Cineworld Cinema, Ashton under Lyne

We had reservations about taking our 5 and 3 year olds for their first trip to the cinema... would they sit still and quiet throughout a whole film? Would they be able to see over the inevitable tallest man in the world that would no doubt sit infront of them? Cineworld at Ashton made it bearable - well actually, FUN - for all of us! We went to see Arthur Christmas at the weekend at Cineworld, and was pleasantly surprised to see how things had changed for kids since we were little and went to the classic Disney films as kids. Booking online meant there was no queuing when we arrived at the cinema, all we had to line up for was popcorn and juice and our 3D glasses. Surprisingly there weren't that many people there to watch the film we had gone to see, so we had the pick of the auditorium and managed to get some decent seats infront of the screen and without anyone sat infront of us. That said, even if the tallest man did come and find the seat infront of our three year old, Cineworld provide little plastic booster seats designed to a) prop your child up so they can see, and b)provide enough weight to keep the base of the seat down so your child doesn't keep dropping down the gap at the back of the chair. The kids ate their bodyweights in popcorn, and we found there was plenty of room between them to put the bag without spillages. My only whinge was that there were about 15-20 minutes of trailers at the beginning of the showing before the film even started, and my daughter (3) started to fidget and moan about 20 minutes before the end of the film. It would make more sense to me for kids' films for there to be less trailers and more 'getting on with the film' to prevent boredom and wriggling towards the end. I had to take my daughter out for a wee part way through the film, but the toilets were literally next door to our screening and we must have been gone just a couple of minutes, so we didn't miss much of the film. A good evening out topped off with a Pizza Hut meal on the way home. Highly recommended, but be mindful of tiny little ones' short attention spans!