Skate Mania — Local services in Belleview

My partner and I brought our 2 kids here a few weeks ago. I've considered looking up this place's reviews and such and wanted to give my feedback. I can't speak to the drama and firings and all the other review comments I've seen here. I can only speak to what this place seems like right now.

Positives: friendly people. The guy working the front seemed like an amicable person. He seemed genuinely interested in engaging with us and others at the end of the session we were at, getting feedback, wanting to show that they're making an effort to bring this place up. The staff members at the rental and concessions were visibly stressed/overworked but didn't seem to let that turn them into total a-holes. They were trying, I'll give them that. The activities seemed to get the kids engaged and having fun. The little practice area was super helpful for our two kiddos. The other patrons were friendly and seemed to be having at least an okay enough time.

The negatives: I am loathe to complain, but the state of the place is plainly inadequate. Their concession station was particularly problematic and poorly laid out. My son, who is on the spectrum, we believe, had to wait nearly half an hour for chicken nuggets (literally the only thing he would be willing to eat out of everything they have). The poor staff member there was working with a busted arm and could only go so fast. I don't blame her, but it was apparent the staffing was not meeting minimum needs. The place is run down, and the lot and layout outside are sketch as hell. Suffice to say I wouldn't want to be caught out at night there.

Finally, I get this is coming from a more politically left leaning POV, but the Turning Point propaganda everywhere seemed insanely distasteful. There's being proud of being American and Christian and such, and I have no issue with that, but this place straight up feels hostile if you're queer/LGBTQ+ in any way, which I do identify along those lines.

My final verdict is that we won't be going out of our way to go back here. If a friend of my kids' has a birthday or some such there, we're not saying no. But we're not exactly planning on bothering with concessions or putting any more money into the place than we have to. The propaganda just seems way offputting, and I don't understand how this is a sensible thing to do at your business. It certainly doesn't...

Okay, for the positives ... love the size of the building, loud sound system (almost too loud) with deep bass, and it's fairly easy on and off the rink. Now for the negatives ... first impression at the door, she wanted our money, but didn't want us there and I'm not sure that she even wanted to be there herself. This place is dirty, dusty and comes off feeling neglected. This place can't decide if it's a skating rink or a daycare. No, seriously ... by day it's a daycare, by night and weekend it's a skating rink, complete with fenced-in areas adjacent to the rink for toddlers. Make up your mind. Major identity crisis. The floor around the rink is in better shape than the floor on the rink. The rink needs to either be re-laid with new flooring or at least stripped, sanded and waxed professionally. The floor is slippery in spots, sticky in spots, lumpy in spots, gouged in spots, wavy in spots. It needs to be consistently smooth across its surface. Go look at the customer pictures, you'll see. It needs a dusting, a vacuuming, a DEEP clean. Now, the AC ... it was HOT and HUMID in there, not fun to skate in. There are fans hanging from the ceiling covered in dust and none of them were working. There were two fans nowhere near the rink that were working and one pedestal fan for the rink. The driveway is confusing and the parking lot tells you what you're about to see inside. There's as much left over trash in the parking lot as there is in the building. Skating on the rink was total chaos with no rule enforcement. The good news for this place is that there is plenty of room for improvement which could be done easily and inexpensively. Hint -- first impression at the door sets the mood for the rest of the visit and perception to your customer -- is reality. To the owners --- stop reading this review and go walk around your place critically and start cleaning and spend some money improving this place. Grab a dumpster and get rid of the junk inside and out. Either that or sell it and get out from under it. Not to be mean, but your competitors across town do a much better job. Go pay it a visit and...

Our family of 4 had the privilege of spending New Year's Eve in the Ocala area and we chose to spend the evening at Skate Mania's lock down. Being our family has prior experience with rink operations, we are quite often a group of rather tough critics, but I must say that Skate Mania runs a very family oriented operation. Most rinks we have visited in the past decade have given in to playing music which is very crude and what I would deem as inappropriate. Skate Mania played upbeat, very hip, cool with the kids and pleasing to the parents music the entire night! We were VERY impressed! Kids will be kids, but the owners, manager, security and skate guards were on top of their game and fun was obviously had by all. The snack bar had plenty of pizza and drinks for the kids. The skates were well maintained. - It was wonderful to see there really are family oriented rinks which still exist in our country! - And while there, we discovered that several of the Olympic hopefuls this year, headed for Sochi, Russia, had their beginnings at Skate Mania ... very impressive! This speaks volumes of the love for skating being instilled in the little ones! - Our family hopes to visit again whenever we head south to Florida again, but in the mean time, this family of generational rinkrats and rink owners, highly recommends this rink as a great source of fun and exciting family entertainment!!! - We'd give 10 Stars if we could!!! - .... NC...