Don Carter Lanes

Cleanest and best alley in area but the others are really bad! They do a lot to bring in people from concerts to OTB to an arcade inside. The food isn’t that bad and cheese curds are actually pretty good. Staff is always very helpful even with kids who always get the balls stuck or drop them all together. Only complaint, I got a shoe with a big hole in toe. They switched it out and gave me free game passes. Love that they participate in the free summer bowling for kids.

This place has horrible customer service. In fact worse than any other place in Rockford, of any kind. The place itself is ok but for this I’m never coming back.

Good bowling lanes but poor selection of balls. The alley is good but the customer service is the worst I have ever seen. When I went there last week the lane my friends and I were given had a problem with the scoring system. Everyone’s scores were screwed up. When we complained we were told to «deal with it». No apology! Just «deal with it»!
Not coming back here for a long time!

After some honest reflection, this the best bowling alley I’ve been to. It’s large, has plenty of lanes, they recently remodeled and now includes OTB, there’s a decent bar that caters nicely to bowlers and they consistently have special events and deals running.
On a Wednesday night, we got buy one get one free games and it was not busy at all. We were literally surrounded by empty lanes. They were more than willing to accept the Unilocal check-​in buy one get one free game deal, but they were already running that special anyways (nice to know they would be willing to take it, though.) We also got a pitcher of Coors and Blue Moon (including a cup of orange slices) for reasonable prices.
If you don’t remember socks, they have vending machines with baller socks for a dolla, and a free game coupon included!
Best deal and time? Cosmic bowling, Saturday night. One price ($ 11), unlimited bowling and then you sign up to win prizes that they call out all night. Our foursome won a free ‘za and pitcher of beer. And as the name suggests, tons of black lights, special lights, disco balls and some fun music. Awesome.
And, if you’re looking for the teen hang out spot, that would be Rock N Bowl on Fridays, 9pm-​midnight.

Havent been here to bowl in a while. Went here with my family. It was $ 18 per hour to bowl for the four of us plus paying for shoes. Wasn’t too crowded. Would have been happier if they weren’t playing country music the whole time but I suppose its kid friendly since it was around 2 and most of the families there had kids under 10. Didn’t get any food so can’t review that aspect of it. Overall had a good time with no problems.

I took the family here for some fun over the weekend. We had received in the mail a coupon for 2 free games for up to 4 people. We decided to go play three games. When we arrived, the place looked packed, but there were a lot of empty lanes. It was about 1 PM on a Saturday and I knew they had some leagues going, but I didn’t think it would be a problem to get in. I guess I was wrong.
First I stood at the counter waiting to get acknowledged for a good 10 minutes while the staff talked to each other or to members in a league. When we finally were assisted, the lady that helped us was very nice. She explained that they had leagues going on and birthday party’s and that it would be about a 30 minute wait. We were fine with that. They have a large game room area for the kids to play in.
Sure enough with in 30 minutes our name was called and we were assigned a lane. They have great state of the art scoring systems and electronic displays with animations. You can even pick different themes.
There is not a lot of seating though. For four of us playing, we had room for two to sit while everyone else had to stand. Unless they left the bowling area, which is fine, but when you have a child that is 8, you don’t want them wandering alone.
We were having a good time when an employee came over to us and said that due to a party, they where going to have to move us two lanes down. That would have been fine, if not just an inconvenience if it wasn’t for the fact that the lane they where moving us to was still occupied with the participants of a birthday party that had been there. We waited patiently, but they were eating cake and talking. Finally, *I* had to muscle my way over because no one that worked for Don Carter’s would say anything. Then I had to clean up the extra balls the previous party left on the ball return so there was room enough for our balls. Once we got resettled, we discovered that there was even less seating at this lane.
The lanes are good, the place is well maintained, it’s clean. The staff just needs to work on taking care of it’s customers a little better.

Good bowling fun!
They have plenty of lanes and they charge for a lane by the hour as well as by game. The building is well used but taken care of.
The whole family had a great time.