More for those who don't drive - what's the longest time you'd travel to a cinema?

H

Harris T

New member
Daft question i know.

The reason I ask is that for many years i've always dreamt of getting a Cineworld unlimited card, but i've never had a near enough Cineworld to me to make it really viable.

But earlier on tonight, I was trying (again) to justify it in my mind because the nearest Cineworld to me is an hour and a half away on the bus.

I live in Essex, and this one is in Bexleyheath in Kent. It's a straightforward journey - 3 buses, all fairly direct.

So I kind of surmised that if i restricted my journeys to Saturdays only, I could leave my place at 9:20am and arrive at the Cineworld at 10:50am-11am. See a film and be on my way home between 2-3pm, arriving back between 3:30pm-4:30pm - still a decent time, bearing in mind the estate I live on is pretty crappy (to say the very least :)).

Also, on the odd occasion I end up going with a mate of mine, there's usually a fair chance we end up at a random Cineworld anyway, since he's a mobile computer engineer and drives all over the place, so if i've got the unlimited card on me, that would work for me as well.

So .. would a 90 minute, 3-bus journey to a cinema be something you'd do ?
 
Max I'd consider is half an hour, and even then I'd be trying to find any other alternative.

How much are these 6 buses going to cost you? Isn't there a cinema nearer by that would be cheaper to get to and work out cheaper overall, even than the unlimited card?
 
I appreciate the replies but it's kind of not the point if your local cineworld is no more than a short hop away.

the buses wouldn't be an issue as i have a free bus pass for medical reasons.

i'm just trying to gauge if a 90 minute journey just to watch a film is excessive .. which it probably is :)
 
I've travelled to London from the North West to see films in Leicester Square but I made a weekend out of the journey.I saw the midnight showing of 'Aliens' at the Odeon and that was a fantastic experience.This was before IMAX and the screen at the Odeon is huge.

I haven't done a London/film trip since 'Return of the King' but I wouldn't rule out doing it again as there's always something to see in London :D

My local cinema closed down the week before Peter Jackson's King Kong came out and VUE opened in its place but not in the centre.I hate it and rarely go to the cinema now.
 
I spent what seemed like ages travelling to see Final Destination 3D, because there wasn't a 3D cinema near me at the time. I wouldn't do that regularly, though, just for special occasions or films. That time I really wanted to see 3D. Had I known about Avatar I'd probably have waited and seen that instead, because Avatar was claimed to be the "best use" of 3D and Final Destination was just a cheesy horror film using it for gags. Nowadays my local cinema has 3D so I won't need to drive long distances again.

If it was always going to take 90 minutes to get to a cinema, I'd be the same. Ie, just go for special occasions or special films. I wouldn't go often enough to justify an unlimited card. There are other ways to see films - eg they come out on DVD/Blu-Ray after a few months.

Obviously it depenRAB on what your time is worth to you, and what else you'd do with it. When I was unemployed, I was cash-poor but time-rich, so it might have made sense to spend a day travelling (especially if I had a free pass). But then I'd go on week days, not Saturday.

Is there anything else you can do near the cinema, to make the journey more worth while? It doesn't sound like your estate is something you need to rush home to.
 
I've done hour and a half bus journeys into London to watch films that haven't been on at my local cinemas when I wanted to watch them.

Only because I like London, so it's no harRABhip spending the day there, and it's an extremely easy journey.

I couldn't be bothered with 3 buses, and wouldn't do an hour and a half journey as a regular thing, every week or whatever.
 
Well it's not :)

Bexleyheath is a fairly reasonable town centre, so there'd certainly be things to do there.

The only cinemas near me are Vue and Odeon. Vue is about a 10 minute hop away. It's just a pain really because i'm probably one of those people who would really hammer the living hell out of an unlimited card and literally see everything just for the sake of it.
 
I occasionally go to Manchester from Sheffield to see something at the IMAX but i tend to spend the day there and do other things but i can get a bus straight to any of the Sheffield cinema's and be there in 45minutes max, if it meant me catching 3 buses tbh i wouldn't bother.
 
Our one is called Flicks but I have not been for years so don't know what its like now.

It only has two screens and is about a ten min walk from here.

Harwich Electric Palace is 11.7 miles again another tiny one.

The Odeon Colchester is 12.9 my Sat Nav says

Belfast Cineplex is 12.9

Felixstowe Palace 14.0M

Ipswich Cineworld 17.7M

Ugc 17.7

Ipswich Film 18.0M

Rio Cinema Burnham 18.9

Riverside Theatre Woodbridge 21.4M

Empire Halstead 24.8M

Odeon Southend 25.1M

Cineworld Braintree 25.7M

These are all my local ones but they are much further no way Southend is 25 miles from here so must be straight line.

Think the last film I saw was Panic Room back in 2002 at Colchester.
 
I have two very good cinemas only one bus drive away from my home, about 15/20 minutes on the bus. I have a massive odeon, and an art house cinema down the road from it showing the less mainstream films. Then for an extra short bus journey, we have an imax cinema at the shopping mall. :)

No need to go any furthur. Certainly not going to take up time travelling more just to go to a cinema with special offers and so on.
 
I travelled 50 miles by bus to see The Dark Knight on IMAX, but it's not something I would do regularly, especially now that my local multiplexes are digital and 3D capable. Besides, the IMAX screen was too big!
 
Well I went to see Solomon Kane on the bus today - that was a 45 minute journey, which was actually quite acceptable due to the buses being fairly on time.

I really couldn't do another 40 minutes on top of that just to get to see a film ..
 
When Donnie Darko came out I was living in Dundee and I went to see it in Edinburgh, because nowhere in Dundee was showing it. 100 mile round trip.
 
Nah, it's probably even further. Just going by buses, it's 3 buses and about an hour and 45 minutes.

You can chop 20 minutes off the journey if you get 2 buses and 2 tubes though, but the point for me would be getting to the cinema for as little cost as possible.
 
Furthest I've been to is the BFI imax to see Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince.

Used to take about 45 minutes to get from my house to the cinema but we've got a cineworld nearer now so it's more about 15 now :)
 
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