Kaver Meow
09/08/2023
Calabria Bowling Club completely let our whole football team down very last minute. We'd booked a futsal court and received email confirmation. We also booked online for our group's families, 34 people to have dinner in the restaurant, which I was able to confirm directly with the restaurant owner. I prefer to speak with a human when a group is involved: I called the club several times over the days leading up to the booking, but they weren't contactable, instead it went to a voice recording which refers bookings back to their web site - a ridiculous circular madness worthy of 'Catch 22'. I finally got hold of someone just hours prior to our event, who informed me the court I'd booked was actually not available 'on Tuesdays' and that the courts should've been blocked out on the web site. The girl on the phone made mention of being sorry but blamed 'the person who runs the web site'. I pointed out they'd had four days to spot their mistake and let us know. We were left to madly scramble and reorganise to relocate our event. The restaurant is now run as a separate business and the owner called me to make sure we didn't blame the restaurant for the mistake. As a customer it's unsatisfactory to have one entity take my significant group booking, which the purpose of our visit is dependent on the hire of a court that is handled by someone else, and the two parties don't talk to each other. There was no follow up from the actual club, to acknowledge their incompetence which caused us significant inconvenience, or to apologise properly.
Fortunately for us, another local place, Harbord Bowling Club was able to accommodate our group; we got a booking on one of the KIKOFF futsal courts and enjoyed drinks and dinner in the club's bar & restaurant JC's Pizza Cafe.