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Sci Fi Dine In Theater, MGM
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Restaurant Review: Sci-Fi Dine In
Who: Cooper Family of 5, me, DH, DD15, DD11, DS6 + my Mom
Where: Sci-Fi Restaurant in Hollywood Studios
When: Saturday 9/20/08
What: Lunch: dinner. 3 adults ordered the butcher steak. 15 & 11 yr. olds
ordered the shrimp pasta. 6 yr. old ordered mac'n cheese.
Approximate Price of Entrees: Free dining plan. We paid 18% tip = $28.64 (29.00)
Rate the following (1-5, five being the best!)
Food: 2
Service: 3
Atmosphere:
Okay for Children: Yes
Okay for Couples: Yes
Be Sure to Try: The caramel cheesecake, it is so good!
General tips: It is really dark in there, you can't hardly see the
menu. There really is not much of a menu to choose from. My
daughters hated the shrimp pasta. That was pretty much the only
thing that even came close to anything that they would normally order
off a menu. My 6 yr. old didn't like the mac'n cheese, he ordered a
salad for his appetizer and never got it. The butcher steak has an
unusual seasoning or juice on it. My 15 yr. old DD had the apple
crisp and after it cooled down, she liked it.
Extra Comments: This place has 55 Chevy's you sit in to eat. We were
in 1 with 3 rows and 2 people per row. So that was kind of weird
because you couldn't talk to everyone you were with. I really did
like the atmosphere, really cute theming. Just too dark to see the
menu. If I had to pay to eat here, I probably would not choose to
eat at Sci-Fi.
Date: May 2008
Who: Anna Skamarakas
Cast of Characters - Anna (age older than dirt), Eilis (DD age 7) and Granuaile
(DD age 2 and oh my goodness so close to 3)
Disney's Hollywood Studios is restaurant deficient in my opinion. I find it difficult to choose places to eat when we go there, but at the insistence of my 7 year old, on our recent Easter Week visit, I made a lunch ADR for the Sci-Fi
.
You will not find a better themed restaurant ANYWHERE on Disney property! You check in at the podium, and then when you are called, you are escorted to a 1950's style convertible car, which is parked at a Drive In movie theater! This could not be a more fun premise. If you go here and eat nothing but dessert, you must go at least once to enjoy the trailers for a variety of B movies and commercials you might have seen at Drive In theaters back in the day. And then they bring you food. And you wish you were somewhere else. Like a real Drive In, where you could escape to the snack bar and grab a hot dog or a slice of pizza or a box of popcorn.
In the past, I've sampled the burger and the turkey sandwich. Both descriptions read well. They seem like mouth watering tummy pleasers. But when they are actually delivered, it turns out that the descriptions were really ambitious and the guy in the back assembling things just throws stuff on bread and hopes you like it. There's nothing special or spectacular about either the Angus burger or the smoked turkey sandwich, and in the long run, you'll be disappointed that you spent so much money on such mediocre food.
On this particular visit, my daughters each chose the kids' meal burger. Eilis ordered hers with a garden salad, and Granuaile got a fruit salad, and then they split the two salads with each other. They also brought French fries, which I thought the salads replaced, but the kids enjoyed them and after my meal, I was glad to have them as well. I ordered them each a pirate punch, which is an outrageously priced lemonade, but it comes in a souvenir cup with a glowing Tinker Bell or Captain Hook, and the kids love them.
There wasn't anything wrong with the kids' meals - but nothing special, either. And I wish there were more diverse options available on the kids' menus! Now when I looked over the menu for myself, I was stunned by how limited the choices were if you are watching what you eat. I love salads, and the more packed they are with protein, the better. The only salad entree offered is the Beef and Bleu - which is a wedge of iceberg lettuce, slices of steak, and bleu cheese dressing, sprinkled with bacon bits. I can't always eat steak due to my gastric bypass surgery a year and a half ago, so I was afraid to order this particular salad, since iceberg lettuce for a gastric bypass patient is about as helpful as eating a cardboard box.
Next, I tried to avoid anything with bread - so that left out the burger, the turkey sandwich, and the Italian Grilled chicken sandwich. I was tempted to order the grilled chicken anyway, and just
leave the bread off, but having had over-cooked issues here with a burger in the past, I was afraid the chicken would come out dry and inedible.
At most restaurants, you can usually find SOMETHING you can eat on the appetizer side of the menu, even if you are gastrically altered, so I browsed there and found a salad and a bowl of chili that sounded good. The only dressing option on the salad was ranch, which I asked for on the side. It is touted as a mixed green salad with diced tomatoes and onion, so there was no protein in it, but with the 7 bean and beef chili, I figured I had protein covered.
The salad and the chili arrive together, to coincide with the arrival of the kids' meals, and that's fine. It looks like a large, hearty bowl of chili, and the only problem I see is a huge pile of fried tortilla strips, which I can easily move off of my bowl, as long as I can find room on the table for the mountain of strips without blocking the view of the cars behind me. The salad, however, is just ugly. And the dressing is mixed in.
Now, part of the problem here today is the service is so GOD AWFUL slow, I could have located one of the few remaining drive in theaters in the country, driven there, eaten something else, and driven back before I was going to see my waitress again. I held off eating the salad until she came back, but it was getting sadder and sadder looking and I was getting hungrier and hungrier, so I started to pick at it. You know how when you wash lettuce, it gets wet? And then if you don't let it dry - or use a salad spinner - and you pour dressing on it, it thins out the dressing so it's watery? And then you serve it and the plate gets filled with a white, watery substance while the lettuce drowns in a slow, wilting, painful death? That's what happened with this salad. It had obviously been prepared WAY before it was served, and left to stew in its own juices quite a while. Had it not been for the diced tomato, floating like jetsam in the watery ranch juice that covered the lettuce, very little of the salad would have been edible.
