Safari Nation Winston-Salem — Local services in Winston-Salem

I walked in with my two kids, we were planning to celebrate my oldest turning 5. Since we were only meeting 2 other kids at 2pm I did not purchase their party package which is a minimum for 10 kids and costs $250 and includes pizza. A little pricy if you ask me, but whatever. All I needed were cupcakes for this simple get together. People are able to bring in their own snacks if they come in so I didn't figure it would be a big deal, I was wrong.

When I walked to the desk, the manager greeted me and saw that I had some cupcakes in my hand and asked what party I was with. I told her that we weren't with a party. She then proceeded to tell me that we could not eat the cupcakes inside, they don't allow it on the weekends. I told her that we were only meeting two other kids, and if they seem to allow it on the weekdays, then what's the big deal because they certainly weren't busy. I voiced my opinion that I thought it was ridiculous. She did not care and stuck by her silly rule and told me that we would not be allowed to do anything birthday related. Naturally I grew frustrated as my kids were starting to worry that we would not be able to celebrate in the way that we had intended. I took a deep breath and was going to continue to move forward with our plans even if we couldn't eat a few cupcakes because the space looks really cool and they were excited to go in and explore.

I gave the manager a gift certificate for one free admission. She then tells me that they have stopped accepting these certificates as of May 31st. Today is June 2nd. When I asked if she would still honor it because we had received it as a gift this past Christmas, she said no. Of course I grew intensely more frustrated, was she really not going to honor it when we missed it by only two days? No she would not honor it. I told her that this was ridiculous, if a gift certificate is issued, it should be good for at least one year, any good company should know that. I took a deep breath and realized, she is not going to be any help to me with the attitude she is already giving me so I decided that I would not spend any money there and that we would choose to do something else. I looked at my kids and told them we would go somewhere else to celebrate and I asked for the gift certificate back.

At that point both my kids were upset because now we were not going to go in. As we were walking out, the Store Manager decides to say in a very rude tone to us "Good" at which point I turned around and looked her dead in the eyes and whispered "Screw You". She yelled at me that if I were to come back in there that she would call the police on me. I laughed and said "Ok" and walked out. If she thinks I plan to visit there after this rude and unhelpful interaction, she is delusional.

Safari Nation, I hope that in the future you will have people managing your facility who understand the importance of good customer service because you do have what looks to be like a very nice facility.

We went bowling instead and had a wonderful time, the bowling ally even gave my daughter a bowling pin for her birthday which was a cool surprise after...

Update from my previous 5 stary review. Over the last year when we went this place is going more and more downhill. The last visit really was my last straw. (My son still has fun but it's crazy how this place has gotten) At this point it's a money pit. If you don't have the VIP shirt you pay 15 bucks to enter. They have the play ground of course, and one bouncy structure. The bumper cars are gone to make way for more arcade games. So you get the pleasure of paying to get in and then spending more money on arcade games which are $1 - $1.50 each. Even when they had the bumper cars, they would sell us tickets but then it would take SO long for them to run it. Once we literally waited three hours yet we waited, because we wanted to make our child happy. We didn't know they were gone the last time we went so of course our son was heart broken. I will probably try and steer my son away from wanting to go here now as it's really just a "less than" chucky cheese now w/ no food other than prepackaged snacks and drinks. My advice, go to a fast food joint w/ a play land, or to the mouse.

Brought my 6 year old son here for a birthday activity. We didn't have a birthday party here but brought him for a special and fun thing to do. We opted for the VIP shirt as we figured we would most likely be coming back and live relatively close. Previously, we were going to a different business in Greensboro. There is a large jungle playground with three different types of slides, a zip line and two bouncy type structures. One is for 4 and up, and one is for 4 and under. To be honest, I think that the 4 and under is a wasted resource, and it would be better served for 4 and up as well. I understand having an option for under 4, but they do have a play area, too. One other gripe was they have this whole middle section where there should be a bunch of balls as there are guns to shoot the balls, different things to out the balls in and the big "canopy" that you can put balls in and push a button and they would fall down from it. My son has seen these on TV, so he knew what it was, but there weren't any balls there at all, so he was sad about that. There are arcade games and bumper cars available at extra cost. My son had two rounds on the bumper cars, and one with myself and one with my wife, and he had a blast. There are only three in operation (one was out of service), and each round is approximately 6 minutes, including loading time, the audio does and don't, and then bumping time. (Actual bumping time seemed to be about 4 1/2 mins) Overall, it is a great place to come and spend a few hours, and with parents being free, it's...

Overpriced and run down. Stopped by this location for a break while traveling thru the area and was very disappointed.

The business is not located in a safe/family-friendly part of town - there were panhandlers outside when we went in (weekday early afternoon) and multiple homeless individuals digging thru trash in the parking lot when we left.

We were not greeted when we came inside. There were no security measures to prevent a child from leaving with someone else (wrist bands/stamps/etc) or to see who had paid admission, which was very concerning after seeing the front doors were not being watched. We waited several minutes without seeing an employee, completed the waiver upfront, and waited several more minutes without being able to find an employee before just letting ourselves into the play area. It was 5-10 minutes after that before I was able to find a staff member and ask to pay for admission. It was $15 for a 3 year old which seemed high given the state of things. This admission does not include non-slip socks (additional $3) despite the play area having slick linoleum floor. The employees we did interact with were very rude - showing no concern when a child was hurt and mostly being on their phone or in the back.

Half of the location was a pay-to-play arcade. The other half included a jungle gym, a couple slides, a bounce house (4 years and under only), and a toddler play area.

Overall, the whole place seemed unkept, outdated, and unsanitary. Several areas of the safety netting were in poor repair (holes knotted together with random pieces of string). The target blasters in the jungle gym were broken and unable to be used. The restrooms were dark (light bulbs out) and smelled bad. We bought 2 items from the toy vending machine located by the doors and 1 came out of the machine broken. Would not recommend and we...