One of the things I was most looking forward about her holiday, was taking Mum to the cinema.  It’s not something she really does at home, and having seen the local cinemas I’m not surprised.

It’s not the same in Dubai, obvs!  We not only have regular cinemas that are twice as roomy (and so much cleaner) than regular ones at home, we have exclusive cinemas where you have butler service and the like.  How could I not show her those?!

First up was Dubai Mall’s Reel Cinema and the Platinum Suites.

What is not to love about this place?  Firstly, you have a lovely exclusive lounge to wait in and peruse the menu.

Yes, the menu.  There is no walking to a counter and ordering your popcorn and soda.  This is so much more civilised!  There is even a team of chefs waiting to prepare your food for you!

You can still have your popcorn, but if that’s not quite hitting the spot you could have yourself an Eaton Mess or something sweet from the dessert menu.  On a diet?  No problem, there are salads.  Missed your dinner?  No problem! You can have burgers or pizza.  Fancy snacky things then have nachos with or without chilli.  Or, if you just want picky bits, have a selection including spring rolls and Camembert bites.

We did.  Not all of it but only because we had lunch a couple of hours before!  You order from your comfortable sofa in the lounge area, then the butlers bring it through to you, along with your pillows and blankets.

(I really love Dubai!!!)

The Camembert bites are really good.  I highly recommend them!

As are the nachos and cheese sauce.  I would however suggest putting the sauce on before it gets dark as dunking becomes quite tiresome after a while!

Lastly the popcorn comes in a fancy pants container which makes you feel all special!!

My favourite part of the whole experience though is the chairs.  You have fully reclining leather lazyboys to spend 2hrs curled up in.  It is absolutely the best way to see a movie and I really must look to getting one in my house because they are so comfortable!!!

For those of you who have any interest, we saw “Molly’s Game” with Jessica Chastain and Idris Elba… both of whom look very nice on a giant screen!  The movie was actually really good and we had a fab time.  We suspect it may have been even better if we had a clue how poker worked!!

Reel Cinemas aren’t the only ones who offer a luxurious cinema experience though.  A newer contender is Roxy Cinemas and I was super excited to go and try it out for the first time with Mum.

Located at Box Park and really hard to miss due to the giant neon flashing signs, the Roxy has a 1920’s feel to me.  It’s a boutique cinema so much smaller (thankfully) than the monsters of Reel Cinemas which makes it much less intimidating to go into and work out what to do!

The ticket counter reminded me of a train carriage.  Not sure why!

Then you amble on through to the waiting area which has a real 20’s lounge vibe going on, and a lovely team of servers who are happy to talk you through the most popular items on the menu.

This time it was our dinner as well as our cinema snacks so we really had fun ordering!  Sadly the service wasn’t anywhere near as speedy as Dubai Mall and so we only got our bits when the movie started which is why there are no pictures.

I can tell you that we had…. mozzarella sticks, fries, margarita pizza, dynamite shrimp (which were really very good indeed!), and some popcorn.  The portions were actually huge and there was no room for the popcorn once we had plowed our way through the rest!  I actually think I had some Maltersers in my purse as well.  I will leave that for you to decide if they were eaten or not!

The food was great, but I am not a fan of the cinema.  Because it is so small, the screen feels like it is on top of you.  Also, the wing back chairs and ottoman look fabulous but in reality, aren’t that comfortable for tall people.  Unless you scrunch down, there is no where for your head to rest and when you scrunch down, your ass ends up hanging off the end of the chair, and the ottomans aren’t fixed so you can’t rest your legs properly on them.  It’s tough being 6ft tall somedays!

Again, for those of you who are interested, we saw “Crooked House” which was very good in an Agatha Christie kind of way!  I confess to spending the first part of the movie stuffing my face and pausing only to try and work out where I had seen each of the cast members before!  The standout performance was by a kid called Honor Kneafsey who was also in “The Christmas Prince” (a Hallmark special!).  She played the role perfectly!

In conclusion, I think if the two concepts were mixed, I would absolutely be in love with the cinema experience.  You could keep all the set up and decorations of the Roxy, but have the layout of the Platinum Suites.  The chairs could look like the Roxy but recline like the Platinum ones.  The menus are both fantastic though so there is no choosing between them!!!

Both are really great experiences and I really recommend you trying one or both if you haven’t already!