Sandbox VR — Attraction in Kirkland

Terrible experience. I’ve been to this Sandbox and the Seattle location several times and this was an absolute nightmare and waste of almost $300.

I was running 5-7 minutes late so I called in advance to confirm that would be ok with no answer or call back. I walked in 7 minutes late and was told to check in by one staff member. 5 minutes after that Levi came up already combative informing that I’d need to reschedule because I was “15 minutes late”. I let him know I walked in 7 minutes late and he told me they would shave 10 minutes off my session. I agreed thinking the sessions were at least 45 minutes based on previous visits.

We get our gear on and are told that my husband needs to do his waiver (unclear on the check in machine-I thought I completed for everyone). Steve was very rude and said “no he’s a grown man he needs to do his own”. Levi attempted to tell me after the session that was my “actual check in time”. They were mad I was late and both had terrible attitudes and made terrible comments the whole time. While getting our gear on, Levi louder called Steve’s name and gestured for him to speed up or wrap it up quickly”. Steve made comments about how the games were for 9 year olds as he strapped my 7 and 8 year olds up. During our session, half of it was spent trying to get assistance fixing the VR issues we were having in game. In total, our entire play time was MAYBE 10 minutes. I spoke with Levi about this and all he could do was be combative telling me we were 30 minutes late (from time my husband was finally told his waiver was missing). I asked if something could be done to resolve this experience. He was extremely short and told me no. I asked who I could call and talk to. At first he said I could call the Kirkland sandbox VR number (the one I called en route with no answer with the same people in the building I could be talking to now). I asked for a manager and he said “call for Shaun”. I had to pry out what date and time I needed to call for Shaun.

I am extremely disappointed in how rudely we were treated from the second we walked thru the door. Obviously all this location cares about is volume not customer experience. Very unfortunate as we’ve had good experiences in the past. I won’t...

I want to start by saying I was so excited in the beginning to experience VR here. I initially told my friends about a previous VR experience I had at a different establishment and they became excited about the chance to experience VR.

The excitement came to a halt when we arrived and I checked in. No one was at the front so coming here and seeing my name listed multiple times I was unsure about the sign in process, so I signed in once and waited in the front for someone to greet me. After about 5 minutes of waiting I found a store representative, who rudely told me I was late and they could not accommodate the 3 of us.

After explaining that I had been in front and had questions about signing in, he still told me I could not participate in that days VR session. He then told me he could cancel my reservation and I would receive a full refund upon cancellation. That never happened.

After 72 hours of waiting for a refund I tried calling the store multiple times, as I had done the day I booked the reservation and no one answered. I then drove 50+ miles back to the store to try to meet with someone about my refund. I was met by representative that told me to call his manager. After calling the manager he did nothing to help me, but told me he would contact me the following business day to refund me. The following day is here and he did not call me. Someone from a different location called and told me I would have to wait an additional 1-2 business days before my refund could be processed. No customer service, no customer retention process, just nothing. I'm still out of almost $200 dollars, NO VR experience and no accommodations for my time wasted. HORRIBLE...

Service has dropped dramatically since we first played here 1 year ago. Machines were lagging the whole time and my son kept saying “I’m lagging” but no one did anything. When I brought this up after, they refused to refund. The manager then even refused to give credit for a future visit despite my 9 year old saying he didn’t have fun because his game lagged the whole time and it gave him a headache which he did not have when we first tried SandBox last year. At $55 per person to play 25 minutes of a game that essentially could be be had on a $299 oculus quest 2, this company should be OBSESSED with delivering a positive user experience. Instead, we had a game that kept lagging and causing my son to have headaches afterward. Rather than sending automated text messages to solicit reviews and then cherry picking the good reviews to post to google, the owners should really try to turn around the user experience. Maybe they are losing money, maybe the rent has been increased, whatever the reason, I doubt this location will survive another year without real changes to its priorities. It cannot survive on social media and having slick stitching of game and live video alone. When we arrived on Sunday morning for walk-in, we were the only customers there. The employees appeared apathetic at best and disgruntled at worst. The employee told me the owner of the Sandbox company is based out of China so I doubt there is much vertical integration and the focus is likely on short term profit rather than long term growth. Btw, Apple’s VR headset...