AMC DINE-IN Desert Ridge 18 — Attraction in Phoenix

Yesterday was such a fiasco. After five years with no Best Picture Showcase, AMC brought it back and we were all so excited! They brought it back to only two theatres in the Phoenix area- one at Desert Ridge and one in Chandler. My friends and I bought tickets for the 2-day event (yesterday and next Saturday) the day they came out (over a month ago). We get to the theatre about 15 minutes before showtime and they scan us and send us to the customer service area. No big deal- we expect they are going to give us merch like they usually do and lanyards so we can come and go. But no. They tell us that the “theater is broken” in our auditorium we are supposed to be in so they moved us. Again, no big deal. But then they tell us that instead of just reassigning us the seats we purchased online in the new auditorium, they needed us to pick out new seats and even though we were seats in E when we purchased online, our only option now is seats in row A or B or to get a refund. This takes forever and now it’s after the start time of the movie and they assure us they won’t start until we are seated. We get row B, which is terribly close. We get drinks and get seated and then a worker comes in and says they are offering free concessions for our inconvenience if we go get them now. So I go to see what’s free (just popcorn since I already paid for a drink). I grab the popcorn and I go back inside and the movie has already started. The movie ends.

Credits are rolling and they are showing the real people the movie was based on with music, as credits often do, but at the side of us and behind us, a worker is screaming directions to us and we cannot hear her because the movie is still going and it’s so loud and she’s behind us.

We all tell her we can’t hear her and instead of getting in front or making the credits lower or just waiting for it to end, she keeps yelling. So we have to get up and get near her to hear what she’s saying and she says she has free movie passes for us for a future movie. All that is fine, but the delivery was terrible.

Usually at the best picture showcase, they have trivia in between movies, they give us merch if we win, sometimes they hand out posters and pins. They always talk about the movie and tell us when the next one will start. (Or our lanyards guide us with the times on them). Since it’s so many movies, there are differing amounts of breaks between movies. They do none of that.

We had to go to the AMC website to see when the next movie would start each time!

No trivia, no host asking us questions or guiding us, no lanyards, no merch. It was really weird and we all felt so unwelcome.

Also the manager dealing with the issues and deciding to put people wherever they wanted based on how early they got to the theatre that day rather than on what seats we all picked out by purchasing a month in advance, kept telling us he knew it “wasn’t ideal” for us, but at least we were getting to still see the movies. 😂

Then we asked him if it would be fixed my next weekend and he said of course it would! “The theatre won’t be broken next weekend.” And then I asked if he knew it was going to be broken this day and he said, “No we didn’t know. It just happened.” So how can he be sure it won’t happen next weekend?

My other complaint is that we spent over 13 hours in the theatre. The first movie started at noon. So we left at 1:45 am. Like why couldn’t it start at 9 or 10 am? We are all old people who don’t like to...

Update-I looked back through some of the other reviews after posting my review, and there have been complaints about the air conditioner for at least the past 4 months (about the time Phoenix starts experiencing extreme heat advisories)!! Each time there is a response saying that they will look into it and apologizing, but apparently they are too cheap to actually repair the air conditioner!! Save your time and money, and go to a different movie theater where they actually value their customers and their comfort level!! They should be shut down for such deplorable conditions without any improvement for months!!!

I would give it ZERO stars if that was an option! We went to see a movie in the IMAX theater on a Friday night. It was extremely hot during the entire movie!! When we asked the staff what was going on with the air conditioner after the movie, they told us that the air conditioning was out in “several movie theaters” including the IMAX theater. The staff were as helpful as they could be, but they were only offering refunds to people who came to complain. I am aware that the staff were not at fault because they did not make the decision to stay open without air conditioning! However, no employee ever notified anyone when they bought tickets or came in to scan their tickets that there was any problem with the air conditioning. No business in Phoenix in August should have customers in an enclosed space with no air conditioning without giving them an option to return another day. Thankfully the movie had been out for a while and was not as crowded as usual. There were people removing layers of clothes, and even a pregnant woman suffering in the extreme heat with no air circulation. Whoever manages this theater and made the decision to stay open without informing the customers should be fired!! I would have complained to the manager as well, but unfortunately they were no longer in the movie theater. I’m assuming they were at home in their air conditioned home, leaving their customers and employees alone to suffer in the miserable conditions!! I will use my refund to go to a different AMC theater...

My partner and I came to see a movie about a week ago, not even. Will be happy to post our transactions if anything actually comes of this, which in the theater it did not. My partner and I bought movie tickets for a showing that was over an hour past when we arrived. It was a last minute, he was feeling good and we felt like doing SOMETHING. We purchased tickets, went to the bar and nursed a beer for about an hour. We arrived anywhere from 45-60 minutes before the show started. The bartender, a shaved head person who lied to me and their own staff, saying to us that we “spaced out” for any amount of time and to their boss said my partner “nodded off,” refused to serve my partner after the one beer. To clarify, my partner has Multiple Sclerosis, making it difficult at many moments for him to walk, speak, breathe, etc. The bartender denied him, quoting, “I think you’ve had enough.” After I tried to pull the bartender aside and talked to them, they told me one thing and their management another. And even after talking to said manager (who said they could review the footage), ANOTHER person came out, claiming no knowledge of anything. This place is discriminatory, hateful and never going to take accountability for their shortcomings. I, along with my MS ridden partner, will never attend an AMC studio again. I have consulted with a lawyer to actually see what can be done, and would love for AMC desert ridge to own up to their shortcomings. I asked for footage to be reviewed and even though an employee, a manager, woman with dark brown hair and slender frame, assured me that the video would be looked over immediately, sent a completely different man over, maybe mixed respectful person. The way your staff handled this is disgusting. The fact that you all allowed someone with MS to be discriminated upon because he slurs.. I can’t...