CMX Cinemas Dolphin 19 — Attraction in Sweetwater

Disclaimer: any adjectives I use in this review are, I promise, not exaggerations.

I'm on vacation, so I've never been to this theater before. Because they are a 19-screen theater with IMAX, DBOX, Atmos, etc, I expected the rest of the place to be better than a 1-screen podunk town theater.

I'm not even kidding - the vast (and fairly nice) lobby had the very basics for concessions, and had one - ONE - popcorn buttering station -- for a 19-screen theater!  I went on a quiet Monday night, and I still had to wait 5 minutes to butter my mid-grade popcorn.

The concession stand has drinks, candy, popcorn, and $.50 nachos sold for $13. I don't typically gripe about overpriced theater food—it's how they stay afloat, after all, but charging $13 for nachos that belong in a school vending machine is pushing it. The nacho experience consisted of 2 sad little bags of lackluster chips, paired with tiny cups of lukewarm, cheap cheese sauce, served on a plastic tray flimsier than what orphans receive their gruel on.  Seriously, the only reason I ate them instead of returning them was because I was watching a 3-hour-long movie, and they DO NOT SELL HOT DOGS!

That right there might be the biggest sin! In our simple Midwest hometown, the theaters we attend (AMC) have a delightfully wide array of hot food options. INCLUDING HOT DOGS! The pre-trailer ads at this theater even showed people eating hot dogs at a movie (which is why I wanted one). Hot dogs, pizza, nachos that are at least warm - these are what I would expect from a standard movie theater in the 21st century.

But wait, there's more!

I, being human, had occasion to utilize the theaters bathroom facilities. I ended up taking a self-guided tour of their many bathroom facilities, because the first one had NO SOAP - and I definitely wasn't returning to my popcorn with questionable hands. Thus, I ventured forth to the second bathroom, expecting a sanitizing oasis, but 2 out of the 3 soap dispensers were empty! The bathroom for the other gender (I heard from a friend) suffered the same suds scarcity.

Of course, I could have reported this defiency (which may be a health code violation), but based on the way the staff stared slack-jawed at my lovely wife when she was trying to buy candy, I had no expectation that a complaint would have any effect.

NO HOT DOGS! Just thought I'd emphasize that.

The DBOX experience was genuinely impressive—the motion added a fun layer to the film, and the rhythmic ceiling drip during every quiet moment completed the immersion of experiencing slow water torture. Seriously, the ceiling was dripping into a bucket the entire movie! I can empathize with facility maintenance issues, but I shouldn't be charged $24 to sit in a theater where it sounds like the ceiling tiles could break at any time, pouring water into my electrically-powered seat. (Honestly, I wasn't actually fearful of that during the movie... at least not until right now when I thought of it.)

The positives: the DBOX chairs were nice - but I would expect a $24 ticket to have a nice seat. Maybe even a foot massage. Not to mention HOT DOGS!

The screen in our theater was huge and had a great picture, and the sound was decent. The only reason I'm giving it more than 2 stars is because the movie experience...

Do not watch movies here..I mean this sincerely, concession prices are the highest at any movie theatre I've been to. I paid $12 for chips and queso.. not even Brickell restaurants charge me this for tuna tartar.. which the person ringing me up did not get, she just murmured over there and pointed to the soup kitchen window. I was sent to wait 15 mins for my order until I stepped up and said what's going on, noticing they were struggling to plate a handful of nachos and underpour me cheese not "queso". To be clear this is your regular nachos and cheese, nothing extra fancy that justified the price hike from the normal 7-8 bucks. I was more expecting some guy in a white coat to come over and tell me "say when" with the cheese. The "chef" reached into an open bucket grabbed 2 handfuls of chips and went to the nacho cheese machine "queso" to half fill a small cup nowhere near of even clearing me dipping a quarter of the chips ever so gingerly. You think you'd over pour me here knowing they missed my order.. nope. Which let's not forget, the chips were made of salt, probably raised on a salt farm raised as salt kids living a salty life til they touched people's lives at this theatre. To be fair, they did have an adequate amount of staff and registers open to manage the flow of customers..which were all sent to that window if they bought anything aside from popcorn, drink, or candy.

Best part, while I was waiting for my food, one of the kitchen staff coming from the back takes off her mask and gloves. Reaches over to the sheet of pretzel bites freshly pulled from the oven, picks one up, and starts eating it as she casually walks thru the kitchen not giving a care in the world while everyone else waits for their orders to be filled. For sure up to code. Not to mention, she chewed like a cow. Even easier to spot her.

Lots of bad seating options in the theatres next to hand rails and such..made me feel like it's a baseball game where you have to lean to the side for game action to avoid the pole. Worst part of trying to see the movie there, which had been out for 2 weeks.. is the Doral crowd who goes here.. claps at every god damn key point in the movie.. this ain't the plane landing safe folks. I get screams, excitement, and whatever other normal movie sounds people make.. but I'm talking 20 different points at least to the point it carries over to other parts where you can't hear the movie clearly.

All true facts, I was annoyed and as you can tell, I had time today. Wouldn't consider going back if...

Just watched the fantastic new "Alien: Romulus." While the film itself was great, when we went to dump the ice from the soda that we had refilled and finished THRICE, we discovered over a dozen fruit flies at the bottom of our cup. I checked the cup before filling it myself from their Freestyle machine, which means that the flies could only have been INSIDE!

I do not know how many flies we ended up swallowing, but I picked at least 1 fly wing out of my teeth. When I tried calling them to warn them about the situation, I was entirely unable to reach ANYONE after multiple attempts. Growingly increasingly frustrated and nauseous, I tried calling other CMX locations in Miami, then Florida, and then the US as a whole.

In the end, I had to return to the mall just to find someone at the theater who I could speak to. I was initially offered just two ticket vouchers - I had to ask for a refund for the $20 that I spent on fly-filled soda. When I did, it was given to me INSTEAD of the vouchers, but I think the disbelief clearly written on my face might have prompted the manager to concede me the privilege of refunding my contaminated drinks AND granting me those clearly very precious vouchers...

No immediate effort was made to disable the designated machine or even check the liquid that came out of it for flies - I would HOPE that something was done after I left, but I certainly will not be returning to check.

As is CLEAR from the presence of pests INSIDE FOOD PRODUCTS BEING SERVED and the absolutely unacceptable state/availability of customer service on a Friday afternoon, there is an egregious lack of resources being invested in properly staffing CMX locations and in maintaining food safety standards in the products that they charge such high prices for.

I grew up in Miami and have been going to this theater since I was roughly 5 years old. I do not plan to ever return to this location after getting this peek behind the curtain, and you, dear reader, can be certain that I will be sharing this experience with anyone in Miami that even so much as mentions Dolphin Mall.

Update: I have discovered that the vouchers we were given are NOT valid for IMAX films - such as the one we paid for. Thus, despite having gone through all of this, I am still not even fully recompensated for the nearly $70 we spent.

If you want to watch a movie, this is NOT the place to go. In fact, I would recommend seeking out another theater brand entirely. The customer is clearly nowhere near the top of...