David Lloyd Bowling

Badly maintained and lack of facilities for older children. This could have been a good site but the lack of maintenance on the bowling lanes and pool tables meant that this is a terrible site for a kids party. Out of 12 lanes only a few were working when we were there (this was a weekend when it should have been very busy) and the two pool tables were both had large rips on the cloth.

I went today to this place and it was by far the worse bowling experience I've had, and I've been going bowling in different places (All Star Lanes in Holborn & Brick Lane, and Hollywood Bowl in Tolworth) quite often in the past month.

I read the review of Alex W. and let me tell you that everything he said is true:

- Ball gets stuck in Ball return
- Pin placer would get stuck
- Pin placer would not remove any pins
- Pin placer would not put down any pins
- Pin placer actually working at all
- Lane itself just not responding

I was put on lane 4, everything that could go wrong did, I've added photos of today's bowling as I was going prepared to receive a bad service after reading Alex W review of last week.

Now the most impressive part of all of this was the staff, they couldn't care less.
I arrived with my girlfriend at 7.28pm and we were told that only one game would be allowed because they were closing... I didn't understood clearly at first as I looked at the schedule just in front of them and said the place closes at 9pm (1h30min is more than enough for two people to play more than 2 games... how do I know? We were out by 8pm)

It's the most expensive place to play bowling, I was so glad they didn't allow booking 2 games as I would had asked for a full refund.

After going to the reception for the 5th time the guy finally had the common sense of changing our lane from 4 to 2 and finally closed the 4th lane. Although I had to call him once again just to fix the 6 pins that were up instead of all 10.

Also when we arrived our lane had 3 balls, none of them were the ones suitable for us to play with (size 12, 14 and a junior ball with no holes) it felt that they were ready to close the place 1h30min before closing time.

People around were also taking balls from other lanes, because out of the "12 brand new lanes" only 3 had balls, the rest was inside the machines (so it seemed)

We were not given proper shoes for bowling either, seems the only one that still gives them is Star Lanes anyway...

David Lloyds says in the website that the place is "The ideal place to de-stress and socialise after work", I beg to differ, was very stressful and a waste of our time and money
"Great atmosphere with music and big screen entertainment", again I beg to differ, there was no atmosphere, no music...

"Enjoy 12 brand new 10-pin bowling lanes for all the family day and night in our contemporary setting." I beg to differ again, they are not new, still use the Brunswick logo (Brunswick was bought by Bowlmor AMF back in 2014, 2 years ago)

I reckon you should find another place to spend your money and time, unless you just live around the corner and have no other better choice... but this one my friend is a very mediocre choice until they change their attitude and add staff that cares about the place and makes sure all lanes have equal playing balls.

This place was by far the worst bowling alley I have ever encountered. Usually you would expect the lane to work properly but after every second bowler in our lane the lane would have every sort of issue from:

- Ball gets stuck in Ball return
- Pin placer would get stuck
- Pin placer would not remove any pins
- Pin placer would not put down any pins
- Pin placer actually working at all
- Lane itself just not responding

So you would have though it would be an easy press of the button to call someone over... Ironically the call out for a staff member for an issue button was BROKEN. So, making our way to tell the staff at reception after 3 or 4 times, with the one mechanic trying as much as he could to repair the equipment seemingly on its last legs, we asked to move lanes. A response of 'No, due to a large party is coming soon' is all we got. A refund or some goodwill? Nope, that was out of the question. Overall a simple bowling experience turned out to be very laughable on how not to run a bowling alley. 1 star is a very generous review.

The place is actually dangerous. There was a piece of trunking i almost tripped over on arrival. It was running across a main walkway. Luckily it was me and could find my footing, if it was one of the younger ones in my party I would of been fuming. The lane we were on broke down and the balls were all getting stuck in the machine. The shell was removed and left unattended. Cams and loose wire hanging out. A child from a different alley tried retrieving a ball from the underfloor trapped gutter. It need a serious revamp. There was continuous maintenance while we played that was in the least distracting. The staff were helpful and fixed things quickly as if they knew about the problems but looks like the resources given to them are limited. The bumbers on our alley were neither up or down. There were missing skittles on several of the sets, in the end i got board of calling staff over. One set I threw 4 balls down the alley and none of them registered. Such a waste of money. Wish I had read other people's views before visiting!

Went with 12 family members of all ages to celebrate my mother's 70th. The first bad sign was that it took 24 hours for a call back to book - not enough staff to answer the phone and no automated booking system.

To summarise: shoddy booking-in experience (they type the bowlers' named in so all misspelt), not enough staff to man the desk, went to buy drinks for everyone - just the 1 peroni beer available, 1 orange juice, absolutely no draught ale or lager, hardly any soft drinks, empty fridges everywhere and the waitress having to dash back and forth to the back room to check their non-existent stock. All this time more people were queuing at the front desk or by the bar for service.

Our bowlin lane was glitchy and tempermental, and of the 12 or so lanes, the last 3 or 4 were out of order with tools and equipment piled messily up along the alleys.

Went to complain about an issue and hung back whilst they were serving another customer so as to be discreet, but the assistant insisted on speaking there and then, but then got stroppy and told me she was serving someone else! Very poor attitude.

Zero atmosphere, understaffed, appalling bar, mess in the bowling lanes, poor booking-in procedures etc etc. I literally cannot find anything positive to say other than we tried to make the best of the £200+ we'd spent there. Not worth it at half the price.

I’m outstanded by the lack of care that has gone into this place - I keep forgetting that this is a branded bowling ally and not a cheep little thing in central London.
Our game broke down and it took 15 minutes for someone to come fix it, making us all end up staying a lot later than expected.
The scores were constantly miss calculated so we ended up totalling them in our heads instead.
Staff let kids run onto the ally’s while they were playing their own match at the other end.
The whole lane stank of sour milk.
All in all it was a hugely disappointing over priced and long day

Was a fun evening but spoiled by the fact that myself and friends are competitive and found that the balls did not allow for this . They all had lumps out of them and were in very poor condition .
We could hear the flats on the balls thumping away down the lanes every time we bowled one.
Which obviously affected accuracy especially for the guys that like to put spin on the ball .
Don't expect the balls to be 100% new but reasonable conditions would have been nice .

I really don't understand why there are people saying bad things about this place. My children and I go there regularly as wewlive close. The staff, especially Jada (I have forgotten the other half of your name honey! So sorry but you know who you are) , Amy-Leigh and Connor. The staff are helpful, accomadating, patient and a good laugh! There are pool tables and table tennis aswell as bowling. There is even a soft play area. It's always been clean when we go. I have ZERO COMPLAINTS Thank you guys at David Lloyd bowling. Much love! The Slush Puppies Family. 😎