Hollywood Bowl Oxford Reviews Summary

Staff and Service

Pros:

• "Wow, what a place, super fun for family! Donika, the lady which served us was an absolute angel, whatever we needed she helped with and was super friendly!"
• "For all bowlers out there, you need to visit this place. The staff were friendly and the venue is kept to a good standard."
• "Staff were very engaging and accommodating, especially at reception."
• "Had a really lovely time here with my husband."
• "Went here on Monday evening. Had a great few games bowling, and Geraldine was especially helpful as at one point the bowling balls got stuck, but she got it sorted quickly for us!"
• "We visited Hollywood Bowl with a youth group including multiple people with additional needs and were so well cared for by the team at Hollywood Bowl who even gave us some STRIKE! stickers for everyone at the end."
• "The staff are generally friendly, no complaints in its capacity as a bowling alley."

Cons:

• "Extremely loud due to all of the arcade machines, lack of caring staff and very poorly managed."
• "Horrible staff, disorganised, not enough staff or just standing around."
• "Had to clean our table before could even sit down to eat then they charged us twice place was dirty staff unhelpful."
• "Understaffed, with a few overworked, unfriendly and unhelpful staff."
• "Lacking staff, only had 2 people there when we were there."
• "The place is a shambles. Badly managed and under-staffed."
• "Awful, hardly any staff and they were trying to cope with a workload that was far higher than it should have been."

Facilities and Cleanliness

Pros:

• "Great place for family day out. Arcade games are fun for all age ranges. Big diner offers food, drinks and lots of pool tables."
• "Pool tables are decent. £1 a go. Despite that had fun here."
• "Clean and well-maintained facilities."
• "Very clean which must be challenging to maintain with the amount of people passing through here."
• "It was quite clean when we went."
• "Staff were very helpful and it felt clean and they had thought out covid such as use of own sets of balls marked out."
• "Great alley- not overly crowded, with a kitsch vintage diner vibe in typical Hollywood Bowl fashion."

Cons:

• "Toilets were filthy/locks broken."
• "The floor of the toilets were dirty and sticky."
• "Bathrooms don't even have soap to wash your hands with."
• "The smell made me retch and feel sick."
• "Tables were filthy. food bland."
• "Carpets stinky could feel as I walk in, toilets were dirty who knows when last time it was cleaned."
• "Total disorganization at reception, dirty tables and bowling lanes with rubbish and dirty glasses everywhere, toilets needed a real good cleaning."

Value for Money

Pros:

• "But going in a group, and joining the club does allow you 50% off your second visit."
• "The prices were very reasonable."
• "Has definitely come on leaps and bounds since I was last there and the price of drinks/food seems to have come down a bit too which is great!"
• "Can get a jug of coke delivered while you play for a fiver which I thought was brill."
• "The bar had a wide selection of drinks, including cocktails."
• "Someone came over and asked us if we wanted some food or drink, which arrived quickly and was as tasty as you would expect for bowling alley food."
• "Nice couple of hours out with the family."

Cons:

• "We payed 12.50 per child which wasn’t cheap."
• "Drinks are more than London prices. £10 for a couple of kids fruit drinks and 2 soft drinks."
• "The food is okay, but very over priced and so is the bowling."
• "Thought the bowling was overpriced."
• "Very pricey tho £28 for the 4 of us to play one game."
• "At £6.99 for a hotdog and pot of chips is disgusting, it's meant to be an American diner but the portions are very small, the hotdogs and chips were cold and for that price I expect better!"
• "Do not eat here. They say half hour wait for food then you find out for almost £12 you get. 3 x small chicken nuggets. 16 small fries. About 4 oz of milkshake."

Food and Drink

Pros:

• "Food arrived relatively quickly and was hot."
• "Food as usual for these places is pricey and not great quality, the bar is average prices for the area."
• "We had an hour of bowling with the food at the end. The woman serving us was an absolute delight and swapped one of the dishes for us as the wrong one had been ordered by us by mistake."
• "Love this place. Great fun for the family! Bowling, arcades, pool tables etc."
• "Plenty of activities to keep everyone entertained."
• "The dining experience for me and my children was awful."
• "Great place to visit with mates as its right next to cinema."

Cons:

• "Took over an hour to get our food as they delivered incorrectly the first time."
• "The kids hot dog rolls were extremely stale & their vegetable sticks mentioned on the menu are seemingly fictitious."
• "When we finally ordered food we had to wait nearly an hour there was hardly any of it and most of it was cold."
• "Bowling and arcade are good, but the food is not."
• "Shocking wait for nachos forty mins we had to go ask then told they just coming."
• "The food was the worse part of it."
• "For a place that caters for families, the food was awful."