Angry at cinema.ON a Thursday night (when I often avoid going out) my friends and I decided to watch a movie that was playing at Dana Cinema. Knowing that it was a Thursday, we had to book the tickets in advance so after 30 minutes of calling with no answer they finally picked up. So, I simply booked five tickets for the 11:30pm show and that was the end of the call, no "terms and conditions" were mentioned. My friends and I arrived to Dana Mall at 11:10 to be surprised by a long queue Pronounced "Q." A temporary holding place for data. See queuing, message queue and print queue. (programming) queue - A first-in first-out data structure used to sequence objects. Objects are added to the tail of the queue ("enqueued") and taken off the head ("dequeued"). since they had only two out of four ticket counters that were open ... ON A THURSDAY! So obviously we waited in line until our turn came which was at exactly 11:29p, just a minute before the movie. We informed the lady at the counter of our booking number then she replied "your booking is cancelled, sir". I looked at the screen showing the seats to notice that our seats were gone and others available, so I asked her why and when did it get cancelled. She replied, "At 11:30, sir, because you were late and the cinema is full." I asked her to look at the seating screen to see that there were still seats available then to the digital clock behind her that said 11:29, so she looked then walked off without saying anything. When she came back, a colleague of hers that over-heard the issue came and told us that we were late and that "we should've cut the line and flagged that we had booked"!!! We became furious at that point. Two minutes later the lady comes back with the "manager on duty" that was pointless and had repeated that we should've cut the line ... they were serious!!! This is their actual procedure ... the rest of the story took us nowhere. There were no seats with a decent view so we ended up not watching the movie. But to give you all a tip when you book, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. them the system "automatically" cancels the booking at ... if you ask the lady 11:30, if you ask her colleague 11:15, if you ask the manager 11:00. Why don't they have a counter for bookings? Or why even have the booking service when they cannot handle it? Hadi Dana Cinema general manager Gerard I. Saad said: "First, we wish to apologise v. 1. same as apologize. Verb 1. apologise - defend, explain, clear away, or make excuses for by reasoning; "rationalize the child's seemingly crazy behavior"; "he rationalized his lack of success" for the mishandling of the reader's booking due to a miscommunication mis·com·mu·ni·ca·tion n. 1. Lack of clear or adequate communication. 2. An unclear or inadequate communication. by our staff who should have informed the customer on the phone, that our booking system cancels all bookings 15 minutes prior to a show and that the customer with a booking, should have a priority at the counter whenever he reaches the cinema. "Second, while we fully understand the embarrassment and the inconvenience caused all the way, we would like to emphasise the fact that minor hiccups Hiccups Definition Hiccups are the result of an involuntary, spasmodic contraction of the diaphragm followed by the closing of the throat. Description in the attendance to all the long queues can happen, taking into consideration that we do not spare any effort in remedying all of them in the best way we can. Third, we would like to extend our sincere apologies once again and kindly request the concerned customer to contact us at any time in order to rectify rec·ti·fy v. 1. To set right; correct. 2. To refine or purify, especially by distillation. accordingly". Copyright 2009 Gulf Daily News Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |
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