Dear Reel Cinemas / Dubai Mall Platinum Movie Suites,

Since your manager failed to call me back for a discussion, I am writing to you via social media because I am still quite disappointed at my experience with you last weekend.

The Boy and I came to watch “Allied” with you, and decided to make it dinner and a movie because we really do like your snacks.  But sadly your service was not up to standard at all.

Upon arrival I was seated by one of your team in my favourite spot in the lounge.  I had got there early so that I could place my order and relax before seeing the movie.  After about 15 minutes, I had to wave someone down to take my order.  That went fairly smoothly, and she repeated the order twice.  She also came back speedily with the card payment machine as the screen had opened and we were to go straight through.

Before we go any further, I will let you know our order:

1 x Gourmet Nachos, with extra cheese
1 x Extra side of nacho cheese sauce
2 x Spring Rolls
1 x Large Diet Coke
1 x Small Popcorn – salty sweet mix, but more sweet than anything
2 x Bottle still water

Not a hugely intricate order.  Not the biggest order either.

We went off to screen 14 and took our places.

Just as the movie was about to start, we received the nachos (delicious!) and one order of the spring rolls (slightly under cooked).  Shame we weren’t given any forks and only a couple of napkins for this messy dish.

After a good 10 minutes, I asked for our drinks.  Then, a while later I asked someone else.  And then someone else.  We also asked about the remainder of our order as it hadn’t arrived.

A lady came back to discuss it.  She wanted to see our receipt.  It was naturally somewhere in my handbag.  She was so insistent to see it though that in order to not disturb any of the other patrons, I had to leave the room.

That really didn’t impress me at all.  What really didn’t impress me is that despite the person who took our order repeating it twice, she had missed off the second spring roll order, and the nacho cheese sauce.  It wasn’t a huge issue but it was annoying, made more so by all the fuss.

I ordered the spring rolls and the cheese sauce again, and also ordered a second helping of the lovely nachos because we actually were hungrier than we thought.  I said that due to all the inconvenience I would pay when the movie was ended because I didn’t want to miss any more of it.

The drinks arrived at some point but again, not all in one go.  Each time someone bought something, I missed another segment of the subtitled movie where they were stood clear in front of me and talking.  My French needs concentration and my German needs subtitles!

Eventually we got everything and although that should have made us happy,but I was annoyed at the whole experience and had missed pertinent information at the beginning of the film.

Not only that, but the second order of nachos was so over done that I couldn’t actually lift the majority of the nachos from the plate.  We left it.  Also, the popcorn was 90% salty.

The second the movie titles came up, the waitress was by my elbow pushing the bill at me.  I didn’t even have time to sit the seat upright.  A bit cheeky considering the time issues encountered by that point.  Also, I do not appreciate the security chap hovering just behind her.  Whilst The Boy and I are rather tall and large, we are less aggressive than average height people for the exact discrimination that I felt was being shown here. Not once had I been rude or even raised my voice all evening.

Oh, and as a general moan, I don’t appreciate your cleaning teams coming in and tidying up around me while I am still sat there.  Perhaps I am one of those strange people who feels watching the credits is all part of the experience?  Well, no, I’m not.  I just was struggling to put my new trainers on in the dark but I felt I was then being pushed out the door.

However, just to top off my poor experience, I decided to speak to the manager.  Not to make a complaint but to just say that whatever was going on that day, that it shouldn’t happen again.  You don’t pay AED 130 for a cinema ticket to have this level of poor service.

That ‘heads up’ only turned into a complaint because on top of everything else, the second The Boy walked over I became invisible.  I booked this as our treat this time.  It was ME who bought the tickets.  It was ME who paid for the snacks.  It was ME who dealt with the staff during the evening.  Yet here I was being entirely ignored until I literally stamped my foot in frustration.  I felt so embarrassed.  Even after that, he tried to take the The Boy’s contact information, until he was told to ask me.

Since a week has passed with no feedback, I decided it was time that I was heard.  Your staff made an error, fine.  It happens.  But…  They didn’t apply logic to a situation (why wouldn’t we get our drinks pretty much straight away?) and when trying to fix it, showed even less.  I felt discriminated against as a tall and large person, and then again as a woman.  To compound this, no one has contacted me to explain or apologise.

Can you see why I am writing this now?

Yours in disappointment,

Blonde on the Move