly DO NOT recommend, unless you want to spend a whole lot of money to be frustrated.

Longer version: Right from the booking process, all the way through execution, everything was bad. After I submitted my booking request, I never heard back. I called them several times for almost 2 weeks before someone finally called me back. Hezekiah was my saleperson and he seemed to not care whether he made this sale or not. I got the sense that they get so much business that they don't feel they need to be prompt or accommodating. The birthday packages are not flexible at all; you can't swap things out based on the needs of your kids. I.e., you can't swap out a junior race if your kid is too short for it, but tall enough for laser tag which was the case for a lot of the kids in the party. The costs and size of the food platters are strict too. If you don't want to spend $90(!!!!) on a platter of fruit for your guests, there are no smaller, cheaper options. The most distressing parts of the reservation are the conditions of the private "VIP" room. First of all, the room does not come decorated. Outside of a few fake plants and some glowing globe centerpieces for the tables, the rooms are bare. You have to purchase your own decorations, AND put them up yourself. Our son wanted a Super Mario themed party so we bought all these decorations and had to figure them out ourselves. Your event manager does not assist with this. For a $500+ mandatory minimum spend, that's NUTS. After spending all that money, we shouldn't have to lift a FINGER. Right when I arrived in the room, Lauren our "event manager" was not helpful nor inviting. Even the way she greeted me felt like she did not want to be there. Lauren was being so difficult and saying no to everything - from bringing in a table for the cake, to moving the water, to helping with decorations, to getting tape. Everything was a "no" from her. I was so upset that she called her manager Ray. When Ray came he offered to help us with the balloons and getting tape, which helped but by then was too late, as time had run out and our party was about to start. Then things got more chaotic when our guests started to arrive. Ppl were coming in and not being allowed up to the room. Lauren was telling ppl they had to wait for the other guests to arrive. That doesn't make sense. Folks are fighting traffic and God knows what else. That shouldn't stop those who are there from going to the party room. Bad experience as they had to just wait around downstairs aimlessly. But here's the worst part - the whole birthday event is about 3 hours long, but you only get the room for an hour. So that means that you don't have a home base for the entirety of your party. Most places, when you book a reservation, you get a space that is reserved for you and your party for the entirety of your reservation. A place where coats, bags, strollers and gifts can be left safely. A place where, if the parents want to take a break from following their kids around, or the kids want to eat, leave their food to go play for a bit and come back, they can. But nope, not Andretti's. At Andretti's you are kicked out of your room after an hour, so if you don't finish your food and cake, or don't want to carry your stuff, too bad. Move it or lose it; they have another party to set up for. And if you want to reserve the room for the other 2 hours of the event you've already reserved, you have to pay for it. On TOP of what you've already paid. I couldn't believe it. Whole thing was so stressful. I hated that I could not relax and enjoy my son's party. I hated that I had to raise my voice at Lauren, our terrible event manager, and lose my cool in front of our guests. This low-quality experience was not at all consistent with the extremely high spend requirement of booking an event here. For a $500+ VIP event, we should NOT have had to deal with the nonsense I had to deal with. Would have been better off booking with...

My friend and I took my son and his friends here for his birthday. It started out as a good time, and then quickly went bad. While the kids went carting, my friend and I decided to go sit at the bar and have a drink. We did so and then decided to get a table so the kids could eat. Once we moved to the table, things got ugly. We ordered food and decided to order another drink. We told our waitress to get a specific bartender to fix our drinks because the last one was pretty good. Then, out of nowhere, a supervisor by the name of Rose came to our table and asked if everything was OK, and we all said yes, and she walked away. Then the waitress brought me my drink but not my friend. We flagged her down and asked about the other drink, and she said that she was told not to serve my friend anymore drinks because she was intoxicated and slurring her words. Apparently, the bartender and the supervisor had this discussion and took it upon themselves to ASSUME my friend was drunk. Little did they know my friend has had a stroke and cannot speak clearly, so yes she talks with a slur. This was very discriminating and we asked for a manager. The supervisor that initially made the assumption failed to return to the table so another supervisor from a whole different area decided to come in her place and diffuse the situation by offering some game cards and 10% off our food bill. It was very upsetting to my friend that they were insinuating that she was drunk and then only wanted to pacify the situation with 10% and some game cards (that we never received). She asked for someone higher. They hesitated for the longest until she got up and tried to approach Rose and ask for her boss. Rose ignored her and walked away and never apologized for her assumptions nor did she go get a person higher up in management. Our waitress finally got someone who introduced herself as the Asst GM. (I forgot her name because it was so much going on) but she apologized on behalf of her staff which I personally think the two who wrongly assumed she was intoxicated should have been doing the apologizing and said that they didn't know how to recognize a stroke victim versus a drunk person (hilarious right) she said that she would comp our food but not the whole bill and mentioned those same game cards that we never got. All this was being done in front of our kids and it really killed the moment. We left after that. This was our first time at this location. We usually go to the one in The Colony and after all that I'm not sure if I even want to spend my money with them again. We had already spent alot of money on the kids and we were just trying to eat and have a good time before leaving. The manager mentioned that they have never had this happen and I get that but don't be so quick to judge that a person is drunk because they have a speech impairment. She wasn't stumbling, talking loud or acting erratic therefore their assumptions were very judgmental...

My complaints are the training and safety issues with certain staff. There’s a bit of a knowledge gap there for services and how things work, which caused a lot of unnecessary grief and concern. They also need to do better watching adults on the junior track! We purchased 4 junior races and 4 Mario Challenge packages. The Mario challenge includes 1 Hologate VR package but the guy turned us away when we were going to get in line for it and stated, “Unfortunately the Mario Challenge does not include Hologate VR.” He asked to see my receipt, but it had no real details on it at all. I had to go back in line to follow his directions, to talk to the front desk only to find out it did in fact include Hologate VR! Also found out you can just swipe your card at a kiosk to see better than what’s on your receipt. The junior race was awful. Kids enjoyed that they were allowed to be single riders but the adults ruined it for them. At one point everyone came to a stop towards the end and one guy hit my kid’s kart at full speed when they were at a complete stop like we were supposed to be! The guy wasn’t paying attention at all and just rammed them. Not one employee said a thing to that guy! Again with the training issue, the staff at the front desk warned us we had to have closed toe shoes to race and would not be allowed, so we left to go buy some nearby since we didn’t live anywhere close. We found out later when lining up to race they have a ton of shoes to cover you if you don’t have the proper ones! This was not cool, the cheapest closed toe shoes nearby were $30, and leaving/returning wasn’t fun especially finding out later they had shoes for everyone. They also have a whole bin full of hair ties apparently, but they made me tuck my long hair into the back of my shirt? A lot of grief could be avoided. Despite the HDMI that kept going out on one racing game, every game was working as intended which was impressive in comparison to places. Laser tag was fun but the employees were busy chatting and we had to leave the arena to find them to tell them the guns stopped working. We had to do this twice and they didn’t care at all! You’d think after the first time they would start paying more attention. We don’t like to complain but in hindsight we absolutely should have. After the experiences we had with training and safety issues we were weary to try anything else. Not sure we’ll be back. Maybe the new location in Fort Worth...