It is really sad when the employees put so much positive effort and the experience can be ruined without anything they can do. Sat the 12th my two sons and I decided to try ifly (1 hour drive) but looked fun. I booked online. After reviewing all the offers decided to go with the BUY 2 get 2 Free (flights). $105 for my two boys and I assumed I would have to buy a flight or two for myself but wanted to wait until I saw the experience (you know 55 and all).
Getting there I was greeted warmly. Was asked what time my appointment was and I said 2pm and gave my name. Filled out the waivers, and all seemed in order and off to a good start. The front counter person said she could not find my reservation and asked if I had a reservation form to which I replied that I only had the purchase receipt (photo on my phone) but it had a web purchase number on it and she would be able to look it up with that. No joy, she could not find it and asked me again for the receipt. After looking at the pic on my phone she said this was not a reservation and called over a manager who explained that I had no proof that I had made a reservation. After a few minutes of arguing I capitulated and said I will just purchase it at the counter to which I was told I could not as that package was only available online. I asked him if it made any sense for me to go online and purchase it AGAIN, and charge my card again for them to tell me the form the system puts out is not a receipt. They asked if I wanted to purchase the more expensive packages they had at the counter. (this is me with a stunned look) :{ After more conversation and much frustration I capitulated and attempted to go online and purchase the package thru my phone. There were no reservation times left and it would not let me purchase it. The two employees behind the counter just stared at me and said they could not help me.
At the same moment, I noticed another customer in the next line starting to get aggravated because they had made the exact same reservation and were having the exact same problem.
As my face started turning red another manager came over and said he would take care of it. He did thank goodness. I this point I was not happy and decided not to do the experience myself and frankly was unable to get out of my funk to enjoy it with my boys.
My story does not end there. During the experience, I noticed that everyone in the group was getting 2 minutes in the machine and my sons were getting only a minute. I went to the counter and was told that the package that I got for 4 rides was only a minute each and not the standard package 2 minutes each. I searched everything on the website and could not find any reference to a shortened time with the package I bought. I said this to the manager and he said "It is corporate" nothing he can do.
This is most likely my first and last time at iFly and my boys really enjoyed it. It is really bad to mislead your customers and even worse to tie the hands of your employees to fix an obvious problem.
I would like to say it would have been a 1 star except the employees were really great just had their hands tied with no ability to fix it.
Response from Host
Jun 2023
Thank you for going the extra mile and making a long commute to try this out. Thank you as well for sending over this detailed account. It helps us make sure things like this never happen again. We will look into the issue of reservations not showing up at iFLY from Viator as well as use this as a learning opportunity to train our staff to assist customers like you even better in the future. Each Flight is equal to 1 minute, and with 4 Flights shared by two people, we usually break that down into 2 x 1-minute turns for each flyer. This is our standard 2 flight package. Some of your other flyers in your class may have purchased a different package that includes 4 flights for one flyer. We're so sorry this was not more thoroughly communicated to you. We appreciate you taking the time to assist, and we hope you'll give us another chance to impress you in the future as it sounds like overall your sons had a good flight experience!