Cineworld - Enfield — Attraction in London

A cinema, with your typical overpriced tickets and overpriced food. Sticky floors as well and seat booking that isn't adhered to. I've had my seat taken several times. An older lady accompanied by an older gentleman had taken my seat when I had showed up to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and her response to my "my seat?" was "oh we were supposed to be on the end but it's too edgy". Me being the nice guy and a complete mug, said "fine, I'll sit somewhere else" but they could see I was not pleased. Didn't get a thank you or an apology. Seat stealing happens to others as well and as I had pointed out to Cineworld on social media, when one person takes a seat that isn't theirs for a busy screening, someone else must move, which then has a cascading effect that results in a mish mash of people sitting in incorrect seats, that if you actually wanted to have resolved would have to require everyone vacating the screen room and going back in to the seats they chose or were allocated to them. Of course this is impractical and does not happen therefore everyone is forced to move and find their own, less pleasing seats, sometimes far away from the wonderful spot they picked when choosing their seats at checkout - seats that were supposed to be adhered to. Cineworld do not reinforce this policy which defeats the point of choosing seats in the first place.

The screens themselves are half decent. The majority of the standard viewing experiences are fairly poor quality but tolerable - occasionally not focused perfectly. Seating in many of the standard screening rooms is well thought out, though the IMAX seat levelling appears to be worse than the step-layering of the standard screens, which could be an issue if taller people are sitting in front. IMAX is also not true IMAX, it is cropped and at a smaller resolution than proper IMAX so is just another way for Cineworld to con customers.

On the days I visited, the 1st floor toilets (up the first escalator) is immaculate. I have not used the ground floor or upper floor toilets.

Last time I visited (early May 2017) the lift, which is used for disabled people and those with difficulty moving on the escalators, did not work. (Edit: these seem to be functional now)

Staff seem friendly and helpful, some cheery others look like their soul is being crushed.

Starbucks there, even with Cineworld membership card is stupidly expensive.

I do not appreciate the majority of the downstairs area and the 1st floor (where Starbucks and all seating is located) being used by a Christian church group every Sunday. Church groups should stick to churches or halls or public outdoor spaces, not public entertainment establishments - I guess this is the problem with adding a Starbucks to the building and treating it as a walk-in walk-out coffee shop. If this was a Islam meetup group for preaching, I can only imagine the controversy it would bring.

Previous edit adds images to show you that there is zero seating downstairs. I understand this is for super busy times when a big release is out, but anyone with difficulty standing for long periods has to go upstairs just to sit down, even if it is out of their way.

Foyer temperature hot, screens cold. Okay in Summer, but if you sit there for a long time you're going to get cold without a jacket or jumper.

Edit: Feb 2018. Check out screen 11 in the newly attached images. Nearly EVERY SEAT had multiple stains and tears in the fabric! No lie. I didn't want to take pictures looking like a weirdo before the start of the film but if you don't believe me, go see for yourself. Nearly every seat, stained and torn....

I've been coming here for years and it's not too bad but definitely needs a refurbishment in a few areas. They have refurbed one of the toilets and have also put in a new 4DX screen but more needs to be done.

Also the lack of contactless payment just doesn't make sense in this day of age. A lot of people including myself don't carry cards and use apple or android pay to pay for items. So imagine the annoyance when new customers or just customers in general turn up and they don't have their card on them. Also it just speeds things up a bit.

All their tills badly need updating to more newer ones because they are so slow. They must be using outdated hardware and software but don't want to spend the money on newer ones because in their eyes it's not that important for them. Maybe they also have budgeted restraints, I don't know?

Customer service is not too bad from the actual workers there but a lot of the time their hands are tied because they are told by managers not to open as many tills and with the no contactless payments as well the queues just build up and they have just got to cope with it. I don't know if it's management or again budget constraints.

Cleanliness is generally good but on a few occasions I have gone into a screen and the seat has been dirty. One time for example. We went into the IMAX screen and the seat was wet where someone had spilt their drink. We told the security guard as all staff were either busy or unavailable to help and he just said move to another seat. But he didn't understand that you can't do that because seats are pre-booked and we would just be doing musical chairs if we done that, so in the end we just had go to the bathroom and get loads of paper and clean it ourselves best as we could. But still shouldn't have been our job. Also outside the cinema you do see mice now and again. Just next to the stairs going down to the car park there were a few there but I have never seen any inside the cinema.

Another thing is that a lot of the seats (not IMAX or 4dx) are ripped up so could do with being changed.

The screens are really good and have great sound. But some of the people that operate them are not that good. A lot of times, and I've been coming here for years, the movie is about to start and the screen is on the wrong aspect ratio, they haven't extended the screen. Maybe the operator went for a cup of tea and forgot, I don't know. And also one of the most annoying things and happens 1in3 occasions is they forget to turn the lights off and then everyone is just sitting there hoping someone will go and tell a staff member to turn it off.

The parking is not too bad and it's free, just depends what time you go. Obviously if you go on a Friday or Saturday night it's going to be really busy, with a lot of people, including myself on occasion, having to make, makeshift parking spots. You can also go and park in the lesuire center or in TGI car park on the other side.

So overall it's a good average cinema but could be so much better with a bit more investment. I mainly go because I have the cineworld card and it's generally in a good location and easy to get too. But when you compare this to VUE cinema it's just not as good. If VUE done an unlimited pass I would probably change over but they don't so I will...

First things first, when did cinemas become so expensive? I understand times are hard for global companies within the film industry but they have to remember the paying public make that industry the thriving conglomerate that it is, however let me digress.

So, went to see Barbie with my girlfriend and I wasn't aware of the extortionate prices now at the cinema so we scampered around to see if we could find some form of discount through our mobile networks because those prices were beyond bonkers, luckily 3 (mobile network) has a discount available where tickets drop to £3 so that sorted my girlfriend out so it's left to little ol' me now. I completely forgot that I have (had) a cineworld unlimited card (which I've since lost) where I can essentially watch films for free after paying a monthly subscription of £19.99. I purchased my ticket at home, and left other forms of I.D. (because surely its not necessary) thinking everything was dandy and sweet until we come across a quite stuck up door lady by the name of Salisha saying she could not let us in due to me not having the physical card itself, before I go on I know rules are rules but for the love of God, being a jobsworth to that level is just not worth it.I explained to her that the card is lost and I've ordered another one but luckily I have a picture of the card on my phone, she insisted that she needs to see some form of I.D. which I did not have with me, she has refused to let us in until we buy a regular ticket of £15.99 which we had no choice but to purchase.

This is insane, people like myself who pay every month for the unlimited card subscription shouldn't have to go through something like this and for a film that is bringing in millions surely something like that like that can be looked over/given the benefit of a doubt, I was so taken aback by the lack of empathy there. I will not be returning to this cinema despite it being my local and will be looking for alternative cinemas instead.

The thing that takes the biscuit even more is that two very loud, clearly intoxicated, no good, looked like they both peeled off of the back of Ghandis heel on 45 degree scorching summers day walked in and caused a racket and ruined the first 18 minutes of the film, surely you could have scoped out those wrongens from the jump (they were EVENTUALLY kicked out) but blimey. Not to mention the seats when you walk into the screenings are always dirty, surely they should be cleaned before every film. Also the lack of human customer service is astonishing, there are literally just ticketing machines now, there are only customer service people serving the food, we can't lose the human interaction because that is what makes going to the...