Skating at Bryant Park — Local services in New York

$5 HIDDEN FEE / DO NOT SHARPEN SKATES THERE

Overall, it's a good place, right in the heart of Manhatton. Though the administrative rules change from year to year. Last year it felt better organized. Just a few tips here:

Expect $5 fee no matter if you bring your own skates or rent theirs. It is not a big deal for NYC, but just to adjust your expectations. Once you changed your shoes, the staff won't let you go with the backpack on the rink for "security reasons" (appeared this year only). TBH, if charged charged me $5 for access to the rink, it would be felt better.

Expect slow lines on shoes windows. It's a bit surprising, but the staff do tons of hand-written work and manual labor. They could give out their one-time bags, but instead they pack the shoes on their own. They could use our QR codes from the tickets, but instead they want you to spell your name and write it down on their forms. Basically, whole process could be optimized to just plug a QR code on a bag, hand it out to each customer, let them pack their shoes, scan QR code from the bag, scan QR code from the ticket, put in a box the system says you. It would took few seconds. Instead, it takes minutes per person.

DO NOT SHARPEN SKATES. The process itself is extremely complicated. I found the right window after the third attempt. It's not at the exit where it would be reasonable to drop off skates for sharpening (as you change your shoes), not the window where skates are given, but at the windows where they take your normal shoes. Aside of this, the staff strictly enforce the zoning. So it's very complicated to get around and to the right place.

Just as a cherry on a cake, once I overcame whole process and got my skates back, I'm still not sure if they even sharpened them. I might need to put a marker line on blades to see it. Overall cost is $20 for the complicated process and barely palpable result.

Despite all the drawbacks, I still find the place as the best rink given the ratio of fun to money. Enjoy and have fun! (and sharpen the skates...

I visited with my friend on 23th and we both with our kids. We have two strollers. Our time is 2:40, and we got in at 2:25. When we got there, rent shoes, rent penguins, bag checked, and they told us the stroller needed to be checked in as well. To be honest we don’t expected this, and it has no item on it, we thought we can save some money and just left it at some corner for only like 40 minutes left. And this manager heard what my opinion, and I told her there is not much time left, I started to feel her attitude . She pointed me where that I can park my Strollers that is out side of the skates area, some point close to the street while I have my skates shoes on. Also we have two kids that 3 and 4 years old. I definitely don’t go out it will take the rest of half hour. So I have no choice I went back checked my stroller in. First of all, I definitely feel this manager has attitude when I say I want save some money. This made the visit even worse is that I was looking for a happy hour there not her attitude. But here is one thing that brightens my experience, which is the man who worked out side of the bag checking area, he is always patiened and point me where to go, and in the end my kid is too little for the penguin, and I went back to upgrading it to a car, he helped me for free after he had seen everything happened on me and my friends. I don’t want bring him any trouble but this is the only thing that warms my whole experience !!! He made the Christmas a real Christmas!!! Thank you!!! 🙏 and when people childfree maybe have no problem with everything you provided, but when I have my kids, I will spend more time on the process. If you can please give us some cares. It...

Slightly mollified by the fact that this was a free experience but what's with the slew of ridiculous rules? The two most ridiculous being: 1) you can't tie a jacket around your waist and skate, and 2) you can't skate backwards.

Uhm... what? What are you supposed to do when inevitably after skating you get hot? Just ... sweat? This can cause overheating and what is Bryant Park going to do when someone passes out on the rink due to heat exhaustion? What is the purpose of this rule anyway? You're also not allowed to leave any items unattended in the seating area so you can't even take off the jacket and leave it somewhere. You either have to not wear and jacket and be cold or you have to wear a jacket and be hot.

Why can't you skate backwards? Presumably because... because what - the people who can skate backwards scare the people who can't skate backwards and this somehow causes and accident? All over the world on ice rinks people are skating backwards and yet no other ice rink seems to outlaw skating backwards but this one. Is it a premium thing? The cost of skating backwards is skyrocketing, guys. Free rinks just can't afford backwards skaters anymore. I'd honestly rather pay money than skate on a rink where you have all these ridiculous rules.

$5 to check a bag. Free to check shoes but you must check them. You must register online before skating even though it's free. You must take off your skates before you receive your shoes back - isn't that gross, you have to stand barefoot on the wet floor while waiting for your shoes. They also limit the time you're on the ice into groups but it doesn't seem that they enforce this particularly well so you have...