Northern Lights Recreation - Bowling

Northern Lights is a bowling lane located between Petoskey and Harbor Springs in Northern Lower Michigan. It is advertised as a great place to spend an evening bowling with friends and family. This bowling alley is nice and very clean. They offer 16 Brunswick style bowling lanes. The entire bowling area is a non-smoking area. I did notice that people were heading outside to smoke so I assumed there is not a designated area inside. Being a non-smoker, I did not inquire about this, but did hear that smoking is allowed inside after 10pm.

There is an attached bar with a live band in the evening. We were there early in the evening, so this was not an issue. The band was very good and could be heard from the bowling alley.

We went on a Friday night to experience the new "glow bowling". The kids were impressed with it, but I was a little disappointed. I expected more of a black light experience, and instead just got a little "glow" from the neon colored bowling balls. There wasn't much glow unless they were rolling down the lanes. The black light effect was very dim. The on-screen effects are funny, so it made up for my "glow" bowl disappointment. Our lane kept shutting off and we would have to call for the attendant, but he corrected the issue and got us back up within 5 minutes or so.

One thing that I liked was the child bumper guard system. All you need to do is report to the attendant the name of each child that needs bumpers. They input the info into the computer and every time the child's turn comes up so do the bumper guards. This saved us a lot of aggravation and lost balls. The lanes are nice and the atmosphere was good for children.

It cost us $5 per person for a game. A four hour evening (six games) for a family of four will cost about $120 for bowling and shoes.

The food was good but on the expensive side. We had pizza and chicken wings, usual fare for our bowling outings. The chicken wings were good, but took a little getting used to. They seemed to have been soaked in some sort of vinegar concoction. After 2-3, you

No longer notice the vinegar taste. The pizza was just average and did not have a lot of topping. I really had to look to find the pepperoni and mushrooms on the pizza. The crust was good though. This worked out for me, because I am one of those people who eat pizza just to get the crust! The beer pitchers are larger than the soda pop pitchers and I couldn't help but wonder about the cost effectiveness of the pop pitcher vs. glass, but I did not take the time to calculate it.

There are pool tables just off the bowling floor and a small, but nice, arcade for the kids. There were several arcade machines and every child found one they like, so this was good. I liked the fact there was only one door into and out of the arcade and it was visible from the bowling floor. It made it comfortable to let the kids go to the arcade while we sat and talked.

The evening was great; we all had a pretty good time. However, there was one factor that left me somewhat unsatisfied:

We played two games and decided to stop and eat before playing again. We planned on playing 4-5 games all together. No one had eaten, and we didn't want to handle the balls with greasy fingers, so we sat down and ate. After eating, we boxed up the remaining pizza so that we could take it home. While we were boxing up our pizza and finishing eating, the attendant came and removed all of our balls, shutting us down. He never asked any of us if we were done bowling. We had well behaved children in our group, and 12 of the 16 lanes were open. There was not a crowd in the bowling alley and there was no need for our lane. The staff did not seem very attentive to our party of 13, and seemed to be ushering us out, so we changed our shoes and left.

Over all, it is not a bad place. It was nice and clean and not a big crowd. We spent a lot of money and had fun bowling. The customer service was disappointing.

They do schedule a lot of league bowling and open bowling hours are limited at times. I would suggest calling ahead for the hours.

8865 M-119

Harbor Springs, MI 49740

(231) 347-3100

www.northernlightsrec.com

The writer was not provided with complimentary accommodations or services for the purpose of this review.