Hindu Temple of Florida — Attraction in Tampa

I like, unlike other temples, this has real temple structure. Its very well maintained. But first day experience is horrible for me. Half way to temple, I turned and got my dog with me. She is a well-trained friendlydog, I paid for her dental surgeries, she is a very picky eater, littile blurry vision and 👂, so before taking her, I called the temple 🛕number, to check if dogs are allowed, but went to automatic message, searched online, and online says hey temples are friendly to animals. So with that confidence boost, i took my dog for blessings. Went into bottom temple, Pandith in that temple blessed me, and my dog. Gave 50$. I didnt go to Garbha gudi, bcz he mentioned pets are not allowed. Bummer, but thats fine. He was not rude, infact he gave a very good blessing. So I took the dog around temple, and saw Prasad Sajan, I thought its a real prasadam place, where I can get laddu prasadam. Went in only to find out, its a discounted restaurant. U can get Idli, dosa, etc at low prices than outside restaurants. Ok, thats fine. This is my temple, lets buy something, eat, share it with my dog. Waited in line. Old man, from that restaurant was watching my dog all the line, started online order, he took people Behind me for order, half way through my order, he mentions dogs are not allowed. I just said thats fine and left My point 1. Put an Automatic msg in temple no. That pets are not allowed and a board sign infront of temple. 2. Prasad sajan old man is rude, could have told me bfore, waiting and ordering, dogs are not allowed in prasad sajan also My thought, Temples are missing a huge Marketing and money opportunity here. Animals, especially deserve to visit Temple Diety more than humans. Temples need funds. Put a board, pets are allowed, they should be onleash, a single Pet owner, with a Pet will get a priority Darshan and Archan for a charge., Temple gets funds and animals gets blessings from Pandiths and Dieties. Pet friendly temple Not comparing Chickfile, and other shopping centeres and restaurants, i went to the temple, but I am comparing people. I go to above places, people are friendly or they dont care, and my pet is quite friendly too. This makes it much easier for me. But I bring it into temple, they look at me strange

Bottom line: plz 🙏 put in sign that pets are not allowed, so that anyone with my idea, can stop. Make temple rules clear and heard in automatic messages and on a board outside temple. My first time temple experience would be pleasant, If I hadn't thought about blessings to my Pet Anyways, I wish the temples with more funds and All the best for all of the activities,...

Pros: Beautiful temple. Very exotic for right here in Florida. Lavishly Decorated. Much culture. Cons: Terrible service, especially by the priests themselves. Not user friendly at all (for an outsider) I would give it no stars if I could. I attended this temple about 3 weeks ago for a college project which was to understand another religion, and attending the place of worship was one of the criteria. I found the website slightly difficult to understand as an outsider, it would have been better if it showed the actual times of ceremonies/worship. I also would have liked it if they gave a dress code online. These are both minor, but would make it much more user friendly. Then, once I drove the 40 minutes out there, I spent 15 minutes scrambling around as I did not know where to go. I wanted to attend the 4 o'clock preaching ceremony, and I asked two people where to find it, but they did not understand what I meant. That is understandable as well since meanings get lost in translation all the time. I never ended up finding it, but instead attended something else. The thing I had the biggest issue with, that just made me irate, was the total lack of kindness and helpfulness shown to me by the priests when I asked them to do a 5 minute interview for my college project. I drove, yet again-on a different day, the 40 minutes to the temple to talk to the priests. And what did I get greeted with? Both of the priests saying they were 'too busy' to help me! I pleaded with them, telling them it wouldn't even take 5 minutes, that I had just driven all that way, and that they'd be helping me a lot. But, they continued to say they were busy as one priest just sat there, and the other was cutting a piece of paper! They were not busy at all!! This is NOT good service, and I was appalled. One of the priests gave me a piece of paper with a number to call, telling me this person would answer my questions. So, that day I called him at the appropriate hours, but yet again, he also told me he was too busy! The next day I called again, hoping he wouldn't be "busy", and after I said "Hello, my name is __, and I am a college student. I have a project right now to discover another religion and understand it. Part of that is to interview people from the religion. Would you mind doing a 5 minute interview with me?" As I had all the other times, but this time I was answered by a hasty reply, and then ... HE HUNG UP ON ME. It is fair to say I am livid and disgusted by these behaviors. And I will not be attending the temple ever again, and it has only worsened my point of view of...

Utterly humiliated.

I can’t justify giving 1 star because this was the most beautiful sight I’ve experienced in my time living in Florida. But I just had the most humiliating experience I’ve had since I was a child. I’m a very sensitive person despite my large stature and now I’m in my car crying while writing this review.

I called ahead a week ago to see if I was allowed to take pictures. They said they had to give me permission but it would be okay if it was just me taking them for my own remembrance. But it would seem I talked to the wrong people.

I was approached by a concerned lady and told that I shouldn’t take pictures and videos of other people so to please not take them of others, I agreed and offered to show them to her for her piece of mind. She said no and to just be respectful and not take pictures of others. I agreed and she left for about 2 minutes as she walked all the way around the top of the temple.

Then she came back and reeled into me saying that I was not allowed. I told her I got permission and she said they don’t do that and no one gave me permission, and then she asked me where I got permission and I said the office, then she asked what office and I didn’t know how exactly to answer that because I didn’t know there was more than one. Then she started raising her voice and I shrunk, she started insisting I was the office. She said there is never any permission and that it is never allowed. She said there are signs everywhere she I told her that they say with permission, and she said they do not and “where!?” I told her that I would show her the ones I saw at the ground level and she didn’t want to. She was getting louder and louder and I was just above a whisper trying to hold back tears.

So many people asked if I wanted them to take a picture, I would wait for others to pass and stand away from the camera with my hands behind my back as to respect their privacy. I walked away humiliated and started crying in the shoe room.

My girlfriend died a few years ago and told me I needed to experience some of the temples in my life. I love architecture and we had planned to go to India for years. She was Hindu and I was just trying to feel connected to her again. Now I don’t know what to feel, I just feel like...