Going to the movies in Australia

Number six of our bucket list is to go to the movies in Australia. We have not posted about it yet, so about time to do so.  And since we are new to this country we had to try out different places, so enough inspiration.

First experience – Village cinema

When we just arrived in Australia we received a movie voucher from our landlord. We took the kids to see the Minions at Village Cinema’s. A movie without too much dialogue, so despite the children not understanding English yet, they were able to follow the story line and enjoy the movie.

The best part of going to the movies in Australia is that there is no break. So unlike in the Netherlands, you can sit back and relax to see the whole movie in one go, without an interruption halfway. And no subtitles of course.

We did not really notice more differences that day. They were there, but we did not have eyes for them yet.

Second experience – Hoyts cinema

The second time we went, I almost got a heart attack when we had to pay for the tickets ourselves. At $21 (€ 15) for an adult and $16 (€11) for a child that made $74 (€52) for our family! No, that is not including food and drinks.

Maybe I had not gone to the movies often enough, but it sounded like a small fortune to me. Oliver made us save some money by becoming a member of Hoyts, which gave us one free ticket and a discounted ticket for the movie of the week.

The checking in was already a culture shock for us. Despite having bought the tickets online already, we had to stand in line. There is no separate counter for the tickets, so everyone has to stand in the line, smelling the popcorn and looking at the drinks for a while. I guess they do this on purpose.

There was an express line for prepaid tickets, but since it was not that busy, there was only one person for all the counters. So it was still quite a wait. I wonder what it’s like at peak times?

After we survived the check in, the boys went to the Star Wars the Force awakens and us girls got to enjoy Snoopy the peanut movie.

Third + fourth experience – Waverley Cinema

We had heard of a local, non-chain, movie theater, where any regular ticket costs $ 8 per person. And some movies are only $ 6 at selected times. The reason we had not gone there yet was that we were expecting a really old and crappy place, since it costs less than half that of the chains. But I heard others being very positive about it, so we decided to give it a try.

Yes, it is an old place, but it has style. It is a really cool retro type theater, which we enjoyed a lot. It had the feel of the theaters of our youth. No, the seats are not as comfortable, but the overall experience made up for that.

Since Kai had a birthday party, Luka and I went to Zootopia together. What a great movie! I just loved all the little details, the happy music and the funny twists.

So within a week, we went again. For the discounted rate. We had to go on Sunday morning, at 9.30 a.m. This happened to be on Luka’s birthday, so we knew she would be awake in the middle of the night anyway, therefore that was no problem. So this time around, we were able to enjoy a movie for only $24 for the four of us, a real bargain!

Now that we discovered Waverley Cinema’s we will go here on a way more regular basis. If we do want to go to a movie and sit in comfortable seats then we will go to Hoyts. Not because we are members now, but since we have an Optus phone line we can get discounted tickets through Optus Perks. Village cinema’s will not see us anymore, they are just too expensive.