How much is ice time?

[momof3chicks]

It seems like ice time prices vary wildly! We pay between $8 and $12 pers 50 minute session, depending on the rink and the volume discount. What does everyone else pay?

[Clarice]

Ours is $10/hour for freestyles, with a discount if you buy a punch card - pay for 10 sessions and get the eleventh free.

[Skittl1321]

Public sessions (4 to 7 hours depending on the day) is $6.
Cheap skate (1 hour) is $5 and comes with skate rental.

I'm not 100% sure but I think:
Freestyle (1 hour) is $8 and $6 for club members
Club Ice (1 hour) is $4 for club members and $6 for guests.

You can buy punch cards for either 10 or 20 public or freestyle sessions and get a bit of a discount.

[Kim to the Max]

Our club ice is on a sliding scale...

A club member walk on is $9.00 per session, if you purchase a package, then the amount you pay per session decreases as you purchase more sessions. For example, I pay $7 per session because I purchase 60 up front...if I were to bump that up to 70, I would pay $6.50 per session...

[CaraSkates]

Public skates are $5 for 2 hours.

Freestyle ice is between $10-$16 an hour.
$16 is for non club member walk ons, $14 is club member walk ons. If you buy a plan of ice for the month (15, 25, 30 hrs) it goes down to $12 or $10 an hour.

[phoenix]

I pay anything from 5.50 to 15.00 per hour for freestyle ice, depending on the rink.

[SynchroSk8r114]

I pay $6 for an hour freestyle session, but that's because I get a 50%+ discount for coaching there.

[Luckster013]

I pay $7.50 for an hour if I pay by contract, $9.00 if I walk on.

[sk8tmum]

This all sounds unusual to someone who is used to the club system: we pay on a seasonal basis, depending on the number of sessions skated, plus club membership and registration fees. For example, you would pay X amount to join the club, and then the per session amount; that would give you the right to skate on that session for, say, September to March. The session would be limited to just those skaters who registered for that session; if it's at maximum enrolment, no-one else skates, and, to skate on that session, if you're not enrolled, you pay a fee and it's by pre-approval only.

So, basically, I pay about $2,000 CDN for my kid to skate 5 times a week, September to end of March, on sessions that are maxed out at around 16 to 23 skaters, depending on the level; sessions are approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes. No group coaching, just maybe an instructed stroking session. Spring and Summer are in addition, and are in the same range of cost. Again, prepaid and prebooked and based on qualifications.

(ahem, actually, I pay that amount for each of my kids :) - so multiply annual x 3 and add coaching on top of it :cry:ll)

[smelltheice]

ice in the uk varies and it is actually cheaper for dedicated training ice than for a public session. I pay £4-40 for a single "patch" training ice but £4-60 for a public session. My coaching fees are £30 per hour and I live 45 minutes from the rink and petrol (gas) is £5.75 a gallon here and I use about 2 gallons per rink trip so I make the most of the day but luckily, my job allows me to do that. (approx. double the prices for US and canadian dollars)

So day at the rink with an hours training costs around £50.50p so around $100 per tuition day but sometimes we stay on to the next session and go without the management noticing!! but from sometimes we do get pinged
tuition and travel costs are split between my partner and I so its not so bad.
Pairs is the way forward!!!

[Mainemom]

We pay $10 per 50-minute session of Free Style ice if you buy a book of 12 at one rink and $9 each for a book of 20 at another rink. Drop-in of course is higher at rinks that we don't normally skate at but have to for one reason or another (no ice at either main rink for a few weeks or on vacation) usually between $14 and $17, although we did pay $25 once at Lake Placid for a 50 minute session (yikes!) Although we are a club, we don't have club ice per se - anyone can use it if they are USFSA full members and above BS Level 5. We won't be raising our rates this year because we figure with the cost of everything else going up, we still want people to (try) to be able to afford to skate.

[kimberley801]

Wow....some of that ice is pretty expensive.

Publics here in UT are anywhere from $2.50-$5.
Freestyle at the rink I'm at is $5.50(?) maybe $6 for an hour at a time.


Here's the cheap way to go if not skating freestyle:

There are 3 county rinks all within about 10-15 miles of each other
Annual public skate pass at one single rink is $80 a YEAR.
Annual public skate pass good at ALL 3 RINKS is only $125....

[momof3chicks]

Wow....some of that ice is pretty expensive.

Publics here in UT are anywhere from $2.50-$5.
Freestyle at the rink I'm at is $5.50(?) maybe $6 for an hour at a time.


Here's the cheap way to go if not skating freestyle:

There are 3 county rinks all within about 10-15 miles of each other
Annual public skate pass at one single rink is $80 a YEAR.
Annual public skate pass good at ALL 3 RINKS is only $125....

WOW! That would be awesome- $80 a year??? 8O

[Sessy]

We have one rink, late september till march, and you pay 100 euro (dunno the current dollar course) for a yearly ticket of public skatings. They're usually 1-1:45 hours a day, always in the middle of the day except 1 hour on tuesday night and 2 hours on wednesday night, which are both crowded to the extreme (as are the weekend sessions).
Of course being a student with most afternoons off, it's not a bad system... :mrgreen:

The 2 neighbouring rinks (30 kilometre radius), one does 5.25 euro per 1,5-2 hours for public ice and they have ice almost every evening (guess where all the adult skaters go?) for 6 months a year, the other does 5 euro for public ice 6 months a year, but they only have ice on weekends and wednesday afternoons (when kids are off from school) so for figure skaters, that's not a viable option.

