Vue Cinema Carlisle — Attraction in Carlisle

Not a great experience, unclean, unfriendly and cold; consider other cinemas. DO NOT WASTE MONEY ON V.I.P seats! I visited Vue Cinema at Carlisle today (a Tuesday in the school Easter holidays) to view Fast & Furious 7. The overall experience was satisfactory. My first issue began at home. I booked 4 V.I.P seat tickets in advance online; however, after selecting my preferred seats and confirming the order, I found that the seats I had selected were not the ones on the booking. I called Vue Customer Services and was told that I could either leave it until the day to rearrange the issue in person, at the cinema, or alternatively, make a new booking and then have the old booking refunded (it was stressed that this was the only order in which the process could take place). I agreed to the over-the-phone process and was taken through step-by-step, selecting the seats I required, by the call operator (who wasn't the most understanding or friendly person I'd met, and also made me feel as though I was unduly burdening him). I was also required to know the exact seat number and row of each of the four seats I preferred, luckily however, prior checking of the online seating plan directly following my learning of the issue meant that I did know these figures. After this, I was required only to enter my card details into the telephone keypad and the booking was made. Then, the refund process took place, however, I was dissatisfied with the service that I received, being told that I could not have any form of confirmation of refund (email confirmation or verbal reference code) meaning that I am still waiting for the refund to be processed, and must call Customer Services again in order to 'chase up' the repayment. Arriving at the cinema on the day, the first issue began with snacks and drinks. These were heavily over-priced (£7.45 for the smallest popcorn and drink, keeping in mind that the tickets were just over £7 each as well) and there was only a very limited choice of food and drink. I was also put-off my usual choice of Pick'n'Mix sweets due to the uncleanness and dust which lay on the selection boxes (which was probably as a result of no-one EVER purchasing the sweets due to the ridiculous price of £1.35 per 100g). We approached the screen, and we're surprised to find that we were not required to present our tickets upon entry (or at any other time during the visit). We then entered and found our faux leather, V.I.P seats. However, these were hard and fairly uncomfortable. I was then attracted to try one of the other, cheaper seats in the cinema, which I found were much more comfortable and ergonomic, although, I returned to my more pleasantly located V.I.P seat (which was equally of want of a lot more legroom as the other, less expensive seats). At 11:30am (the advertised film start time), the adverts began, and continued drearily for the next 35 minutes. After this however, we found the first and expected benefit of the cinema, which was the immersive, adequately loud sound system and the high quality resolution of the film and screen. Unfortunately though, the ambiance of the atmosphere was terrorised by the cold temperature of the cinema, and the ceiling lighting (which was left on a fairly bright intensity). Overall, the cinema provided a fairly unsatisfactory experience (I find my more local, independent cinema much more enjoyable to visit) and I would not consider revisiting this particular...

My first time coming to this cinema and it was a pleasant one, I parked at the rear as there are just a handful of disabled bays and not too far to walk around to the front main road where the Vue is seen up ahead, disabled access was in use for all and staff are very friendly, we didn't bother buying any foods so I can't comment on what they have and for how much they sell. We both needed the toilet before going into our screen and there's not as much room as I'd of liked but at least they do have a disabled toilet, it was clean but on my visit the loo seat was a little loose and had to be straightened before sitting. My carer said that the ladies toilets were clean and tidy. Now the seating isn't as upto date as others such as parkway Cinema in Workington and these don't recline which wasn't a deal breaker, they were angled backwards and were a little snug for me and my carer as we are no slim Jim's 😂 and each had a cup holder which I used for the drink I took. There's plenty of spaces where wheelchair users can sit whilst in their wheelchairs but I like to sit in a normal seat as I can walk a little while holding onto chairs for balance etc. The screen was large and the sound was very good and very loud in parts. I've yet to experience imax but there are only a few up and down the UK. Maybe one day I will be able to review my first time experience in an imax cinema. We both enjoyed the oppenheimer film and may return if we visit Carlisle again in the future.

These places below are imax Vue Cheshire Oaks IMAX Vue Leeds Kirkstall IMAX Vue Manchester...

Booking tickets online is fairly straight forward and easy to navigate however there is a "admin/processing" fee of 0.90p which I feel is unwarranted and unfair as that fee is not charged if you book in the cinema itself which will use the same process to take payment if you pay by card. Once in the cinema I found it pleasant enough signs where clearly visible advising the public of the necessity of wearing masks due to the pandemic which where luckily displayed on the entrance doors and not in the actual foyer which I must say was an exceptional decision due to the lack of lighting inside the foyer, posters advertising upcoming attractions where illuminated nicely to give the customer a sense that there are indeed walls either side of you, as you move forward there in front of you is a bank of lights and busy people moving around and you find yourself at the confectionary stand which manages to get more money out of you for one transaction than you think is possible. Once you have made it to you screen, you have to find your set numbers, these are located on the floor next to each row of seats, so you could spend a fair amount of time looking at the floor then at the next step then at the row like a scalded child, the row numbers could be illuminated more if I'm honest. The "vip" seats are comfortable and have nice legroom. There was good sound and picture...