Orlando Lens
By Nicholas Ware
Twitter
If you're like me, and have an odd, flexible work schedule that leaves you a surprising amount of late-morning free time, the multiplex industry has decided to tempt you with a lunch-hours deal. The AMCs, Regals, Cobb, Aloma Cinema Grill, Premiere, and Cinemark multiscreen theaters in town all offer discounts to morning customers. Here they are listed from worst deal to best deal. Please note all these price refer to regular seat-yourself 2D movies. 3D and other amenities have a surcharge.
Image from telegraph.co.uk.
- Regal lags behind its competitors in offering midday deals. While some locations (the Oviedo 22, for example) have $6 first-show-of-the-day tickets, the more popular and centrally-located Winter Park ($8.50) location, as well as Waterford Lakes and Pointe Orlando ($9) offer a very meager matinee discount. On the plus side, if you own the Entertainment.com coupon book, which you've probably seen on sale at every check-out counter of every Walgreens ever, there are Regal coupons in there worth $2 off an admission this price (the discount kicks in at $8), which drives the price down. Never pay full price on one of those coupon books, though... wait until further in the year when you can find them discounted. The coupons in them typically last until early November.
- Cobb, the company that runs the Plaza Cinema Cafe 12 theater on Orange downtown, has an everyday matinee price of $7.25, which is quite reasonable. Plus, the Plaza Cinema Cafe offers cooked-to-order food, a decent-for-a-theater selection of beer, and really, really comfortable seating. You should try going once, if you've never been. However, on pure dollar value, $7.25 isn't rock bottom.
- All AMC theaters, including the ones at Downtown Disney and Universal CityWalk, offer $6 movies before noon. That's a pretty great deal for those two theaters, especially the newest, fanciest AMC in town at Downtown Disney. However, beware as many of the Downtown Disney shows have tacked on fees for extra amenities that you can't decline... only about half of the movies showing will qualify for the $6 price.
- Cinemark (at the Festival Bay Mall) does AMC two quarters better, and discounts first-matinee-of-the-day movies to $5.50. I've never been to this theater, so I don't know how much bang you get for your five-and-a-half bucks, but I suppose if you want to go to the outlet malls right by Festival Bay after watching the film, it's very convenient.
- Aloma Cinema Grill has regular $5 matinees before 6pm, but no deeper discounters for Early Birds. I already opened up my heart about my love for Aloma Cinema Grill.
- The surprise winner for cheapest first-run ticket in Orlando goes to the Premiere Cinema 14 at Fashion Square Mall on Colonial, which charges only $4.50 for a ticket to the first matinee of the day before 2pm. That's about the same as a venti coffee from Starbucks! I've only seen a movie at this theater once, the last Harry Potter film deep, deep, deep into its run, and the theater was tiny but perfectly worth $4.50, and I imagine the theaters for the more recent releases (as opposed to the 9th week of Potter 8) are much larger.
Image from telegraph.co.uk.
