Skate Champions — Local services in Spring

If I could give this place ZERO stars I would ! Please do not go to this place if you’re Black or Latino any person of color actually bc there is a lot of passive aggressive racist behavior. Prior to arrival I was aware of the dress code regarding crop tops and showing skin because a close friend visited and told me. When I got there I had a bucket hat on and a jacket with a hoodie. Everything was fine we signed the waivers & went inside.

Fast forward to me getting on the rink I was stopped by a referee regarding my hat. I was taken by surprise at first bc I wasn’t aware of the hat but I’m an avid skater and frequent many skating rinks and I know that hats can be a hazard, so I didn’t give too much pushback I simply asked why no one told me that prior to entering, I also was just worried about my hair under the hat lol bc that’s why I wore it to begin with. So I exited the rink as I was told, removed the hat and put the hood of my jacket on my head.

I enter the rink again, as I’m skating I see two little girls requesting songs on the song request sheet so I skate up and ask if I can add a song he looked at me like he was thinking of an answer & said we’re not taking song requests at the moment I’m looking like what?! Then he proceeds to say “also you have to take your hoodie off” I’m like “what why? I took the hat off bc it’s a hazard” he said “the hoodie is covering your face, so you’re going to have to take it off or get off the rink” at this point from the energy of his responses & the energy he was gave me prior I was uncomfortable & irritated so I was like okay well you need to bring your manager because someone should’ve emphasized that I wasn’t in dress code prior to PAYING & ENTERING so he’s like ok I’m going to get him I gave him a thumbs up & continued skating. He came back a few minutes later & made an announcement targeting me about the hoodie, he stopped the music & everything!

Side note: after the referee asked me to remove my hat I went back to the front & asked the girl at the front where they have the rules & regulations posted the girl who let us in OUT OF DRESS CODE showed me the poster & no where did it say hoodies!!

The manager finally makes his way over and he’s already aggressively speaking to me like you’re gonna have to take your hoodie off I’m like okay I understand the hat even tho no one told me this man proceeds to say that the girl at the front told us & he’s arguing with me back & forth I’m like “how would you know you weren’t even there?” He’s like “because she told me” ?! So he passively called me a liar ! At this point I’m over it & ready to go he offers a refund I’m like okay great cause I wouldn’t have entered with this hat if that’s what I was told. He was almost making it seem like we were told the rules but decided to break them but that’s not that the case & that is like some underlying racism, nowhere does it say hoodies we even looked on the website!

So I walk back to the front with the manager & the girl that “told us about the hat” runs to the back office 😂 of course bc you lied to your manager to save face and making it seem like we’re just unruly black people. My mom was outside in the I finally was able to call her because the place doesn’t have signal, so I meet her in the front where we purchased the tickets & I ask the lady “So when did you tell me about my hat?” She ignored me 😂 my mom answered & was like she said showed you the poster 😂 (view side note above) just lying, yeah you showed me where the poster was after I had to ask. So I’m just like “that’s weird why would you lie” she is still silent speaking to my mother

Fast forward my friend is now getting her refund & the manager is handling it bc the girl doesn’t want to deal with me… he asks us for a receipt I’m like you can’t pull it up he said “no” which is a lie bc we used a card and the card machine definitely has the receipts but I digress because he had the type of energy that really upsets you & he remains calm so you look like the problem classic narcissist.

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Overall, Skate Champions is a great place to host your child's birthday party, but it's one of the worse skating rinks in all of Houston for any first and long-term skaters. If you plan to skate more than one or two times, then I would truly recommend going to any other skating rink in the area.

At the very least, Skate Champions maintains a clean skating rink that's perfect to throw the birthday party of your child's dreams! The skating rink is cleaned often, looks pleasant to the eyes, and plays child-friendly music throughout the night.

Unfortunately, the extremely long list of downsides vastly outweighs the single factor that can be found at almost any other skating rink.

Primarily, Skate Champions has some of the worse customer services that I have ever seen. After first walking in, the manager at the front is extremely rude, and he often sits in his chair while seeing that there is a line of people waiting in the front. Once you're inside the skating rink, there's often a long line of people at the snack bar, and the cashier will see a line of customers and wait until they're finished cleaning something before going to help. The workers are often unhelpful and will simply do the bare minimum to help you. Although, this kind of customer service should be expected when the manager continuously rehires the same teenagers that have been known for this kind of behavior, even after they have been caught smoking around children. However, I truly doubt that the manager cares, and I have personally heard him call a lot of teenage girls "prost*tutes”for talking to a worker on the job and say countless other rude stuff things about the regulars that skate there.

Furthermore, Skate Champions hardly even attempts to follow the Covid-19 procedures instituted by Harris County. Once you enter the building, many skaters take off their masks even while they're not skating, and barely any of the tables or skates are ever sanitized.

And lastly, Skate Champions fails to meet many of the bare expectations that I would expect from a skating rink. The music is always child-friendly, but it's some of the worse music to skate to and often doesn't even attempt to fit with the demographic of its skaters. For example, there can often be a group of older skaters that are listening to new pop music, and then a few hours later there will be a group of teenagers that have to listen to music from the '80s. Then, there are hardly any events like races or the chicken dance, which you would expect a skating rink to have every hour or so on a Friday night. Then, many of the older teenagers are regularly kicked out for skating fast, but there will also be new skaters and workers that will run past them and trample over kids without punishment. In my opinion, this seems to be extremely unfair since the teenagers are the ones that know how to skate around crowds, but many of the newer skaters that are going even faster than them are unable to control their speed and regularly hit little kids.

In the end, if you are considering going to skate with a group of friends, I would recommend going to almost any other skating rink before even consider going...

Even 1 star is too much for this place, and I even didn't enter the place, as I was about to write this review, I found out that there are more than 40 post on people complaining about the dress code and the guy at the reception... Harsh on not seeing this in advance and avoid a racist episode over there...

We drove there for an hour and a half because some friends invited us to spend some time together, as we arrived early we waited in front of the place but outside, then this guy that most people described came out of the place and started shouting at my family that my wife couldn't enter his place because she had a sleeveless top, I was shocked on somebody going out of the place and without even saying hi, was yelling to my wife, then my daughter had a present for the friends we were waiting to met there and the guy point at my daughter and said, parties already ended today, nobody can enter with presents or gifts to the place, and as I was trying to contain myself, I said to guy sorry my wife has an appropriate shirt she is not showing anything but the shoulders, and the guy just replied I don't have shirts for older people, I didn't even make sense, so we went back to our car really frustrated, horrified and mad, and waited for our friends and when they arrived we told them what happened, and they lend my wife a jacket and when we were about to enter to the place they guy went again and start yelling that we can't go in because of my wife top wasn't appropriate, even she was wearing now a jacket and his excuse was that as soon as we entered the place she will feel hot and will remove the jacket so even more mad and frustrated we leave the place seeing how white and African American people were leaving the place after spending time there with really short shorts and shirts showing their breast so it was even more frustrated... So all the problem was because we are latinos? I don't know how on these days there are still...