3 years ago

I had my daughter's birthday party at the Kendall Ice Arena. The contract said the only outside food we could bring in was cake or cupcakes. When I made the reservation over the phone they told me the same thing. I ordered one of their bakery packages and planned for bringing my own cake. My daughter asked me for a red velvet cake, so I ordered one from the Publix bakery. They only had red velvet cakes in an 8 inch round, which serves 10, so I ordered some cupcakes to make sure I had enough for everyone. The owner, Jane, stopped us as we came in and wouldn't allow us to have both the cake and the cupcakes. She said it was in the contract that we couldn't have both pointing to the word "or" in the contract, where it said the only outside food allowed was cake or cupcakes. She said we were told we couldn't have both when I reserved. No-one specified that it was either cake or cupcakes and we could not have both on the phone, and that is absolutely not made clear in the contract. Jane said the girl who made my reservation did spell it out that it could not be both and the girl sitting there said that yes, that's what she had told me. That is absolutely not true. She probably was afraid for her job if she didn't say then what Jane wanted her to say. When I told Jane that was not true she accused me of calling her a liar and threatened to cancel my daughter's party if I didn't turn the cupcakes over to the hostess. She was completely inflexible! I had guests on the way, so my only option was to hand over the cupcakes. In the party room next to ours they had a cake, chocolate covered strawberries, and servings of something creamy in individual cups. My husband saw another party room that had a cake and a flan. None of those items were on the arena's food or bakery menus, so obviously they brought in outside food. Yet we weren't allowed our cupcakes. The hostess in our party room was a sweet girl, but didn't come check on us often and we had a hard time finding her when we needed something. We had no forks when it came time to cut our cake, and I had to go hunt her down while my guests waited. When we ran out of water, I had to flag down another host for a pitcher refill. We had to wait 30 minutes after the party time was over for her to come and settle the bill. If the way the owner treated me was any indication of how she treats her staff, I figured the poor service was a result of being stretched too thin, so I gave her a decent tip anyway. The ladies' bathroom was horrendous. It was dirty, three out of four stalls had out of order signs, two other toilets were disgustingly clogged, and in at least one of the few usable stalls there was no toilet paper. I can only imagine what the men's room was like Needless to say, I will never book another party at the Kendall Ice Arena.