Oconee Lanes Inc — Attraction in Seneca

Awful customer service! Prices outrageous. Our experience: We started trickling in at 6:40ish. TVs said they close at 8, but sign by the road said “Fri & Sat glow bowling 8pm reservations required.” So I assume they don’t close and just switch to glow bowling.

I ask for clarification because we don’t like glow bowling (can’t see the arrows). I explained the sign and asked if there is glow bowling starting at 8pm. I was told “yes, we don’t close but the price will go up to $10 per person and $3.50 for shoes instead of $5 per person.” We asked if we continued after 8 if we needed to turn in our shoes and re-rent them and he said “no, you can keep your shoes. Just decide whether you want to keep playing and price will increase.” We decided to get the shoes and play until 8 and leave when glow bowling starts.

We started around 7ish. The lights were still on the first 15 minutes. Lights cut out, very crappy, cheap “glow lights” that made it hard to see came on. No actual black lights. Confused, but went with it because we already had the game we were supposed to do. We had a big group and 2 lanes. Half the lanes were open. One of our lanes had an error that wasn’t fixed for 20+ min.

On the last round in our game, they cut it off at 7:57. We wondered why we didn’t get to finish the game but assumed they were starting glowing bowling since it was almost 8. We go to pay and they charge us for glow bowling. We are extra confused at this point because we MADE SURE we were not going to be playing/paying for glow bowling. Would have walked out and came back if that was the case. We explained everything to them.

The employee that had told us that ran as we went up there to asses what is going on. He knew he messed up. We were met with extreme rudeness. We were just seeking clarification and explaining everything because they bait and switched us. One guy employee said “I guess we just have to say it was other dude’s mess up” but the girl was being a jerk. She tried to say we were lying about the lights being on when we started. She said “everything is on our website.” Why would I check the website when I’m there, inside, asking an employee for clarification before we deciding to stay. The owner (I think) comes up, pops off about us eating and taking too long for it to have just been one game (which we didn’t even finish) and says “if you went to the movies you wouldn’t be trying to get it cheaper.” Or something of the sort. I said “I’m genuinely not trying to rip you off. But I was told one thing and made sure before we even got our shoes what we were doing because we didn’t want to do glow bowling.”

Not once did they take accountability for their mess up & not training their employee properly. If you want to bring up the movies: that would be like me paying for a matinee and then the movie ends after and they charge us double-triple. That wouldn’t happen. Sure, it’s just money. But it’s the way we were treated and the hatefulness and unprofessionalism that I dealt with tonight. Also, the fact that we would not have stayed and bowled if they had told us glowing bowling started at 7 and I made that clear BEFORE we got our shoes. I’m still in disbelief. Got home and checked their newly created square space stock image-filled “website” (that’s not linked to anything and really had to hunt it down) with no pictures of the bowling alley, and it does have 7-10, but their Facebook, all the signs in the building, AND the employee said 8. Original website is spam. I also found videos of us PLAYING WITH THE LIGHTS ON AT FIRST. I’m not a liar, nor a cheat, I wouldnt try to trick a business into giving me discounts. Anybody who knows me knows I’m an honorable person. I’ll never recommend a business lacking integrity and the ability to answer and make right THEIR mistakes. I never saw one single thing in that building or on the signs that didn’t say glow bowling 8:00. Heard many locals had similar experiences and one told me the daughter who owns now said she wishes her parents would sell the place so she doesn’t have to...

We had a total of 9 people A mix of kids and adults. Immediately upon starting lane 19 kept dropping pins over on reset, then it left a pin out on the lane, the two gentlemen working were bowling instead of at the counter. After locating them he reset the lane and removed the pin. Then it messed up again. It wouldn’t drop pins or anything. Looked around neither workers were anywhere to be found. Took over 5 minutes to find someone to help. He reset it again. A few minutes later, lane 20 that half our crew was on froze wouldn’t drop pins or anything. Guess what, no one at counter or anywhere to be found. My husband finally found one of the guys and he moved the game to lane 21. That lane decided it wanted to hold on to balls instead of recycling them even though the game kept going. So the kids didn’t have light enough balls without having to wait forever for them to finally recycle. After getting annoyed because the kids just wanted to bowl I asked what our time looked like and he said it was up but he could accommodate us with “5 extra minutes.” I asked him how 5 minutes was all he could do when it wasn’t our fault the lanes were messing up and it took forever to find help on 3 different occasions! He responded “respectfully the lanes weren’t messed up before you got here!” Okay, so you mean to tell me we’re the reason the lanes weren’t resetting, the pins couldn’t stand like they’re suppose to on reset and the reason it’s hanging on to balls?!! We had all intentions on paying for two hours which would of been over $200 for our big crew not to mention the $75 we spent on food and drinks. Needless to say after spending $120 for 1 hour of bowling to have MAYBE bowled 3/4 of that we will NOT be back. The young guy at the counter was more worried about his music, bowling and all the “younger” people in there than anything. This place has gone down...

DO NOT TRY TO SCHEDULE ANY TYPE OF PARTY HERE!!! I am not one to write bad reviews but man oh man. Awful awful awful customer service. Was trying to book my baby shower here. We told them we were inviting about 30 people but not all would come and not all would bowl. We spoke to the event coordinator back in March about this and figured out a date (a Sunday because that is the only day they allow pizza, cake, etc to be brought in). We called earlier this week and got told yep we can have y’all on the date and time we were wanting and that we would hear back to get confirmation. It had been 3 days so we called this afternoon to make sure we got confirmation l. The owners daughter is the one we spoke with and she told us we can’t have it on that date because they don’t fully staff on Sundays (the date is a little more than a month out) and that it would have to be Monday-Saturday. Also that I didn’t need to book until about a week out but I was trying to get invitations out to everyone asap. I also asked if the Saturday before the Sunday I was looking at was available and she would not give me an answer. Then i mentioned the reason why i was booking on a Sunday was because that is a day I can bring cake, pizza etc. the owners daughter then said the event planner we had been working with had quit and that she can’t run the place by herself and that this just wasn’t going to be a good fit for them. It’s unfortunate because we were about to spend a good amount of money for this party and now I am having to scramble to find a place to host my shower. Natalie is the owners daughter and I have worked in customer service my entire life, I am blown away by how awful she treated me and my friend. Not that they care, but I will never go back to Oconee Lanes and I will make sure everyone I know...