I have just received this reply<br /><br />Dear John<br /><br />Thank you for your comments regarding your recent visit. I shall try to<br />answer your queries as honestly as possible.<br /><br />The approaches were brought to our attention before a ball was bowled.<br />After this was brought to our attention 4 team members were assigned to<br />clean the approaches as to speed up the process and cause a minimum<br />disruption. The players areas were cleaned on the Saturday evening and<br />again on the Sunday morning before the players arrived.<br />Practice started at 10.00am and having previously bowled in the North<br />West Fives travelling league, I do not believe this to be a delay of any<br />significance.<br />With regard to the waiting list on the lanes, I am afraid you are very<br />much mis-informed as our receptionists were forced to turn away a great<br />deal of unhappy customers who had travelled some distance to visit the<br />centre.<br />The centre hopes to provide a welcoming atmosphere to everyone who<br />visits us which includes both open and league bowlers. Our team worked<br />extremely hard to placate the bowlers on the day in very difficult and<br />trying circumstances.<br /><br />If you wish to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to call me<br />at AMF Carlisle.<br /><br />Best regards<br /><br />Shaun Kinnersley<br />Deputy Manager<br />

John thanks for the swiftness of your mail and the answer is true but with no mention of the food or drinks problems after a two hour drive to bowl on sub standard lanes with a wait for 40 mins for a bacon sandwich then a delay the bowling started ie first game 10.30am<br />which is 30mins later than should which makes every further delay worse liverpool teams got home at 9.20pm long day not any of your faults NOT WORTH THE TIME.<br />

I have to agree with what Mark has said about Carlise, last time we went there i had nothing but praise for the place but how things do change in a short time.The approaches were dangerous and stayed that way all day half an hour late starting as they tried in vain to get them right very poor pattern so different from last time or they just cant be bothered putting a decent one down, no menu,think i saw 2 working the kitchen and there must have been over 100 bowlers and friends there who went without any lunch if they didn&#039;t bring their own. £1-10 for a cup of tea (ludicrous)7pm finish i got home at 9-20pm. Spoke to a few captains there and they say this is another center to scratch off the NWFs rota as they wont be playing here again.

approaches, not the best, anyone who hasn&#039;t spent lots of money on dextors or such alike, struggled ....though I have bowled on much stickier The staff did work very hard and had some success in cleaning, this really should have been addressed at 8 am rather than 10 .....surly part of the lane maintenance is to slide to check them? ......Food that did get served seemed OK, but so under staffed, Cali was told there would be no hot food available at lunch, so spend 30 mins driving around to find a take out, unsuccessfully, only to find on her return they were now cooking? ....I order a cuppa and bacon barm before practice, as there was no cups they apologised, and said they would bring to lane asap .....cup arrived unannounced during practise, so was cold when I realised ....six visits to ask about the barm later .....I finally received it on the 9th frame of first game.....<br />the lanes I didn&#039;t have a problem with, accept the drying out during 5th game strange they held up better before redress .....they were not a patch on last year, obviously miss Robs advise, and must have short memories.

Many have learnt from experience with regards to catering at Carlisle. The &quot;greasy spoon&quot; van across the road seems to be a popular choice and there were quite a few of us who decided to go to Burger King. We were all back with plenty time to spare before the restart.<br />The cups issue was unfortunate as this is something that could have easily been avoided. All in all a very long, but enjoyable day in my opinion.&nbsp;

Long day yesterday !!!

Lanes were fair, but playable for all. Not much slide on the approaches, look like they need a little work there !! Scores I suspect will be below average, although it's not always the best to play on easy conditions all of the time, so fair enough. Twister pins I believe they have will be the reason for the very strange pinfall all teams seem to be getting. Can't believe how many pocket balls were leaving splits, and I have never seen as many pocket balls (from all teams) that were leaving 9pins. Lanes dried out very quickly especially in the afternoon, but I noticed that some bigger scores were being hit on the drier conditions (saw a 260odd game and I think a 278 in the last game in Division one) !!!!

Can't see why they don't provide any real concessions for the 5's bowlers, especially at breakfast where many will have experienced a long drive. Unless of course you include a Bacon and Sausage teacake at £2.75 a go a concession, LOL !!!! Thankfully the Burger van across the road is back, defo recommend that!!

Can't understand why we were delayed 15mins b4 the start, it's not as if they won't know what time we are coming, and they were a numerous amounts of breakdowns on the day, which resulted in a finish close to or after 6.30pm (not nice with a long drive to follow for most I suspect) !!

All in all just a long day I suppose, not sure which fence I sit on regards Carlisle. Personally I suppose we would still like to go, as our team always make a weekend of it (our scores in the morning suggest we had a bit of a late one) !!! Not the best for scoring (good to have poor scoring centres as well as high scoring ones), but enjoyable weekend all the same for us. Shame about the delay at the start though which was highlighted by a lot of breakdowns, and resulted in a late finish.