IMC Cinema Dún Laoghaire, misleading info on website will cost you!

blue5

I'll never go back to IMC Dún Laoghaire after the mess that happened last night. One ticket to the LCD Soundsystem documentary cost me €38.90 for an evening in the IMC Dún Laoghaire.

Apart from the two drunk people constantly shouting, clapping and generally disrupting the film without any intervention from staff, the car park information is useless on the website, leading to either a €60 call out fee or a €12 overnight fee.

After reading on the IMC website that the parking for cinema patrons is free, I went to park in the adjoining car park, which resides in the same building as the cinema. Upon leaving the cinema and asking to validate a parking ticket, I was told by staff that this particular car park belongs to Tesco and closes at 10pm, as it was after 11pm my car was now locked in. The IMC car park on the other hand is not well sign posted, linked to on the website or map shown and in a completely different building, not even on the same block as the cinema.

The staff had the security call out number to hand and knew what I was talking about immediately. How often do they put their patrons through this rigmarole? They need to have better information on the site and on the roads leading to the car park. The information on the web site is utterly misleading.

So a night to IMC Cinema Dún Laoghaire cost me €12 plus booking fee for the ticket, a €10 taxi, then a €1.90 bus and €2.50 Dart fare and then €12 overnight parking charge. €38.90 to see a film in the cinema is an utter disgrace.

As all they have on their website regards contact info is a phone number which I'm sure I'd end up in automation hell, I've been left with no alternative means of contacting them but on Facebook of all places.

I wonder how long it will take for them to delete it and not even attempt to reply with a *dignified* response.

Procrastastudy

I can't go to the Cinema any more people, are just animals. I don't understand why if people want to talk they don't go to a pub. Cinemas can do little about it - staff are paid a pittance and wont tackle drunks - I don't blame them for that but they should have security which doesn't let them in in the first place.

whippet

blue5 wrote: »

I'll never go back to IMC Dún Laoghaire after the mess that happened last night. One ticket to the LCD Soundsystem documentary cost me €38.90 for an evening in the IMC Dún Laoghaire.

Apart from the two drunk people constantly shouting, clapping and generally disrupting the film without any intervention from staff, the car park information is useless on the website, leading to either a €60 call out fee or a €12 overnight fee.

After reading on the IMC website that the parking for cinema patrons is free, I went to park in the adjoining car park, which resides in the same building as the cinema. Upon leaving the cinema and asking to validate a parking ticket, I was told by staff that this particular car park belongs to Tesco and closes at 10pm, as it was after 11pm my car was now locked in. The IMC car park on the other hand is not well sign posted, linked to on the website or map shown and in a completely different building, not even on the same block as the cinema.

The staff had the security call out number to hand and knew what I was talking about immediately. How often do they put their patrons through this rigmarole? They need to have better information on the site and on the roads leading to the car park. The information on the web site is utterly misleading.

So a night to IMC Cinema Dún Laoghaire cost me €12 plus booking fee for the ticket, a €10 taxi, then a €1.90 bus and €2.50 Dart fare and then €12 overnight parking charge. €38.90 to see a film in the cinema is an utter disgrace.

As all they have on their website regards contact info is a phone number which I'm sure I'd end up in automation hell, I've been left with no alternative means of contacting them but on Facebook of all places.

I wonder how long it will take for them to delete it and not even attempt to reply with a *dignified* response.

so let me get the straight .. you parked in the wrong car park and it cost you money and now your angry and want to take it out on anyone possible?

slimjimmc

blue5 wrote: »

I'll never go back to IMC Dún Laoghaire after the mess that happened last night. One ticket to the LCD Soundsystem documentary cost me €38.90 for an evening in the IMC Dún Laoghaire.

Apart from the two drunk people constantly shouting, clapping and generally disrupting the film without any intervention from staff, the car park information is useless on the website, leading to either a €60 call out fee or a €12 overnight fee.

After reading on the IMC website that the parking for cinema patrons is free, I went to park in the adjoining car park, which resides in the same building as the cinema. Upon leaving the cinema and asking to validate a parking ticket, I was told by staff that this particular car park belongs to Tesco and closes at 10pm, as it was after 11pm my car was now locked in. The IMC car park on the other hand is not well sign posted, linked to on the website or map shown and in a completely different building, not even on the same block as the cinema.

The staff had the security call out number to hand and knew what I was talking about immediately. How often do they put their patrons through this rigmarole? They need to have better information on the site and on the roads leading to the car park. The information on the web site is utterly misleading.

So a night to IMC Cinema Dún Laoghaire cost me €12 plus booking fee for the ticket, a €10 taxi, then a €1.90 bus and €2.50 Dart fare and then €12 overnight parking charge. €38.90 to see a film in the cinema is an utter disgrace.

As all they have on their website regards contact info is a phone number which I'm sure I'd end up in automation hell, I've been left with no alternative means of contacting them but on Facebook of all places.

I wonder how long it will take for them to delete it and not even attempt to reply with a *dignified* response.

What parking information is misleading on the website? They don't even mention the car park's location. The street signage to their own designated car park may not have been the best but it's incorrect to claim their website is misleading.

Any private car park I've ever been in has a notice near the entrance stating T&Cs, rates, and opening hours. Did you not read it?

And as it was owned by Tesco were there not were other clues such as Tesco logos or "Tesco accept no responsibility blah blah".

There's a sign on the way into the tesco car park stating it is not the cinema car park.

MagicMarker

You paid over €12 to see a documentary about LCD Soundsystem?

omega666

blue5 wrote: »

I'll never go back to IMC Dún Laoghaire after the mess that happened last night. One ticket to the LCD Soundsystem documentary cost me €38.90 for an evening in the IMC Dún Laoghaire.

