Awhile back Maggie and I were looking at going to see Ocean’s Twelve the weekend it opened. I’m always a little fearful of doing so when a movie is probably going to draw a large crowd full of the types of moviegoers I hate (I will leave that for another time). But my biggest fear is getting there and having to sit in the crappy seats (like say, the front row).

While looking at showtimes, I noticed the Lowe’s Theater at Jersey Gardens Mall was offering “reserved seats” to Ocean’s Twelve. I thought to myself “How in the world are they going to do reserved seats at a movie theater?”. Turns out, quite well.

I talked to Maggie about it and convinced her that we should give it a try, letting her know the features they advertise. She said yes, and I bought the tickets, which have a $4 premium on them and we were all set.

Some of the features are: VIP line to pick up the tickets , VIP line into the theater, assigned seats, and a waitress for getting concessions.

Of those features, we used the VIP line to pick up the tickets. Instead of waiting in the very long line other people were in to buy or pickup their tickets, we went to a line on the said for “VIP Reserved Seat Tickets”. That put us as next in line, in front of everyone else. It’s was just like the Q-Bot from SixFlags. Sure, I felt, a little bad about “cutting” in line, but hey, that’s what they sell the tickets for.

Next up, we went ahead and bought our snacks at the concession stand, mostly because we like to use our Visa Check Card to pay for things instead of carry cash and I figured the waitress would only take cash. But luckily, the lines for food were very short and we were on our way.

We found the VIP entrance to the theaters, and sure enough, no line for us. Briskly through the process, right to our theater were we were met by the waitress/host and she checked our tickets and showed us to our seats.

These seats were sweet! They were in a pretty good part of the theater, a lot of the way up, but not the absolute top. They were leather and wider than the normal theater seat. The seats were paired up in twos, and between these pairs are very large arm rests that are flat and made to hold a lot of stuff. Which is nice, I hate having to either hold the popcorn the whole movie, or having the put it on the ground and hope someone doesn’t step on it.

Another great part, was the waitress/host made sure everyone sitting in the reserved section had tickets and where in the right seats. And yes, the seats are numbered much like an auditorium or stadium.

All and all, it was certainly worth it. Especially if you are going to a movie that you know is going to be packed. These seats would have been very good for the Lord of the Rings movies. If your local Lowe’s starts offering reserved seats, you should check it out. Currently it’s only available at Jersey Gardens and the Lowe’s 34th St. Theater in NYC.