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| - I read Danielle R's review about outrageous customer service before going and was hoping it was an anomaly. It wasn't. But, I had a prepaid Amazon Local coupon and was locked into going. My small group of 3 mom and 5 kids had the same bad customer service. We also had serious concerns about the safety of this place--their belay teaching skills were terrible. I'll address that further on in the review.
I believe we also had the owners checking us in at the front desk (an older Asian couple). There was a bit of fumbling around as they tried to honor our 2 coupons and they kept getting confused about who was climbing and who was not. We did fill out waivers. The husband asked if we had climbed before and I said "yes." My daughter climbs indoors competitively and the other kids had all climbed before. As we are waiting to get rental shoes for some of the kids, the man tells us we have to pay $5 for belay lessons, but the wife had told us we just needed a review of our skills of which there was no charge. When we brought this up to the husband, he got really short and rude with us. When we pointed out what his wife said about a skills review, he said that he was in charge. Oookayyy....But then the wife came over and told us not to listen to him and took us over to an area to have our skills checked! I was relieved when a young guy came to review our belay skills because the owners sure didn't seem to know what they were doing.
Unfortunately, this guy wasn't the best either. Nor were any of the other instructors that we saw teaching a group of boy scouts and their parents later. Any other gym I've been to, the instructor has taken the time to really teach the skill. Some show a video, then have a good one on one check of skills When I was taught the instructor made sure I could tie in several times without help. Then, had me work on moving the rope through the gri-gri in the practice area. After all that, then I had to practice belaying the instructor. The instructor threw in a couple planned and unplanned falls to make sure I could "catch" him. It took a good 30-40 minutes. This is as it should be. Safety first, right?
So this gym was teaching these first time parents how to belay while their kids were tied in and climbing on the wall! They hadn't practiced tying in, or moving the rope through the gri-gri or how to stop a fall or anything. The kids are clinging to the wall, wanting to be let down and the parent is fumbling with the gri-gri while the instructor is trying to show them how to work it to let the kid down! My daughter was freaking out watching them teach belay skills. As a competitive climber she is fastidious about tying in correctly and belaying correctly. I felt safe because we knew what we were doing. But, for the first timer....yikes! If you have never climbed before I would go elsewhere. We've been to AZ on the Rocks and they do a good job teaching belay skills.
I really hate giving any establishment a one star rating, but I just can't give it two stars given the poor way they teach belay skills. Rude customer service aside, that is just inexcusable. People could get seriously hurt. Maybe this place is great for experienced climbers that already have the belay skills down and that don't have to deal with the front desk, but I won't ever climb here again.
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