B737-700
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 17
Communication Breakdown
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Separated Traffic
Human Factors; Weather
I was working the evening arrival rush on the northwest gate going into ZZZ. Weather had shut done the south west gate and was in the middle of [the] sector that I was working. We pre-planned the pending arrival of 2 gates of traffic and was advised to run 2 routes normal to accommodate the demand for the gate. As soon as we had both routes all lined up on either side of the weather ZZZ Approach stopped taking hand-offs. We had to call them multiple times before the picked up the line and said they were being overfed and that we had to start spinning aircraft. This was not part of the pre-plan from a few minutes earlier and my D-side and myself tried to see if we could work something out less drastic. They would not work with us saying they were too busy with complete un-regard to the level off business they were about to give us. We scrambled to come up with a plan that kept airplanes out of weather and away from other traffic. As soon as we got into something that was manageable Approach said run them in again 2 routes normal. We started trying to get planes back in line on the two sides of the weather and Approach after taken another few airplanes stopped taking hand-offs and answer the shout line giving us no other choice but to start this whole process over again. This time around I had Aircraft X that did not descend to 170 promptly when asked and an Aircraft Y that did not turn like I thought he should have. They had about 3 hits inside the bubble before they got back on track. Someone has to hold ZZZ Approach accountable for making reactions that cause risk to the NAS (National Airspace System). The have 6 runways and hardly ever use 3 of them. We run tighter finals into mountainous airports and the Tower is able to get departures of the same runway in between. It seems that on our end of the week the common denominator more often than not is one of the supervisors at TRACON. On more than one occasion; controllers have had to apologize for his incompetence. There has to be a better transition from being overfed. More miles in trail; moving to a single feed or just communicating what they need. We are supposed to be a team.
Center Controller reported an unsafe situation with Tracon not taking hand-offs.