GAME PLAY: Overall, game play was very smooth. I didn't see many arguments or bad feelings. Turnaround time was quick and leeway was given players who needed a minute or two extra to get ready. I was pleased in this area. I'd say conservatively, 2 games per hour was the rule.

I liked the way the fields were set up quite a bit. Some other field's I've played at, the entire middle area is a deathtrap -- and as a result it is totally lost to the action. Not so here. Smart design means the action flows well throughout.

STAFF: The staff was friendly and acommodating from the outset. None showed the "attitude" I've seen at some other fields. The owner says this the aim of his policies and way of running the field, and from what I saw, it is effective.

Most of the staffers were youngsters (under 18). At times, help at the rental desk (fills, paint purchases) was a little hard to come by, but to be fair, the crowd on this particular day was apparently abnormally large. Still, the staffing clearly could use a little retail counter experience.

I had a short fill in one of my tanks, but I didn't bother to take it back. I have no reason to think they wouldn't have taken care of me if I had.

PLAYERS: I noticed a lot of father-son pairings present, sometimes both on the field at the same time. That is something I have rarely seen at other fields, another win for IPS. Overall, players had decent attitudes, and there wasn't much "hot dogging" going on.

PAINT: This was my one real complaint about the day -- the Proball Platinum we bought just wasn't very good. Perhaps it was old and had settled, but you could clearly see the paint brighter through the shell in some areas, and there were a disproportionate number of "flyers" compared to Marballizer or better. At least I didn't get any barrel breaks. I don't know whether all Proball Platinum is like this. It was more expensive than I normally pay for even All-star at the shop, so I decided to stay with a middle grade.

I did notice that other players were shooting mostly Zap, so maybe those cases get rotated more frequently. Since I saw no one shooting the field Marballizer, I wonder if it sits longer still than the Proball.

Despite the flaky paint, again, my hat had to go off to IPS' staff, who rounded up some loose balls so that we could determine which was the best fit for our barrels.

LOCATION: Yeah it's a little out of the way at Bellows, but it's closer than Kualoa. With its location in the treeline, as the proprietor pointed out, this field has one thing most other Hawaii fields do not -- shade! It works, too. Though the sun was bright, the shade and the ocean breezes combined to make it quite cool and comfortable.

COST: I'll admit that price is one of the major factors that kept me from this field until now. Not only do you have to normally pay a field fee, you have to use field paint. This paint is substantially more expensive than paint bought on the outside and, I found, not very good (At least everyone uses the same paint!). The quality of experience overall, however, is fairly high, so it is a decent value despite the extra cost.