Disclaimer: This blog entry isn’t technical like most of my blog entries, but instead is a rant about a negative experience had at a show at an amusement park and a restaurant.

This last weekend (2012-09-12) Maryanne and I took the kids to the Kemah Boardwalk for a day of fun and school extra credit. The Kemah Boardwalk is located in Kemah, TX not far from our home in Friendswood, TX. The boardwalk is a pretty cool little spot on the bay with shops, midway-style games, rides and restaurants. There is quite a bit to do there and can be a good day’s getaway.

This particular day Kemah was hosting the 11th annual Tuba Christmas, and Taylor’s teacher was playing along with them. Because of this the band teachers encourage the students to come to the show, and even sweetened the deal with extra credit. The show was fun with a whole bunch of tubas playing your Christmas favorites.

After the Tuba Christmas show we browsed around at a few shops for a little while to waste a bit of time before another show starting at 6:30pm, the Boat Lane Parade. We had never seen this show and thought it would be cool to see a bunch of boats in the bay lit up with the Christmas spirit. At first we thought about eating before the show, but with only an hour remaining before the show was scheduled to start we instead decided to stake out a spot by the rail so we could have a nice view of the boats coming in and out during the show. The time is 5:30pm.

We found a space fairly close to the rail, and just outside of a roped-off section next to Landry’s Seafood. The roped-off section had tables for Landry’s outside seating with enough space for servers to take care of their guests. During the course of the next hour Landry’s had issues with people standing directly in front of the rope, and in some cases behind the roped off area. They kept asking people to move to the sides of the rope and some complied, others did not. We were on the correct side of the rope; right up against it in fact.

At about 6:20 (give or take a few minutes) some manager from Landry’s came out with a crew and started to undo the ropes, then informed everyone that we would all have to move over, and that they were extending the roped-off area so diners inside the restaurant could see the bay.

I admit that I am a bit pissy about this. Make no mistake that I am not arguing the right for Landry’s Seafood to do this, as the Landry’s company owns the restaurant AND the entire Kemah Boardwalk. At this point I am arguing that expanding the roped-off area just minutes before the show start is what one might call a “douche-bag move”. We were not breaking the rules, we were outside the roped-off zone, and had waited for almost an hour there, patiently. We had our name on the list to eat at Landry’s at one point, but the wait was taking too long, and we didn’t want to miss the show, so we took it off and waited on the dock instead. Why then should we be punished and forced to move when we opted to wait in a spot where we could see? Why should those who did not stake out a spot to see, but chose to eat instead, get preferential treatment?

Instead we ended up leaving, as the entire boardwalk on that side was completely full even before the change in the rope zone. We missed the show which is unfortunate. Many people opted to leave and were upset, and I for one do not understand why a restaurant would choose to alienate potential customers.