AMC Deer Valley 17 — Attraction in Phoenix

At the start it was a terrible experience, when I first got there the concession line was so long and they only had 3 registers open 2 that I saw were unoccupied, I waited 30 minutes to get through line to order my large popcorn. I was sharing my large popcorn corn with my niece and kids so I asked for the worker if I could dump my popcorn in a a box so I could just get my free refill now, she told I had to go over a few registers to get the box’s and then ask for a new popcorn over there. I understood the line was long, let me get out of her way. I went where she told me to go and I dumped my popcorn in the box’s and I saw this worker just standing at the popcorn machine, you would think think that she was filling up popcorn or fulfilling some one’s order no she was just standing there. So I asked her if she could give me a refill. She told me no I needed to go to the back of the line and go all the way through the line to get a refill. I told her what the other worker told me and she still said no I needed to go to the back of the line to get my popcorn refill. I turn said well I am to miss my a bulk of my movie if I have to wait another 30 minutes to get a refill that comes with getting the large popcorn so I would like a refund. She again told me no to get a refund I need to go through the line again. I then asked so you are going refuse to give me my money back and then she proceeded to call security on me. This is where the interaction actually went towards a positive. The security guard comes over and I asked him if I could tell him the situation he said yes he heard me out, then him and the lady stepped over to the side about 15 feet away from me to talk about the situation ( yes everyone I know what your thinking.. wow the lady took all this time to refuse me why couldn’t she just take the less than 30 seconds to just to fill my popcorn and let me be on my way) the security guard tried to descale the stand asked her if she could just fill my popcorn and let me get to my movie. You think she would have finally just said okay fine.. nope her pride would not let her. She denied the security guard his request to do the right thing. The security guard then came to me told me she was not going to help me and asked if he could do anything for me I asked for the manager of the whole theater, he did that for me she came over and she turned out to be a great lady she told me that the rules are to refill the popcorn where I asked for it and the lady that was refusing me was new and she will let her know the rules. But understand people unbeknownst to me this lady I have been talking about was the manager of the whole concession area. The GM had her fill my popcorn came over and gave it back to me and apologized for the inconvenience and told me to come back after my movie so she can give me passes to another. It ended well that is why I gave them a 2 star. I do feel that was not the behavior of the deer valley 17 as a whole, it was just one concession manager that could not let go of her pride, but it was a terrible experience at the onset. Thank you to the security guard and the GM for being good people. Wish I knew...

I apologize in advance for the lengthy review but I assure you, you should read the entirety of it. I'm going to start by saying I've never wrote a bad review before but this experience really just set me off. For spending $100 between two movie tickets, popcorn, a pizza and a single drink my boyfriend and I had a HORRIBLE experience. To start, they told us it would be over 30 minutes for them to have a pepperoni pizza ready. My boyfriend and I both had chose to wear a hoodie and sweatpants because usually the theaters are freezing. Oh boy were we wrong.. we were seeing Deadpool and Wolverine at 11:45 pm so they had us in the "Dolby IMAX" theater (you pay more for IMAX) which had NO recliners, there was NO ac, and the volume was WAYYYY too loud it was blistering. My boyfriend and I were considering leaving because of how uncomfortable we were but we had just spent over $100 so we stuck it through. For how expensive it is, I would've expected a way better experience. Oh and to top it all off, my boyfriend's wallet fell out of his pocket under the seat. I called this morning to ask if they had found a wallet to which they said there was no wallet found and asked what theater and seats we were sitting in. He took my info down and said they would check for it as soon as they could. They actually ended up calling me back maybe 20-30 minutes later saying they had found the wallet. My boyfriend went to go pick up his wallet and the actual employee who found the wallet told my boyfriend he found it under the seat and when my boyfriend checked his wallet he was missing $200 cash. We were the last showing at 11:45 pm so we didn't leave that theater till 2 am. I always double scan the area before leaving so I know his wallet was not in plain sight for someone to grab. I called at 9 am and there wasn't another showing in that IMAX theater until 11 am so definitely nobody else touched that wallet except for that employee who had found it. So obviously my boyfriend asked the kid and got nothing from him. He spoke with the district manager and she basically told him there was nothing she could do because there is no cameras as well as they have janitors that clean the theaters at the end of the night. But again the employee had to look for the wallet in order for it to even be found. He was the last to touch the wallet. I don't think the janitor took the money and strategically placed it back under the seat. Just take all the money and toss it at that point. But the employee who found the wallet definitely had to look through it to make sure all the info I gave him was correct. Plenty of time for him to see there was cash and to take it. The manager did take down my boyfriend's information to pass along to the GM and also gave my boyfriend the GMs email. But that is all and now my boyfriend is out $200 after just dropping $100, so actually my boyfriend is out $300 just because we wanted to have a nice little movie date. So thank you AMC Deer Valley. Save yourself by choosing...

Our friends invited us out for the new Barbie movie at this theatre where we have visited many times over my 20+ years in the Valley. This location has seen a remodel or two over those years and has, until recent years, provided a decent movie going experience. This visit, however, is an exception. This visit was on a Sunday at 2pm and it seemed only had a fraction of the visitors that it used to get. Once we got inside the ticket taker was very friendly and was helpful to get our group of 19 adults and children through the line even though we straggled in as we walked from a nearby restaurant. My husband and one of our friends in the group are blind and visually impaired and when we go to movies I usually pickup the descriptive audio headsets from customer service for both of them. Descriptive audio is a service that describes what is happening in the movie so that person listening to the audio can picture it in their head. The audio does not speak when there is dialog so the listener doesn’t miss anything the actors are saying. This differs from Enhanced Audio which is intended for the hard of hearing who need louder audio.

Each time we request the headsets, no matter which theatre brand we go to, we learned to always ask for Descriptive audio and when they return with the device we confirm with the person that it is Descriptive audio and not Enhanced audio which has saved us on a few occasions. Even with the double confirmation though we still get Enhanced audio instead of Descriptive audio.

The thing is, the device cannot be tested in the theatre to make sure it is working before the movie starts. The user must turn it on wait until the opening scene begins before figuring out that it doesn’t work. At his point since I’m the sighted person I get up and got to the Customer Service desk and try to get the device setup again missing precious minutes of the movie I’ll never get back.

With AMC we have never seen a movie where this service either didn’t work or we got there wrong device or both. On this visit the customer service person was super nice and tried her best but couldn’t get it to work. She involved the manager on her own to escalate the issue and her manager could not get the devices working either. Eventually they just gave us passes as an apology for the service not working.

We give up AMC. We have tried and tried again for many chances for you to get it right and provide the service you advertise and to date it has never worked the first time. Harkins, on the other hand, had gotten it right every time. Until we hear from AMC corporate on how they have changed their program for the Descriptive and Enhanced audio services that service the disabled communities we will be visiting other theatre brands.

On this visit the bathrooms needed a service and the garbage cans were...