Skate Country — Attraction in Tucson

Wow! I had not roller skated for at least 5 years back on the east coast where I moved here from. I was shocked to find that Tucsonians mostly thought no roller rinks existed any more that they had all been torn down! There are no ice skating rinks either that I am able to find nor do the hockey teams allow open skate after their games pathetically. Something which most other states do! Unfortunately, to my shock Skate Country is in poor, old, outdated condition which sadly can and is rather dangerous. I say this because the concrete short walls are not padded and the roller skating floors closest to the walls which some may want to cling to or skate along who are out of practice (such as my friend that went with me) are not only warped but chipped or scrapped up and therefore not anything anyone would wish to skate on or it would throw you to the floor whether you were a great skater or not as it is dangerous in my opinion. Children there use these PVC pipe that are pieced together to use as supports to help them skate. I felt they used them instead as toys and would purposely play around and fall and toss them out to try to trip those who weren't great skaters. I feel those things should not be allowed on the skate rink at all. I feel if the kids can't learn to skate in the learning rink then they shouldn't have walkers on the main rink. What happened to the days when parents let us fall and then we learned to skate? These kids were not wearing helmets or arm or knees pads in case they fell so what was the purpose? Balance? I don't think so! Many of these kids were sitting on their knees on these things and gliding around and that is not skating or balance but a game for kids and that is not learning to skate. The rental skates were horrible and need to be tossed! While I am a little out of practice I was a good skater in my day and was able to dance skate even when I was younger and did jumps etc and still could do a lot of the basic maneuvers with a decent pair of skates as I was able to roll around the rink well enough except the wheels just didn't roll well and I even exchanged for another pair. Having said all this I would hate to imagine if Skate Country were to close and there were no skating rink in Tucson. I still had a fun time and will go back with my own skates! I will encourage others to go and take advantage of this last resource that is available because if more people actually got out and skated, exercised, perhaps this rink would be able to upgrade and modernize! Hey what an idea! Better yet what if we also get an ice skating rink or if the hockey teams let us skate on the ice after their games like they do where I came from! What a concept! Tucson is just behind in activities and nightlife and that is just sad. Whatever you do get out to Skate Country and support your local and only roller skating rink and have fun and be careful! You'll have a great time and you'll laugh so hard! Even if you just watch people...

Pretty much the same skate country I remember living at every weekend in the 70's and 80's (only I went to the old Oracle Rd location). We also had many all-night skate sessions (lock-ins). Now, there is the added bonus of having helper rollers for littles, which is pretty cool! However, when I was a kid they didn't allow anything to be hanging off of your person, no hats, and no combs hanging out of pockets due to the danger that stuff could cause (a friend literally lost his eye due to someone throwing a comb while skating around). We came here for a kids birthday party and a bunch of teens had stuff clipped on their belt loops that were hanging down the sides of their legs: easy for someone falling to grab on to and make a chain reaction, chaotic fall. There was a good mix of all ages, and they still had the dice game and backward skate. They didn't have the speed skate this trip. They did have a short period for inexperienced skaters, but even then, there were far too many people who were definitely very experienced out there going too fast for unexperienced little kids. The refs used to slow people down that were going too fast, but they don't seem to do that anymore. Experienced skaters,adults and younger, now just fly around causing leaving other to get rammed into the wall, or knocked down. Definitely not a place that I personally would take a kid that isn't already VERY...

We did a birthday package at Skate Country. We arrived 20 minutes before the scheduled party time so we could set up decorations but we weren't allowed in until the actual start time of the party. The lobby was so crowded because all the other birthday kids were there early to set up as well and none of us were let in. It was so cramped and uncomfortable and then we had to rush to set things up before party guests arrived at the table. A family whose child was not invited to our kids party was let in on our tab with 2 extra kids that we weren't expecting. I also didn't like that the menu said our party guests could order at the snack bar under our child's name and it would just be added to my tab, which I wouldn't know about until I was expected to pay.

On a separate date before Christmas, my family attended an event there and while originally told the event would run to a certain time, Skate Country announced that our event had to end a little over an hour early because they had other parties scheduled. A large number of foster families there to celebrate, socialize, and create support networks was abruptly told they needed to vacate the building. Our own kids didn't even get to skate because we planned to only be there for the last hour of the event.

These incidents left a bad taste in my mouth. My kids have fun when we go and get to skate but it doesn't feel worth going...