Wahooz Family Fun Zone — Local services in Meridian

At this point, Galaxy Event Center is about 1 year into business and between myself and a couple other people I know who've contracted there, I can draw these opinions.

The food selection, pricing, and service is generally pretty good. I was very pleased with our event having the Island Escape Buffet. Very tasty. We had a lot of good comments on appetizers, meal and desserts.

The venue itself is clean and well situated for a range of groups. It's a very configurable room that can be changed up depending on what you're doing.

A/V is operating well, although screens are a little small for the size of room they have. Easy to adjust volume/lighting that needed no training for me to operate.

The location makes for a great change-up to your standard conference or hotel facility. Even just being inside a family fun zone can be helpful to break out of your typical boring facility. I think the big stars in the room are going to get dated very quickly, but whatever.

Here are my biggest gripes:

1. READ YOUR BEO/CONTRACT very closely. If it's not written down, it''s not happening without a lot of attitude from day-of event staff. And probably a 25% surcharge. They are absolutely militant on service times: food is pulled exactly at 60 minutes from a buffet, even if not everybody has been served; drink fountains are turned off. It's a bit over the top, even if they're friendly about it with a smile. There is no room for making easy accommodations or variances. It's definitely not Bob Farrell, just "give em the pickle" training.

Also, I think having to give a final catering count (without a 25% increase) 10 full days before an event is way too long a lead time. Most hotels are 1 week at most and Riverside is just 3 business days.

2. Communication with sales staff needs to improve. Emails frequently go unanswered in a timely manner and the handoff between sales staff and banquet staff isn't exact. For example, I indicated I didn't want to use drink tickets but have open bar for a period of time on my final BEO. This didn't get passed along and so I had people coming back to me from the bar saying they were rebuffed, even after I had explained it.

3. If you are also coordinating with Wahooz for event passes, be sure you are clear again on start-stop times. Our passes were preprinted well before we intended the 3 hour pass to end and it was a hassle passing the word to all the attendants that our clearly t-shirted group of kids was there from 7-10 PM regardless of what their wrist band said.

4. This didn't happen to me but did at two other events I know: the soda machines are in the big conference room and fill up with ice and deice all day long. So if a person decides to go get a soda while somebody is speaking, it's very loud. Clunk clunk clunk goes the ice - PSHHHHHHHHH goes the soda. Very distracting.

We would consider doing another...

The games, rides, and other attractions are up to date, maintained, and fun. Most of the employees were generally helpful and nice enough, but there were a few on our last visit who were either unhelpful, downright rude, or just plain unavailable enough to make the entire experience not so great. We paid around $130 for the three of us to basically have unlimited access to everything, which seemed okay at the time, but we fully regretted doing so after about an hour. We stood in line at the food counter and listened to the three employees bickering about how one of their debit cards was being declined. After the owner of the card noticed we had been standing there, she told us to go ahead and order. We advised that we were still looking and undecided. This was apparently unacceptable to her. The next five minutes were accompanied by a bunch of impatient Huff's and Puffs and under breath mutterings about how we were taking much longer than she wanted us to. this same girl somehow managed to be at every turn for the duration of our visit solely to give us dirty looks and mutter insults in our direction. We eventually decided that they were not able to have good customer service and went to the other dining area. It was no better here. After finally getting some food, our server had apparently forgotten about our existence, and needed to be called over the intercom to get us our check. All in all, the place has potential. It just seems like it's kids employing kids without any real work ethic, or policies. I don't think we will be going back...

Whoever was working on March 8th at night, at the spinning ride needs to be talked to. His name was Keyon? Maybe something like that?? We waited in line and I kid you not, he takes 20 minutes explaining the rules to the people on the ride. I understand safety protocol but it should not be taking that long and he should not be getting into the seats of the rides to talk to the people trying to just have fun. At first, I understood his friendliness and it was fine. When we finally got on the ride, he continued to explain to me and the two other groups the rules and he took so long other people started showing up and we had to wait even longer. We should not have waited over 30 minutes to get on one ride that had no line just because he decided to chat and converse to everyone. Again, I understand friendliness and I understand he was just trying to have fun but we had 4 hour passes and our time was almost up. We did not get to go on anything else after that even though we could’ve due to his conversation. It was not fair to me nor was it to the kids that were with me. The ride last barely 2 minutes and was not worth it. Mind you, there was no one in line when we walked up to it. 30 minutes. Completely unacceptable. This was not just me as the boys next to me were also asking and begging for the ride to start. The groups before were asking when it will finally start. You can be friendly but don’t make your guests wait. It was not even fun...