I've written many good reviews lately on Urbanspoon, etc. Lengthy,
detailed reviews, outlining the really awesome things about places I
love. I really don't just complain without sharing the love as well when
it's deserved. Tonight's experience with our local movie theater,
however, calls for a "You Can Do Better" post. I've shared this with
Cineplex, hopefully they'll respond and even more hopefully, they'll fix
the CaptiView machines.
Dear Cineplex,
Tonight my daughter wanted to go and see “The Fault in our
Stars”. Being proactive, we called ahead
to make sure CaptiView was available for the movie (she has a severe-profound
hearing loss) and purchased our tickets ahead of time in the optimal spot for
the CaptiView to work, according to the manager with whom I spoke. We arrived, made our way to the “Yay-for-not-waiting-in-line-handy-dandy-Mobile
Pick-Up machine” and...this was our first oops of the evening:
In case you can't read it, that's an Out of Order sign.
No sweat. It’s Monday
night, not too busy, so we made our way over to the box office, picked up the
tickets and a CaptiView machine. We rely
on the machines so I’m not signing all night and can enjoy the movie as well.
Want some butter on your popcorn? Well get in line because the second broken
machine of the night had the dreaded “out of order” sign on it:
Again, not a huge deal but it was just starting to look odd,
seeing all these out of order signs on machines – really hoping the movie would
actually play when we got in there.
Well we finally settled in for the movie (yes, it did play)
and guess what? I ended up signing over three-quarters of the movie because the
CaptiView bombed. It would work great
for a couple of lines then skip to about every fifth line of dialogue. It was certainly not conducive to following
the story line. “Why didn’t you leave
and ask for a new one?” you might ask.
Well then she misses the words and
my signing. They also had to turn about five
on at the box office to find one charged and working when we picked ours up, so
my hope that another one would be available, charged and actually working was
less than optimal as well.
At the end of the movie, I went out to talk to a manager (we
went to the 6:45 show – surely someone would still be around afterward, right?)
about the CaptiView, how neither of us really got to see the full movie because
I was acting as her interpreter, etc.
Yep…you guessed it:
It’s awesome that I can go over and let the 16-year-olds who
are slinging the popcorn and sodas know of my concerns.
Needless to say, Cineplex, it looks pretty unprofessional
with all these out of order signs, machines not working, no manager on duty,
etc. These are minor inconveniences
though, and all pale in comparison to the poor quality CaptiView machines (this
is not our first CaptiView dilemma, unfortunately). If you’re going to have
accommodations there for folks with disabilities, they need to work. We pay equal pricing for her to go to that
movie and she deserves the same access as other people in attendance. We paid
for two admissions and between us, took in about 60-70% of the movie.
Not cool, Cineplex. I honestly think you can do better.
Sincerely,
Lisa & Kennedy Weir
Well theatre production week is upon us and both we and Kennedy are running ragged between early morning calls for school shows then evening tech/dress rehearsals and then three night shows. And we are loving every minute of it. The last two weeks parents volunteer to cook and feed the cast and crew each night - musical suppers are a beloved tradition at Kennedy's high school. Either Graeme and/or I were there every single night. We love seeing and being around all the energetic teens who are working their tails off to put this show together.
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