Apart from the two drunk people constantly shouting, clapping and generally disrupting the film without any intervention from staff, the car park information is useless on the website, leading to either a €60 call out fee or a €12 overnight fee.

After reading on the IMC website that the parking for cinema patrons is free, I went to park in the adjoining car park, which resides in the same building as the cinema. Upon leaving the cinema and asking to validate a parking ticket, I was told by staff that this particular car park belongs to Tesco and closes at 10pm, as it was after 11pm my car was now locked in. The IMC car park on the other hand is not well sign posted, linked to on the website or map shown and in a completely different building, not even on the same block as the cinema.

The staff had the security call out number to hand and knew what I was talking about immediately. How often do they put their patrons through this rigmarole? They need to have better information on the site and on the roads leading to the car park. The information on the web site is utterly misleading.

So a night to IMC Cinema Dún Laoghaire cost me €12 plus booking fee for the ticket, a €10 taxi, then a €1.90 bus and €2.50 Dart fare and then €12 overnight parking charge. €38.90 to see a film in the cinema is an utter disgrace.

As all they have on their website regards contact info is a phone number which I'm sure I'd end up in automation hell, I've been left with no alternative means of contacting them but on Facebook of all places.

I wonder how long it will take for them to delete it and not even attempt to reply with a *dignified* response.

Ahh entrances to both car parks are accross from each other.
There's a clear sign above one saying IMC Car Park and other saying Tesco.

You actually have to drive past the IMC Car Park to get to the Tesco
Car Park. So all your own fault for not looking for the signs and persuming that the car park was in the same building as the Cinema.

Pacing Mule

Perspective ...




You drive past the rather attractive and eye catching IMC sign before you get to the other sign saying Bloomfields shopping centre. If memory serves me when you get as far as the Bloomfields barriers there are signs stating the closing times etc on them. OP made an incorrect assumption that the IMC car park was the one on the left / nearest to the centre but considering the bloody big sign and car park entrance passed on the way I don't think it's IMC's fault.

the groutch

to be fair to the OP, if you move that google maps image about 10m back down the road, there is a tree blocking the view of the IMC sign on the right, so you'd definitely see the parking signs on the left first.

not saying for a second that it's IMC's fault, just that I can see how the OP made the mistake.

blue5

The IMC car park is not well lit at night and you don't see it easily when not familiar with the area.

It's easy to say I've made a mistake until you are the one actually going through the process. At least I'm attempting to point out obvious flaws so others don't go through the same rigmarole, which by the staff reaction was obvious happened frequently to their customers.

I could compare it to an accident black spot in that is it the drivers fault a particular stretch of road consistently causes accidents due to bad signage, ineffective road surface and/or bad design? Or should the road be redesigned to stop accidents happening on a particularly bad stretch of road.

I'm saying that I made the effort to find out about the car park and due to misleading information on the website and hidden signs on the road, ended up paying a lot of money to see a film.

At least my post was attempting to be productive.

Paulw

blue5 wrote: »

I could compare it to an accident black spot.

I'm saying that I made the effort to find out about the car park and due to misleading information on the website and hidden signs on the road, ended up paying a lot of money to see a film.

I think your comparison to an accident black spot is disgraceful. It cost you extra because you didn't pay attention and didn't read the signs. No one was hurt or killed. :eek:

The website does not have any misleading information at all. The information is 100% accurate. All it says is that there is free/discounted parking. Is that not the case? If you actually parked in the correct car park it would have been free/discounted. :rolleyes:

maggy_thatcher

In IMC Dún Laoghaire, there's a sign in there telling you to validate your parking before you watch the film (i.e. when you get your ticket checked). If you'd done that then, you'd have been told you're in the wrong car park and would've given you plenty of time to go and move the car to the correct car park. You'd still have had to pay for your time in Tesco though.

AltAccount

Have you been down since, blue5?

Have you seen if this is true?

Deleted User wrote: »

There's a sign on the way into the tesco car park stating it is not the cinema car park.

Seems like they realised this is a common issue and put up a pretty unambiguous sign to address it - aka revising the junction at the Black Spot (terrible analogy) so people don't crash there again.

Pacing Mule

blue5 wrote: »

I'm saying that I made the effort to find out about the car park and due to misleading information on the website and hidden signs on the road, ended up paying a lot of money to see a film.

What effort did you make ? Not being smart but the only effort you seem to have made was to read that there was free parking on the website. You didn't check with anyone that you were in the right car park, ask for directions prior to parking etc. Other posters have stated that there is signage in the Bloomfields car park stating it is not the cinema park and that once in the cinema you are advised to validate your ticket prior to the movie which again would have notified you that you were in the wrong car park.

The information on the website is not misleading at all - there may be an argument for giving more precise information but what is actually said is:

Do we have parking?We have free parking available for the IMC's in Athlone, Mullingar, Thurles and Ballymena. In Dun Laoghaire we offer 2.5 hours free parking to IMC customers. There is no associated parking for the IMC in Dundalk but there are 3 car parks in close proximity to the cinema.

It is a general FAQ page for all the cinemas in that chain. I agree it may be better served to do individual pages for each cinema where it could be noted where exactly the car park was etc but they didn't imply in any shape or form that the car park you parked in was the right one.

The other thing you have to factor in is that there is absolutley no benefit to the cinema from having you park elsewhere (unless the car park is 100% full all of the time which I know from experience it isn't) They still have the running costs of the car park whether or not you're parked in it for free or parked in the shopping centre car park. It's not like Ryanair trying to hide the insurance opt out buried in the website booking process and catching people out for monetary gain.

I have every sympathy for you OP - it was a ****ty thing to happen to you and it cost you money. I just don't think it's all the cinemas fault here.