Wild River Family Entertainment Center — Local services in Four Corners States

As a chaperone for a 2nd-grade field trip (~150 students), and unfortunately, the experience revealed significant operational and management shortcomings that impacted both the children’s enjoyment and the overall value of the event. While the facility has great potential—spacious, with bowling, laser tag, and an arcade—the execution was chaotic and poorly managed. All students were funneled through a single shoe counter. Only one employee, David, showed any urgency or initiative by opening a second station in the back bar area. Meanwhile, at least eight other staff, including management, stood idle, talking, scrolling on phones, or watching from a distance with zero engagement. The biggest operational flaw: the facility started everyone’s bowling time at once. Our group—last to get shoes—got less than 10 minutes of actual play before the “10 minutes left” warning appeared. Then that time was wasted waiting at the only soda machine accessible to kids. There were a few soda pitchers on tables, but we were told those were for adults only. Children had to use Styrofoam cups, many of which collapsed while trying to put lids on, creating spills, sticky hands, and general mess—again, cleaned by David. Lunch was equally mismanaged. Though the pizza was genuinely delicious (credit where it's due), it came out slowly—two at a time—again only served by David. Worse, each child was served two slices upfront. Younger students at the end of the line waited significantly longer. Many parents ended up buying additional food and arcade credits—spending hundreds of dollars—just to bridge the time gaps and hold kids over between activities. By design? Laser tag was a safety concern. The vests were not sized for children, and several kids tripped over oversized gear. One child smacked by a laser gun tripping over her own vest and injured her lip. A couple of the laser triggers were unresponsive for their weaker fingers, making the game frustrating for younger players. Worse, after bowling, students were expected to wait up to an hour before their turn, with nothing to do. After some pushback by the school and parent, bowling lanes were reopened—a last-minute fix that shouldn’t have been needed in the first place and pleaded for not offered. To the arcade staffer who gave a few kids free tokens—thank you. But when another student politely asked for a turn, he was turned down claiming no time left, even though there was still waiting time. Ironically, the open corner where they played freeze tag to pass the wait, FREE, was the most fun. When asked by the manager at the end if they enjoyed themselves, most kids said “No.” "boring" "waiting" "[descriptions of injuries]"—not because of a lack of amenities, but due to how poorly the day was managed. Here’s what’s most concerning: this wasn’t a surprise event. The school provided the facility with detailed advance notice, and I was informed this has been the case for prior field trips as well. That makes the disorganization inexcusable. Why weren’t shoe sizes prepared in advance for the specific age groups? Why weren’t activity times staggered so that kids could rotate smoothly and feel included? Why weren’t more employees actively engaging, guiding, or even teaching? And why was David, the only person smiling, moving, and helping throughout the entire event, left to handle everything alone—while the manager stayed behind a closed door until the very end, only to pop out and ask, “Did you all have fun?” Unless this facility undergoes a serious overhaul—starting with promoting David to a leadership role and hiring/supporting a team that matches his work ethic—I strongly recommend against booking large group or school events here. Children deserve more than to be passive customers—they deserve to feel safe, valued, and supported. Wild River did not provide that. And to Yuma schools: please reconsider future partnerships with vendors who consistently fail to meet the basic standards of child-centered care and group...

This was our first time here and The food didn't taste cooked all the way, we were at lane 9 and they switched us to lane ten because lane 9 stopped working, and they said they would give us 10 extra minutes added onto our time and they didn't because the timer didn't change and the balls got stuck in the thing 2 times and we had to tell someone each time to get them to fix it, the bowling balls were overly greasy, to the point it slipped out of my mother's hand and almost ripped her nail off. and at about 10 minutes left in the game, the ball holder thing wouldn't give us ours balls back and after we had to use balls that were too heavy because there were no more that we could use after the game 'ended' at 2 minutes left and it didn't even let us hit the pins, the balls came back when we were packing up our stuff. This is the worst experience we have had a bowling lane, as another review said, they're management, and equipment is horrible and it takes them forever to fix it. If you want a good experience with bowling, do not come here. Inca lanes is so much better and way more...

If I could give this zero stars I definitely would. I went to wild river because I hadn’t seen some friends in a couple of months and decided to hang out there since it’s usually a nice late hang out place. There was this one “employee “ or so I thought it was because he was only wearing a small name tag that said Sergio, but was just wearing a bright blue shirt and looked more like a customer than a worker. If he is an employee he definitely didn’t look professional at all, you would think that a place like that would have better uniforms for their employees 👎🏼. Me and my friend were by the arcade area and he just kept on starring at us the whole time we were there and made me feel very uncomfortable, either he was starring off for a long while or didn’t like our presence because no one else was around. We were just customers and if he had any issue with us being there he definitely should of brought it up to our attention, but just trying to have a starring contest is so...