I (27M) and my 2 parents (58F and 56M) were out today at one of the new Sandbox VR Experiences in our city. Because it is so new, and of course entertainment, it was pricey but felt worth it. By pricey, think $200 for all 3 of us to have 30 minutes of experience. However, because it is up to a six person thing, they put us in with 3 kids that looked to be somewhere between 10-14 years old. They did have a parent, but he was off the the side watching, not playing.

When they hook you all up to the VR system, you also receive a mic and headset to easily hear your team, but this honestly is where the problems started and never stopped. For 20 straight minutes, it was screaming, yelling, singing, and random noises coming from their microphones, with no way of turning the volume down. I do understand that they are young and it is a fun experience for all, but we couldn’t hear the directions for the games, or even focus on the game itself from the noises I was hearing from the kids.

We did ask them to quiet down during the instruction parts, but we were met with us being told we were “rude parents” and “no fun”. Then the game slowly started to glitch for a little, and that then became the kids focus, complaining and yelling that it was “glitching out”, “oculus was better”, and “this is lame”, before the entire game had to be paused to fix one of the kids vests.

This pause also meant a chance for more frustration from me and my parents and more complaining and problems from the kids (including a conversation where they told us we were rude and we chimed back with a “kid… you guys are the rude ones”, so I decided I was done. I took the headset off, told the game master person I wanted to quiet and leave, my parents agreed, and we all walked out. We took off all of the equipment, and immediately spoke to a manager. We did try to look for the parent of the kids to see what they would do, but he only said to the kids to keep playing and ignore us. No help from the game master either, who only said once in the entire experience to please pay attention. And from what I can tell, 2 of the three kids continued playing.

Luckily we talked to a manager, they understood, and were kind enough to reschedule us for a later experience to do it again, but I hate having to ask for anything like a refund since I can just decide not to come back, and as I’m writing this I’m conflicted.

We never cursed at the kids, never got physical or aggressive, and never said anything else other than “be quiet so we can hear” and “guys, please stop talking”, and I’m sitting here telling myself they’re kids and are doing kid things, but did we take it too far by just leaving and not finishing the last 10 minutes? It worked out in the end, but still.

So AITAH for walking out on the experience how I did because these kids were so disrespectful?