Try out Laser Quest at Flip Out Lakeside

I feel like Laser Quest is a bit of a hit and miss activity, but one that is aimed at teenagers and so, as parents of teenagers, we tend to find ourselves going to some arenas. We actually booked Laser Quest at Flip Out Lakeside as it was so near to us and we had never actually been before. Kai was pretty pumped, with Amelia and Robin being generally excited. The booking process was easy, however, as Flip Out is a trampoline park, it did mention we needed the trampoline socks for our Laser Quest game. Honestly thinking this was a mistake, we didn’t order them.

It turns out, you are made to take off your shoes in the Laser Quest zone and wear their special socks, which will increase the price quite a bit. We arrived for our time slot and waited in line for 20 minutes to get in the door, as there is only one queue, which includes people filling out forms, purchasing tickets and passes, and getting socks. When we went through the front desk, they didn’t tell us we needed socks, but once we got to the area we were told we needed socks to enter the entrance to the Laser Quest, so we then grabbed some from the cafe. Once we were in, we rushed up to the Laser Quest area, making it just in time for our time slot. We had booked two back to back sessions with a 10 minute break, being the entire thing would be done and dusted in about 40 to 50 minutes.

Nobody was actually at the Laser Quest desk, so after waiting about 15 minutes into our session, we went and found a member of staff, who said they would call someone but explained they were incredibly under staffed, and “that’s how it just is here”. This was not a very good start, if I am honest. About half an hour into our session time, we were moved into a room to watch a safety video. We were told that our family were the only ones booked up, but after the safety video, another family joined us, we all re-watched the safety video, then we went into the arena together. I am not really sure what happened here.

The staff let us into Laser Quest ahead of the new start time they had given us, getting us all geared up. Robin struggled with the weight of the blaster, which was much heavier than others we have been too, but the arena itself was pretty well decorated. It felt like Japanese street markets, full of neon spray paint. They have a sort of long, ramped hallway that leads up to the top play area, which has a sort of shallow area and a building. We realized half way through the first timeslot that there was a lower level, however going down there was useless as people from above can see you and shoot you, and getting up and down the ramp was just frustrating. The entire layout just didn’t seem that good.

After the end of our first session, we were let out a side door and instructed to come back in 10 minutes. The family of four boys we were playing with all ran out too. We got a drink and came back at the time, but again, nobody was there. We sat in the waiting room for a further 20 minutes before someone came and let us into the safety video room, where we were instructed to watch the safety video again. At this point, two of the young boys who had joined our session said that they had to leave. This left seven of us. We were then put in with a group of 13 or so people, with them on one team and us on the other.

These older kids, primarily teenagers and adults, were intense to play with. Within the first ten minutes, a boy older than Amelia, started following Robin around, walking slowly, and just zapping her over and over until she got upset. Dann had already told him to stop, so I started following him around, the same thing he had done to Robin, so he would leave her along and she could run off and play. Dann had gone to get a member of staff at that point, but they did not want to go into the arena and there was not staff within the arena to tell. The boy’s older sister started screaming that I wasn’t playing the game fair, and when I explained that I am just playing how he plays, it started a massive issue with her and her brother. At that point, nobody was having fun, so we figured we’d cut our session short and head out, which meant that they didn’t have a team to fight against.

The staff themselves weren’t very helpful in any of these issues or situations. Our family tends to be quite on the positive side, so we talked about the first session and compared this place to other Laser Quests that we’ve been too, deciding it didn’t rank very high, and decided we might come back for the Flip Out area at some point in the future. It’s a shame that the place is so poorly ran and that sessions are clearly overbooked. It would have been simple to have a person within the arena or to split up larger groups so that it’s not so unbalanced. Laser Quest is an aggressive feeling game, so it’s one we don’t normally do often.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!