The Dark Knight Rises – VIP Style

My boyfriend, Amir, and I have recently reintroduced monthly date nights. The idea is that once a month one of us plans and treats the other to a date. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive and it can be at any time of the day, but it should be something we haven’t done before or something that we don’t get to do very often.

For the month of July, Amir was very sweet and treated me to dinner and a movie at the new Cineplex Odeon Windermere and VIP Cinemas. We got our tickets about a week before the movie as we were going to see the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises and we wanted to make sure that we got good seats.

Our tickets were for the 6:30 showing on Saturday and it was recommended that we arrive about 45 minutes early if we wanted to order any drinks or food prior to the movie starting. We arrived at the theater at about 5:30 and went straight to the lounge to start our VIP experience. Our tickets were taken when we entered the lounge and there was an abundance of servers ready to explain the ins and outs of the VIP concept. Both drinks and food could either be ordered in the lounge area or in the theater, up to the start of the movie, however we warned that the menu inside the theater was more limited than the lounge menu. With that in mind we decided to order our food and drinks in the lounge and then carry them into the theater. Just to see what it was like eating “real” food in a movie theater.

I ordered a strawberry daiquiri, which tasted pretty good to me. We then order some salt and pepper wings and chicken fingers and fries, figuring that the less complicated the food, the less likely the kitchen was to mess it up. After all we were at a movie theater…

The wings were quite tasty and it was nice that they were accompanied with some ranch dip and veggies. The plate was a little small, which made balancing the chicken bones on the plate a little awkward, especially once we were in the movie theater. The chicken fingers and fries were also not too bad. I thought the fries were pretty good, crispy and salty, however the chicken fingers really didn’t seem like anything special to me. Once Amir cleared the tab in the lounge we took our food into the movie theater to see what it was like eating in the theater…

Nothing special, in fact, a little awkward. The chairs are paired up in 2’s and the little tables for food swing up from the outside, making it a little difficult for us to share our food. My biggest complaint was that once we were done with our plates, despite all of the servers moving around the theater, not one of them offered to take our plates away. I am not sure if they were supposed to or not, but I didn’t really want to sit beside a pile of chicken bones for 3 hours, so Amir and I ended up having to leave the theater and bring our empty plates to the bar. I would have hoped that in the “VIP” area one of the employees would have noticed me walking around with a plate of chicken bones and would have asked if they could have taken it from me. Oh well, not the end of the world.

The chairs were very comfortable and the 18+ showing meant that there were no kids around, which was nice for a date night. Also the theater was very, very clean, which seems to be rare for an Edmonton movie theater. Big plus there. The VIP experience was fun, although it was a little pricey at $20 a ticket plus food. I don’t think that we will be going to many movies VIP style unless it’s a special movie or occasion. Although, one interesting thing to note is that with Cineplex’s Scene points program you can redeem your 1000 scene points for a free movie, including the VIP tickets, which would allow you to get the best value for your points. I am looking forward to seeing what it is like to go to one of the “normal” theaters at the new Windermere location. The movie itself was also really excellent, I thought that it was very entertaining and that it tied up the trilogy really well.

Overall it was a wonderful date night. Now I need to start planning for my date night in August… any suggestions?

Happy Tuesday!

Robyn