Apple Cinemas Merrimack — Attraction in Merrimack

This theater is usually disappointing, but tonight was a new low. My boyfriend and I decided to beat the heat and take in a 5pm showing of Spiderman. First strike was the concessions clerk. He greeted us with "Yeah?" and was chewing on a wooden spoon he'd gotten from god knows where the whole transaction. He was also scratching his head and handling our drinks and popcorn without gloves or even a hand washing after. Gross, but whatever. First half of the previews had audio, but no video. Sadly this isn't a rare occurrence at Cinemagic. For the past few months I've had to leave the auditorium to let them know there wasn't video or the overhead cleaning lights were still on. Movie was great, we leave to continue our day, and find out my boyfriend's wallet slipped out of his pocket. We'd been gone not even 20 minutes, so we thought we'd call to give them a heads up, come in, and pick up the wallet right? WRONG. The manager claimed she couldn't send someone to check for the wallet in the 8pm showing because the movie had started, and that we'd have to come back at 10:20pm when the movie was over. Keep in mind, this was at 7:55pm before the screening even started. We spent two anxious hours in the parking lot, wondering if the wallet was gone for good. At 10pm, my boyfriend went in to try and reason with them again. He was again told we had to wait until 10:20p. Fine. At this point, the ticket taker offered to go in and look for the wallet. The manager told him no as well. At 10:18p, the ticket taker again asked if he could go in to look for the wallet, and again was told by the manager that he had to wait 2 more minutes until 10:20p. At this point, it was evident that this woman felt the need to prove some kind of point. Thankfully, his wallet was sitting on the seat right where he'd left it. It would have taken 5 minutes for someone to grab it for us. This made two things evident: 1) The manager could have checked to see if someone was even sitting in those seats and chose to be difficult for no reason, and 2) The theater obviously wasn't cleaned between showings, because someone would have seen the wallet sitting out in the open (we were in the first stadium seating row behind the handicap spaces). I have no idea why the manager decided to behave in such a way. We were courteous and not asking for much. We just wanted to know if the wallet could be recovered or if someone made off with it. What we didn't need was to have our Saturday night ruined by being forced to spend 2 hours and 20 minutes in a movie theater parking lot because of an easy mistake. We won't be returning to either Cinemagic theater. I was willing to overlook the other annoyances (filthy bathrooms, soap dispensers without soap, stale popcorn, rude employees, constant sound and video issues) because the theater was convenient and a fun way to spend the occasional afternoon, but this incident was way over the line, and...

I was really looking forward to a Live in HD experience with Marriage of Figaro this past weekend. The video was nice and clear but there was no audio -- which for me is a nonstarter when the expectation is to enjoy an opera.

After missing the overture and first scene (audio-wise) and wondering what management might be doing to resolve the issue, I went to concessions to ask for a refund. After getting a refund, I suggested to the concessions person that in the future if something similar happened, it would be better if some official cinema person could at least acknowledge to the customers in the theater that there is a known issue and someone is working on solving the issue.

The response of another concessions person was that the manager was busy on the phone with Support to fix the problem, and that's why we in the theater were not officially notified that the problem was known and under active troubleshooting. While it's appreciated that quick resolution was being prioritized, what was unacceptable to me was that we in the theater were not told by any cinema employee that at least management was aware of the issue and was actively trying to solve it (much less providing to us any estimated time of resolution).

Furthermore, when a customer makes the effort to drive to your theater and plans the day around this roughly 4-hour event only to find that the original plan has been foiled, a refund of just the ticket cost is barely the barest of minimums.

Anyway, this was my first ever experience at Apple Cinemas Merrimack, and unfortunately it was not a positive one. The reason I still gave it 2 stars was because the initial concessions person I spoke with (who issued my refund) seemed sympathetic and understood that I was not blaming her personally for the situation.

And finally, this is a secondary piece of feedback, but I had to try 3 different seats in the theater before finding one that would recline correctly. The theater wasn't close to being full, so it was possible for me to try different seats. So there's another point of general upkeep/maintenance that the cinema should look into.

UPDATE on August 5, 2025 After receiving the response from the theater, I did write back to the email address provided -- on May 1st, so basically 3 months ago. No answer or even acknowledgement that my mail was received -- which isn't great, given that email was how I was specifically advised to reach out. The official response mentioned they'd "welcome the opportunity to make things right". While nobody knows exactly what that means, I didn't take it to mean radio silence. I was actually looking forward to an opportunity to say something nice like hey everyone the theater actually followed up when I emailed as suggested, made me feel like they care about good customer service, blah blah blah -- but alas no...

This one is hard to review because I want to compare it to pre-pandemic cinemagic(previous name) but I feel that would be unfair for the current (and possibly ongoing) state of the movie theater experience.

I recently saw a semi-new release here on a saturday. Entering the building I noticed it was very clean in the lobby and theater hall despite only two employees that were visible throughout my entire visit.

Purchasing tickets was done at a self checkout kiosk which felt easy enough to use. Ticket prices have increased quite a bit since my last time visiting, but this should be expected due to the extreme decrease in theater goers and added cost to license movies due to low veiwership, concession snacks and drinks remain fairly expense as well.

The theater remained fairly empty throughout the showing, I'd estimate about 10 couples total all self spread out which is nice to see everyone getting on board with responsible behavior during these times. The first thing I noticed walking in was how clean it was given the very low employee count (that I was aware of). They have also kept the luxury seating so the entire movie was a very comfortable experience.

Overall the visit was very low maintenance and pleasing given the times we are in. Masks were worn by the majority but not required as far as I could tell.

For those of you who had previously visited this theater when it was a cinemagic will notice the lobby to be very empty and lacking the arcade or an usher to take your tickets, or answer any questions for that matter. It feels awkwardly underutilized for the space but the convenience and quick service will probably make up for this for most people.

I will say from a personal stand point, the "movie theater experience magic" I used to feel was just not there. It felt more like a self checkout expedited experience where the goal is to get you through the process as quick and painless as possible, which it does. But the lack of attendance puts a potential damper on the energy that can come with seeing a new movie as an excited collective of fans. For some I'm sure this will be welcomed and others may find a more muted experience. There is just not much going on to get you excited about movies, atleast that's how it felt to me...