I brought my family of 4 in to play a game of bowling during the slow part of Friday evening. There were only a few other bowlers when we arrived, which in my mind signals opportunity to run a special aimed towards families. I'm pretty sure the staff at Dover Bowl wouldn't grasp an opportunity if it were the only thing to save them from falling off a cliff.
We are, my husband, myself and our 2 children ages 13 and 2.5. Basically, reasonably speaking, my husband, oldest son and myself were going to be playing while my 2.5 year old was there merely to be entertained. No child discount was offered which I found to be absurd, paying full price for a toddler is a bit unreasonable.
So, we paid $30 dollars for one game of bowling.
The counter help was borderline rude, absolutely personality-less and seemed like he just couldn't have possibly cared less if we were there or not. Really doesn't seem like a positive or productive way to run a business.
There were numerous mechanical issues with the lane including missing pins upon completion of reset, failure to reset at all. Balls came out greasy as well.
I grew up bowling, my grandparents were coaches and we traveled all over New England to bowl and out of all the alleys I've been too, Â this is by far and away the crappiest, rudest, worst managed bowling alley I've ever been to.
They literally couldn't give a crap that people are spending hearty sums of hard earned cash to fund their shoddy operation. Sad.
$30 for one game of candlepin. Major technological issues. The computer lets you designate if you want bumpers for certain players, however, the bumpers never went down. Not all of the balls would register, so sometimes a player would end up getting six or seven turns. The pins weren't reloading on their own.
The owner was a compete jerk. Everyone smokes right outside of the entrance. Disgusting.
Yeah, Dover Bowl really, really sucks. Broken lanes are the norm. The bar is filled with belligerent drunks who WILL hit on every female in sight and who are NEVER shut off. The staff is sort of incredibly rude. I think Dover Bowl's management is somehow opposed to the concept of the repeat customer.
Despite the fact that I knew all of this, I decided to celebrate my birthday there. I know, duh, but it's the ONLY ten pin bowling alley in the area. I guess I figured that the staff might rise to the occasion if I planned ahead. I was wrong.
This was a HUGE mistake. I called ahead to reserve 2 lanes on Saturday night between 7 and 9. "Rock-n-bowl" starts at 9, and is a nightmare of bad hip hop and Nickelback. AND it costs $15 per bowler. The person I spoke to was very nice, she just said I needed to call back with a deposit. However, when I DID call back, the owner told me they didn't take reservations for Saturday evenings. Then he said he would take it, but didn't take a deposit. I should have insisted.
When I arrived at 7 on Saturday night, only one lane was available. As only 6 of my guests had arrived, they promised that we could have the next lane over if it emptied out when the rest of my party arrived. They charged me $50 for the one lane for 2 hours.
Luckily, the next lane over WAS empty when the rest of the party arrived. But the rest of my party waited in line for shoes for literally fifteen minutes, and when they FINALLY got shoes, they had given the lane to someone else! We sorted that out, but then it was impossible to enter anyone into the lane "computer." We figured it was a glitch, but the issue was that WE HADN'T PAID YET. Note that I am 44 years old. I'm not some teenager who is likely to skip out on a bowling tab. It was pretty offensive.
So I agreed to pay up front (again), and stood at the register NOT BOWLING for ten minutes while they tried to run my card. However, their credit card machine was down. So they graciously offered to let me bowl anyway. THANKS!
After that things settled down. Yes, the keyboard was broken, and the fan on the lane was broken, and there were horrible drunks hassling my friends in the bar, but all in all we had an OK time. However all of this time-wasting nonsense meant that we only bowled 1 1/2 strings on one lane and 1 on the other. Not a great deal for $75.
And then we went to pay on the way out...and the credit card machine was still down. We probably should have stiffed them, but we rounded up $25 in cash and paid. I think this will be my last birthday celebration at Dover Bowl. Which is too bad because I LOVE bowling!
Normally we enjoy bowling here, but after our games were shut off before we were finished, we were treated rudely and told that we "didn't follow instructions." We had put 4 people on lane 30 and 3 on 31, and apparently were supposed to have put 3 on 30 and 4 on 31. And even though we had paid for two games on both lanes, they only reopened one! We were also told that we were "taking an awfully long time to finish that game" even though we were bowling with a four-year-old! At 6pm on a Saturday night you'd think they'd be family-friendly, but they just wanted to kick us out so the folks who planned on drinking could play. Guess they make more money off of them! So we left after only finishing one and a half games. We'll be going to Bowl-O-Rama from now on!
Review Source:I'm not a huge fan of bowling, but it is nice to do on the occasional night where you just want to hang out with friends and play a couple of games. My big problem with Dover Bowl is that on the weekend if you arrive after 9pm, you have to pay $15 per person to have a lane! You get it until midnight, but what if you are just wanting to play a game or two? That's a lot of cash for bowling at an older alley where there is nothing special to make me want to spend 3 hours on a Saturday night. And if you go during a week night, the league teams are playing and they get priority on lanes! Grrrr. I will say that week nights are super cheap (I can't remember the exact price, but it is a good deal).
I've never had a drink from the bar but I hear they are ok. There seems to be a good choice of balls to choose from whenever I have been there. The type of people that show up are typical ranging from groups of really young kids, to college kids to the 30's crowd and no one ever seems to be overly annoying or wanting to start fights or anything. The people who work there are nice enough, nothing special but they aren't rude or mean.
The place could use some upgrades but if you are looking for your typical bowling alley, this place will probably suit you just fine.
Good for family or party bowling. They have both 10-pin and candlepin lanes. Must pre-pay for bowling, and there are no cash refunds (if you bowl less than you paid for, you get gift certificates for the unused strings).
Weekday evenings are heavy on league play, and the leagues get priority. Most of the leagues are "for fun", not pro.
There is also a poker room, which has been closed the last few times I've been there, and a small game arcade.
The place is very kid-friendly, with automatic gutter bumpers available on all lanes for those who want (or need!) them.
The biggest problem, and which prevents me from giving this place four stars, is their pin and ball return machinery frequently breaks down, and the keyboards on the player consoles in the first few lanes usually have trouble entering names.
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