Review: AMC Dine-In Experience

We rarely go to the movies. In fact, I can't remember the last time we had gone. Maybe its the fact that we have a three year old, or that the tickets are are $15-$20 each, or that my husband gets a tad bit anxious when in dark, enclosed spaces with strangers. Maybe its all three. Whatever the reasons we don't, last night we did!

Our local theater has recently (read: within the last 2 years) been changed to a AMC Dine-In and we thought we'd treat Zion and Elle as well as ourselves to a night out. (Sorry, Hollis) I may sound a little prehistoric here, but I've never purchased movie tickets online before and since we had never been to this theater experience either, I took to the internet to read about someone else's recent experience. Would you believe I couldn't find a recent blog about AMC Dine-In and what to expect?

Our experience is based on AMC Dine-In Thoroughbred 20 theater in Franklin, TN. I'm assuming you can expect primarily the same from all of the AMC Dine-In theaters, with minor changes.

BUYING TICKETS ONLINE

You can buy tickets through the AMC site or Fandango (maybe even another place too, but these are the two I found.)

Not every single theater in the AMC Dine-In theater offers the dine-in experience. Did that make sense?? From what I could tell only 4-5 theaters within the large theater are dine-in. The rest are standard viewing and 3D.

This makes a difference when choosing your movie online. On both the AMC and Fandango sites you can filter the movies by date and what type of theater you want to be in which will then show you the movies showing in the dine-in theaters.

GETTING YOUR TICKETS

After I made the ticket purchase, a ticket confirmation was emailed to me. The email gave me instructions to send a text in order to receive a QR code that would be scanned when I arrived at the theater.

GETTING INTO THE MOVIE

This may sound lame and totally 1999, but I had no idea how to actually get into the movie without a ticket stub. Thankful the afore mentioned text gave me explicit instructions -- go straight to the ticket taker. Is is equally lame to say I missed not having a ticket stub? Anyhoo, yes, pull up the text, click the link sent and the ticket taker will scan the code on your phone and point you in the direction of your theater. Sigh. Nostalgia gone.

THE THEATER AND THE SEAT (!!)

Since we reserved our seats, there was no searching for a spot with 4 seats next to each other that were also not directly next to someone else, that were also not behind someone super tall. I knew ahead of time the theater had reclining seats, but these were pretty amazing. The foot rest raise and lower with the push of a button, enough arm room for you and your significant other to share an arm rest, and because food is served in the theater no one has to squish their legs in so someone else can walk down the aisle. Oh and yes, there is a food tray with a cup holder that swivels in and out.

ORDERING FOOD (AND MORE FOOD DETAILS)

Each seat was waiting with a drink menu and a food menu. When you decide to order, there is a button located on the bottom right of the seat, down towards your feet. This important detail isn't noted anywhere in the ordering process, so I thought I'd put it in here, so you like me wouldn't have to basically yell over the previews to ask the closest person to you how to order.

About 5 minutes after pushing the button our server arrived.

Our movie started at 6pm but we didn't actually get into the theater until 6:15 (I blame the kids). The previews were going and others already had their food. We ordered our food as the last preview was ending and by the time the movie had started our food was served. So just in case you were curious, yes, you can still order food even if you are late. I mean, you can order food throughout the entire movie if you wanted.

You can find the food menu here. There's a little bit of everything from nachos, to salads, to sushi! You may notice the prices are missing which first freaked me out. I mean, first rule of menus is if the price isn't listed you don't want to know the price. Am I right?? So you can imagine I was super surprised to see the prices were normal. Appetizers under $10. Meals under $20. The food was good -- better than I was expecting. I'd give it 7 out of 10 stars and would probably compare it to an Applebee's or TGI Fridays.

THE OVERALL EXPERIENCE

As soon as we sat down, Nandor and I looked at each other and said "This is the way to do it!" It was comfortable and cozy. We got to eat a real meal while we watched a movie. It felt like we were in our living room. It was spacious and even though we had people surrounding us, it didn't feel crowded. Our kids loved the experience too quite possibly because they have maybe just a handful of memories of the standard theater! Either way, I loved it went beyond watching movie together as a family and really let us have a fun experience together as a family, minus the little one. (Sorry again, Hollis.)