Ice at Santa Monica — Local services in Santa Monica

Somehow we’ve allowed a huge corporation to take over Santa Monica Ice that once brought so much joy to the community. We used to ice skate here multiple times a year on this rink for many years. There were always lots of people skating at all times of the day. This year though, as fancy as this new rink looks, the place feels cold and the prices are exclusive. It makes me want to cancel my Netflix membership. We are asked to buy tickets online and pay a ticket handling fee, $55 for two or $61 for two if you want a locker - for 1 hr of skating with no reentry unlike previous years. It feels like paying more for self-checkout. To put this in perspective, we bring our ice skates to Chicago every year and get free skating at Maggie Daley which is a far superior rink in a figure 8 ice skating ribbon configuration. So fun! On the holidays Dec 15-Jan 7 it’s $5 pp for two hours if you bring your skates during peak times, and everyone is happy. Go home, Netflix, we want our old Santa Monica Ice back.

Update 11/8: Announced on NBC Southern California today that ticket prices are now $20 pp (dropped from $22), so with handling fees it is $24 pp for an hour. Lockers went down, too, from $6 to $5. Get rid of the handling fee, work it into the price of the ticket. I can tell you that no one likes the handling fees - don't copy Ticketmaster. $20 is what they charged last year for skating with...

The last time I went there!! Horrible ripe off! Before it was the whole day admission, and now it's only 1 hour and no toddler s tickets! The kids tickets should be at least cheaper!!! Plus they charge for a penguin helper 7 bucks, when in all the ice places of the world it's for free! So I paid 33 bucks for my little one to try to skate for about 10 minutes and fir that they change the whole amount plus money for that penguin 🐧! Plus when you buy tickets on their tablet they lie that session is 1 hour and 30 minutes!! So I paid for that session which already was started thinking that I have at least 1 hour, to find out that that's a lie! And those 30 minutes they use to clean the ice!! So what the heck then your tablet says 1,5 hour!! The African American lady at the entrance is extremely rude and doesn't explain anything and speaking so rude and send you away!. I don't recommend this place att all!!! Horrible experience, waste of money and time! From their promising 1,5 hour I was able to skate for 20 minutes!! And paid 33 bucks for my toddler for his 10 minutes. 4 years ago it was way better place charging for the whole day!! And their skates ⛸️ are so old, uncomfortable and have short show laces which barely close your leg...

Considering this rink is funded by local businesses to promote foot traffic and allegedly good will for the community, I think some of their policies regarding lesson cancellation and parent participation are not very family/community friendly. Because there are so few lesson times, you have to sign up far in advance and if you have a sick child, you lose your money, no questions asked. Because you can't skate with your child unless you also take a lesson, I had purchased two lessons. I asked if they could minimally give us a free pass to skate one day and the head of the Downtown Business Center promoting the rink told me that they have this issue ALL the time so they have a policy and can't do anything but blindly follow it. I suggested that if they have this issue all the time, possibly they should come up with another solution. Maybe next year was the reply. It's too bad because I like the rink. The lessons are expensive though and very short and if you want to skate with your child after 20 minutes b/c they don't know how to do it themselves - why you are taking the lesson to begin with! - you have to buy a lesson yourself. Not the best...