Regal Santa Rosa — Local services in Mary Esther

I have experience visiting this theater hundreds of times both as a customer and as a former employee.

Let me tell you right now that concession items are pricey because that's how theaters make money. Half of the people commenting seem to not understand that this is the way it is at MOST theaters because they do not make much profit from the ticket sales alone (Hollywood runs a practical racket on these). Prices for food and drinks will be high if you go to sun plaza or destin commons instead. I've lived in several different countries so far and this rule seems to hold true even on an international level. Eat before or after the movie if you aren't willing to pay three or four times the value of items you could get elsewhere. Posting low reviews for that alone doesn't give other people a good understanding about whether or not this is a good theater.

Based on how the theater operates though, I would have to give Santa Rosa 10 a good rating. Staff have always been considerate and professional. Bathrooms and theaters are cleaned regularly and to a very high standard. The general manager can be a hardass about this but he runs a tight shift and recognizes hard work. Sometimes staff scheduling can be a bit off which leads to understaffing when a big movie opens. This leads to lines usually, but never delays in my experience. The occasional video or audio glitch happens every so often and people up in the projection room fix it, rewind the video and get things rolling again without much issue.

Honestly the only thing about this place that leads to a poor experience sometimes (rarely) are other customers. It might have something to do with the near-dilapidated mall right next door but the youth who frequent this place (often on friday nights) can be insufferable sometimes. I try to avoid going on the nights of big releases or PG-13 horror movies. If you do that or just go to matinees or something then you will never...

Me and a few of my girlfriends went to go see a movie that was showing at 10:30pm. I had just double checked show times and if they were open just in case and the movie was still showing at the same time and said that they were still open. We walked up to the door at 10:35 (We were running a bit late) But anytime I’ve seen a movie I’ve seen multiple people walk in even after the movie started so I didn’t think it would be an issue being a little late, especially while trailers were still playing. We went to open the door and it was locked, with people inside. We waited at the door for a few minutes, and a lady walked up and had asked if we had presale tickets (There was nothing online that said we were required to have presale tickets) Of course we said no because the movie came out on Friday and we were going to buy the tickets at the counter with all of our snacks, like how a normal person would. She abruptly said to us in a rude tone “Well we are closed” and proceeded to shut the door without us being able to say anything afterwards. We had walked away and one of my friends went back to the door to see if it was possible to buy presale tickets now so we could still see the movie. And from the parking lot, we heard her say “no we are closed!”and shut the door again in our faces. Needless to say, we were all very disappointed and extremely frustrated from the attitude of the worker and the fact that they said that they were still open and there was a movie showing at 10:30.We will not be returning back to the theater and we are very...

From tip to tail - awful. I would guess this is a case of an absentee business owner?

When we pulled up I should have known something was off.

It looked closed.

We went inside and got tickets, a drink, and a hotdog. There was an issue right out of that gate too. The concessions person had to call in for the manager - I think the hotdogs were cold maybe? We eventually got the concessions and went in to our theatre. It was pitch black and smelled very musty. No floor lighting, no wall lightning, and the screen was running but very dark.

We used our phones to find seats, at which point I let the supervisor know about the situation. She said she forgot to turn something on. When I went back, the lights raised, but the sound stayed off and the screen stayed very dark. Like if a character on screen was in the shadows, they were actually in pitch black darkness.

So I went back and let her know that the screen was dark and there was no sound.

The sound came on, but the screen stayed dark. I suppose the projector needed a new bulb? Because she let us know that she can't turn the brightness up and that's just how it is. I asked for a refund and they refunded our tickets, but not the room temp hotdog and the drink I left in the theatre. I didn't fight them on it - if I were a supervisor I personally would have refunded everything considering how -literally- every aspect of the service was a disaster, but considering that was the case, the inconsiderate refund practice was...