For the longest time, I'd passed by the Sci-Fi Dine-In theater in Disney's Hollywood Studios on different trips always mildly curious as to what kind of eating experience it would be. I knew that its theme was one of dining at a drive-in movie, and that you basically sat in tables that were designed to appear as 50's cars with their tops down and that you sat there and watched movies (or movie clips) while you ate.
On one of my more recent trips, I took the plunge and made my group a reservation to eat there for lunch.
The overall feeling: theme-wise the place is incredible and extremely detailed, so much so that you can almost forget you're in a building and not at an actual drive-in theater. It's THAT realistic. But in terms of the food, it was VERY disappointing.
For one thing, as great as its drive-in theme is, you will quickly notice the screen is showing nothing but the same few clips or ads for old 50's movies.....over and over again. So you'll see the same things numerous times during your meal. BORING!
One reputation the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater has is that they have some great milkshakes. On THAT point, I can't deny it, they are just delicious. I had gotten this orange-flavored "lava" kind of shake that was phenomenal. Others had an oreo shake or plain chocolate shake....all of them were delicious.
But it was with the main meals themselves where things fell flat. I had the Angus Chuck Double Bacon Cheeseburger with Fries, and it simply wasn't good. It wasn't particularly thick, in fact more on the thin side, and the fries were somewhat soggy with not much flavor at all. My wife had gotten the Smoked Turkey Sandwich and couldn't even finish it, she said it simply didn't taste good and had very little flavor to it. She also agreed on my assessment of the fries.
So then, so far the best aspects of the place are its undeniably great theming and its shakes. The main meals leave a lot to be desired, and then as far as the desserts go, I had a hot fudge sundae which was adequate but not spectacular, and my wife had the peanut butter and chocolate cake, which she praised it as "ok".
In terms of service, we did feel a bit let-down there as well. When it was our party's turn to be seated, they took us in, sat us down, and within a few minutes our waitress came and took our drink order. Then she came with it and took our meal order. Then she came back again and took our dessert order. Finally she came back the last time and we paid our bill and left. There were very few - if any - regular trips to our table to see if we needed anything or how we were doing. We were basically herded in, given perfunctory waitressing service, and then we left.
I can't really recommend anyone eat here UNLESS.....you've never done it before and would like your own experience there. Who knows, you might have a better time than we did. But for me, the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater is a big let-down.
