AMC Rivertowne 12 — Local services in Oxon Hill

For perspective, I love movies. I have always gone to at least 1 movie a week, even when I lived outside the US, so I am a huge fan of AMC's A-List! I go to the movies twice a week on average and have visited dozens of different AMC locations across the US.

This theater itself is relatively nice. The recliners are great and are one of the reasons I would prefer to go here while I live in DC. However, the persistence of people talking, playing on their phones, and carrying on throughout the movies is so prevalent that it makes all the positives about this AMC evaporate.

Most of the time, you will have at least 1 group, if not more, talking throughout the movie. This is especially true of horror movies, during premiere weekends, and other peak hours. Other places experience this problem too, but not at these high rates. Based on my experience, about 75% of the time, this occurs at this theater, whereas it is only about 15% of the time at other theaters and never as bad, which is still too often. I've had no choice but to leave the movie before it was over 6-7 times for this reason, and twice for the same exact movie.

I am not talking about the occasional whisper for popcorn, some quick explanation of the backstory, or even the totally acceptable laughter or gasps during funny or shocking scenes. I am instead talking about talking during loud scenes as if people can't hear them, full-on conversations, talking to the screen, explaining what just happened outloud, often to apparently themselves, lights flashing from their phones repeatedly, and so much more. It isn't even just teenagers, as I have seen 20-50 year olds do this too, though less often. I have seen better behaviors from small children, even at this theater, and that group isn't as big a problem, as their parents often try and shush them or remind them to wait and talk after the movie, plus they're like 5yo!

AMC at large has a problem to contend with. I suggest they hire more workers and bring back ushers checking on people a couple times a show, preferably horror and busy times, and most importantly start enforcing their codes of conduct they so kindly remind people of before every movie by kicking violators out. We should not have to try and shush them. We should not have to miss parts of the movie because some people want to treat a paid experience in public as they would a private one at home. We should not have to report them, often not leading to any real change as these people aren't going to learn until it is financially costing them when they negatively impact the movies and experience for others. Many people are uncomfortable about speaking up, even just quietly to management, but still find this annoying and removal of said people the right course of action.

Alternatively, they could make designated talking cinemas for these types of people and see how well they do. Maybe they will be successful, and then there will be no problem for either group. Just let the rest of us watch a movie in peace and enjoy cinema the way it is supposed to be seen.

I know a lot of people who have quit going to the movies completely for exactly this reason. I won't be returning to this specific theater ever again, and if it continues being an ignored issue at other AMC theatres, then I will stop going altogether. It isn't worth the money if I am unable to...

This was quite possibly the worst service that i have ever had in my life. There was one young lady who was great who's name i didn't get, but the terrible service by Mynesha outweighed that dramatically. First, our order was "taken" (and i said "taken" because as I'm talking to her, she sees someone that she knows and says " i knew you looked familiar" and had a short conversation with them which was completely rude and very unprofessional and explains why my order ended up being wrong) which was nachos, popcorn, chicken tenders, twix bites, and a pizza. So, we were given the nachos and that's it(I'm glad i could get the twix bites myself because i probably would not have gotten them.) There was no time frame given to us on when the other food would be done. Meanwhile, i see other orders being taken and nothing communicated to me. So i asked when will the pizza be done? She said two minutes. So, about 5-7 minutes later, I get my pizza. In the mean time, we still haven't gotten an update on the chicken tenders or gotten our popcorn, but I see plenty of people leaving the counter with their popcorn and drinks. So, i asked about the chicken tenders, and they say about 5 minutes and i ask about the popcorn. Still, no popcorn. So, we've been at the counter already for 20 minutes total by now, missing our movie. So, the chicken tenders come out in a few minutes and the lady says that all of them aren't in there so they have to make more. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?! This is when i actually started to get annoyed because the next thing they said was, "we will bring it to your seat." If this was an option, why was this not exercised at the beginning of the order since they knew that they did not have any of this ready at all?!? In the mean time, we STILL DID NOT GET OUR POPCORN! 25 minutes, at least that we waited at the counter, and we still did not have our popcorn. SO, before she started to help another guest in line, again, i asked for our popcorn. We finally got it, but as we were about to leave to go to our seats, she had the nerve to say, "wait, you ordered nachos? I did not charge you for those." That was the FIRST THING I ordered!!!!!! I calmly gave her my card so that she could charge me for the nachos, and went into the theater. About 5 minutes later, the guy brought the chicken tenders in that were owed to me, and that was the end of that debacle. AMC theaters, you need to seriously think about the screening process for some of your employees. This is a service driven industry and I'm paying for service, and I received the opposite of it. I could have made a scene and demanded a manager on site, but i chose not to embarrass that young lady at work. I was not expecting to be catered to, but I did expect for my order to be right and for people to communicate certain things to me out of common decency and not to have to end up paying for someone else's incompetence. The theater itself is very comfortable and clean, but the service, because of Mynesha, was terrible. And I'll definitely be writing to the corporate office about...

My first time here, courtesy of a ticket some Googly local guides received for free.

I chose this particular location based on reviews, distance and acceptance of atom tickets.

Overall, it was pretty good. I didn't visit the concessions area because we all know why. Here's a few points:

There are lots of doors but one can ONLY enter through the far-right doors saying "entry." Don't try to use other doors unless you want to be embarrassed because they only open from the inside. Very good traffic control.

Don't think about sneaking in; you HAVE to go past "guest services" to buy or scan a ticket because everything else is roped off. The bathrooms are only accessible after moving beyond this point.

Bathrooms were okay. They use Dyson® hand dryers; I mention this because a lot of people prefer towels since air dryers may spread more bacteria.

There are somewhat worn cushioned benches near the restrooms to sit.

The atom app automatically increases brightness to max to make ticket qr codes easier to scan; mine took a few seconds but went through. Pretty effortless experience.

Some recliners have ripped seats. As far as I can tell, no one had issues reclining.

Speaking of reclining, because I'm dumber than a Doritos® bag in a parking lot, I had no idea one must push the black, circular button in the seat to recline as they're power recliners.

Yeah, I'll be back. Overall really nice and no real complaints other than everyday annoying movie patrons beyond the...