Derek Brown

Review of Ford Ice Center

I rarely leave reviews, but my recent experience a...

I rarely leave reviews, but my recent experience at the Ford Ice Center at Bellevue warranted such review. My wife and I tried to go skating on a date night and when we showed up, we had to stand in line for 45min to sign a waiver. This wouldn't be a huge problem except that the line barely moved. So, assuming this place (which was paid for by taxpayer money) would be in the 21st century where easy online waivers exist, we tried to login online and sign the waiver. Unfortunately, the waiver couldn't be filled out in its entirety online because the system was flawed (again, isn't it 2020?). It isn't difficult to have an online check-in process these days. Once someone signs a waiver (which we ended up not completing), you then had to stand in another line (that also wasn't moving) to pay to skate and rent skates. You would think that a place that is so exquisite would make it easy for the public to participate in open skate (but obviously their priority is elsewhere - competitive leagues and bar sales from the parents "watching" their kids). Having an hour and a half window to public skate (as indicated by their online schedule) necessitates a much easier sign-in process. It baffles me that they make it so difficult for the public who helped pay for their building to skate. They need a massive revamping of their entire ingress system. Thoroughly disappointed.