[GordonSk8erBoi]

Here in Portland, OR at my rink:

FS sessions (mornings are 1 hr, Tuesday eve. are 45 min) are $8; there's a 12-for-the-price-of-10 punchcard, or you can pay $199/mo for unlimited FS.

Public sessions are $6.50 (skate rental is $2.50) with a similar punchcard.

Most of the coaches charge $60/hr.

[smelltheice]

I have to admit that even though the UK prices are comparable to the average US ice time practices, we get more time for the money. The shortest patch (training) ice is 1hr45min and the longest is 3 and a half hours but the cost generally remains the same, give or take a pound (£) so I suppose when you look at it that way, we do get more for our money here but then you folks pay less for travel costs to get there per mile. I'm not sure how the salaries that fund our skating compare though although I have worked in the US, in NJ and found how wildly it can vary from state to state.

[momsk8er]

In the DC area - cheapest is $9 per hour, when you buy blocks of 20 at one rink, most expensive is $16 per 45 minutes, walk on summer rates at another area rink.

[mdvask8r]

Actually there are some rinks in the DC area who sell 60 sessions @ $7 per session -- even better if you buy "intense ice".

[rcstewart94]

Our ice time is sooo expensive. It is 15$ a half hour is your not a member or 12$ if you are. Im a member but for a 1 hour session i spend 24$.
It costs sooooooo much!!!

[GordonSk8erBoi]

Where is this?

[FlyAndCrash]

Freestyle is about $13 or $14 per session (usually between 45 to 60 min.) depending on which rink I'm skating at. If I buy a contract at my usulal rink, it's only $10 per session, but I don't get refunded if I miss a session I contract for.

[Rusty Blades]

I skate at a Training Centre and ice cards are 20 sessions each and session lengths vary by time of day. Early morning ice cards work out to $3.13/hour, afternoons are $5.00/hour, and Sunday Ice is $5.74/hour. It is WAY cheaper than club ice.

[Terri C]

This is a very interesting and timely topic to me because our rink just gave us summer ice contracts that are not acceptable.
We now pay $13 for walk on with a pack of 20 one hour freestyle passes for $200.
The summer ice contract is requiring:
$15 for a one hour freestyle
$9.50 for a 30 minute moves session- if you are having a lesson, sorry but you can only still work on moves.
$22.00 for 90 minutes
$17.00 for a 50 minute high level freestyle session
$22.00 for a 50 minute power skating class.

Let me add to this by saying that the reliability of the ice being cut and the session not getting cut by a few minutes here or there or starting on time, or even held is not there.

No one at my rink is signing or paying a dime unless changes for the better can be made. And this is Southern VA folks, not New York or LA!

[Debbie S]

Club ice at my club's home rink is $9/session for members, (I think) $10/session for non-members. This is the cheapest around, but the club ice only runs from Sept through March. Our home rink became a seasonal rink a few years ago, so it closes from May to Sept - FS sessions run by the rink are $13. Sessions are 50 minutes. Club ice is contract ice, meaning you purchase sessions at the start of each season (Sept and January) - if you miss a night, you don't get your money back.

Another rink in my area, where I do most of my skating when my regular rink is closed, charges $12 walk-on for 50 min sessions and you can buy a punch card for 11 sessions for $120 - so it's about $11/session. A third rink charges $11.25 for sessions that are either 45 min or 1 hour (an odd pricing structure) and $12.25 for their Sun morning sessions which are 1 hour and 15 min. They also have a 45-min patch (yes, patch :) ) session early Sat morning that costs $7.

A new rink that just opened is charging $12 (I think) for 50 min sessions, but their schedule (and ice quality) isn't that great, so I haven't skated there much.

[Morgail]

Here it is:

$6 - public session

$10 - contracted club ice session (either 50 minutes or 1 hour, depending on the session; dance sessions are shorter and cheaper)

$11.50 - club ice session if you walk on (again, 50 min to 1 hour, depending on the session)

There are no rink-sponsored freestyle sessions.

[isakswings]

It seems like ice time prices vary wildly! We pay between $8 and $12 pers 50 minute session, depending on the rink and the volume discount. What does everyone else pay?

We pay 5.00 for one hour of Freestyle ice time.

Club Ice is 7 for members for 1 hour(1st hour is free...) for non members it is 8 an hour

I did pay 10.00 per 1/2 hour of ice time for my daughter a couple of weeks ago, but that was for competition practice ice...

[Query]

Near DC, transportation often costs more than the ice, and takes a long time. Some rinks and clubs can charge whatever the market will bear, up to $15 / 45 minute freestyle or dance session. Others have cheap (starting at $4) barely used two hour public sessions.

Some people move to be close to a good rink!

People from Siberia and northern Canada have it better. They can get a few square miles to themselves for free. But they must get lonely. No fun being the only one on the ice.

[Mrs Redboots]

People from Siberia and northern Canada have it better. They can get a few square miles to themselves for free. But they must get lonely. No fun being the only one on the ice.
And no zamboni, either, unless they bring their own.

[fsk8r]

And no zamboni, either, unless they bring their own.

The towns in Sweden zamboni the lakes. It's not great as I think they only do it once a week and with any sunshine the surface melts and refreezes into horrid bumps and ruts. But being on the middle of a lake in ice skates, is probably one of the best experiences I've ever had. That really is true getting away from it all. But always bring a friend and a phone as otherwise I'd agree it can get lonely. Although when I did it there were enough cross-country skaters out that there were always people passing. You just didn't seem them again for a long while, unlike a rink where they keep coming around and around.

[LWalsh]

I think I have you all beat. Here in NJ the club buys ice from the rink and we have to charge $20 per hour for Freestyle ice just to break even. That's for contract ice. If you walk on it's $25. :roll:

Lara