That's okay. I have my chili to tide me over for the fortnight it might be until we see service again. I remove a good portion of the Everest size portion of tortilla strips, and dig into the chili. I want to tell you, the chili is GOOD. It's not too spicy - a problem for some people with gastric bypass surgery - but it has a really nice flavor. There are chunks of ground beef, and lots of beans. Well, not really lots of beans, because once you remove the very, very, very, very, very, very, very (did I say VERY?) generous portion of tortilla strips and dig your spoon in, you find that the large bowl is about as shallow as a saucer and your spoon hits bottom very quickly. For about $7, you get half the size portion of chili that you might get in a Wendy's large chili. It's so disappointing, because it does taste good, and my lettuce soup isn't enough to fill me up, even with my pouched off stomach :-( I could have used another bowl. Or two.
Just as I was getting frustrated enough to leave and ask for my check at the podium, our waitress came over with two ice cream sundaes for the girls. The sundaes come with the kids' meal, but they are made in advance and frozen, so you might find it takes a while for your kids to eat the sundaes. In addition, she brought them two ice cold bottles of water, since they had the pirate punch, because she thought the ice cream might make them thirsty. She did not charge me for the waters, so I felt awkward complaining to her about the food and the
service. She was trying to be nice, after all.
For the experience of the theming of this restaurant, I would say it's a must do, at least once. If you go in expecting crummy food and lousy service, you might be pleasantly surprised, but at least you won't be disappointed! As a side note, if you are a smaller party - like I was with just myself and two little girls - you will likely share a car with another party. We were in the jump seat of our car, with a family of four in the two rows in front of us. If you're not comfortable with that, you might want to just enjoy sitting in the car parked outside the restaurant.
Who: Land family
Where: Sci-Fi at MGM
When: Sunday Oct 1, 2006
What: Lunch: We ate the following Adult 1: cheeseburger, onion rings, cheesecake diet coke: Adult 2: Cheeseburger, chili, Hot fudge sundae: Adult 3: Shrimp Penne Pasta, Spinach Artichoke dip, Cheesecake, Coke. The total for all of that + tax and tip was 106.04. We bought the girls off of plan: Once bought Mac n cheese with apple juice and dessert--I think she got ice cream with some kind of topping (M&M's?) for 7.49 and the other got a burger, sprite and a milkshake for dessert for 7.49 as well with tax and tip the total was 22.66.
Approximate Price of Entrees: Stated above
Rate the following (1-5, five being the best!)
Food: 4
Service: 5 our waiter's name was Drew and he was AWESOME!!!!! Great service and he cut up with us--took pics of us in the car!
Atmosphere: 4-5. I thought it was neat. The girls loved it but got a little antsy when a show was playing that they haven't seen before. My husband and Brother in law loved it.
Okay for Children: My girls loved it and still remember "the restuarant in the stars with the big tv where we ate in the car"
Okay for Couples: I think so--yes, I mean my husband and I would go by ourselves.
Be Sure to Try: Burgers and shakes were awesome. Good onion rings--good spinach artichoke dip
General tips: Nothing really. Get the waiter to take a pic of your group in the car. We love to go back and look at our pics of us in the restaurants.
TheMouseForLess tips: If you have 2 light eaters, you could easily share portions at this restaurant.
Extra Comments: This restaurant seems to get mediocre reviews--we really enjoyed it though!! Give it a try.
Who: Judy NYC
Where: Sci Fi Diner
When: 2/24/06
What: Lunch
Approximate Price of Entrees: Chili 5.19, coke 2.19, apple crisp 5.49, KM chicken 5.99, KM fruit cheese 1.99, SM Hot fudge Sunday 2.99, (Total before DDE discount $25.08, after discount $25.08) savings of $4.77
Before discount is without tip, after is with tip
Rate the following (1-5, five being the best!)
Food: 5
Service: 3
Atmosphere: 5
Okay for Children: Yes
Okay for Couples: Yes
Be Sure to Try: the fruit and cheese is a great appetizer for little
ones that like grapes and apples, DD did not care for the yogurt that
came with it though.
General tips: You can stop here for a light lunch and order appetizers
and desert only, which is basically what we did. We just shared some
of the food that DD could not finish
TheMouseForLess tips: DDE discount here, also the SM Sunday is big enough to
share, it is huge
Extra Comments: The restaurant is a little dark, so that it resembles a night drive through movies, this place has the greatest theme, and we love coming here. They sell cups that have ice cubes that light up. I got one on our last trip for DD, which she still plays with at home, so far the battery have not died. This trip we did not get one of those cups. I brought instead straws that glow in the dark. I got these from Extremeglow.com, they are like light sticks, where you snap the little capsule and then they glow. The straw has both ends pinched so the little thing stays in the center and when you drink the
glow thing slides up and when you stop it goes back down. DD was happy with this. They also have some other great stuff on this website for glow in the dark fans.
Who: Riordan Family - dh, myself, dd-7, ds-6
Where: Sci-Fi Drive In at MGM
When: Januray 27, 2006
What: Dinner - chicken entree, hamburger with fries, chicken penne pasta,
bbq chicken sandwich with fries, spinach artichoke dip, house salad, onion
rings, 2 cheesecakes, 2 sundaes, 2 beers, 2 electric red drinks in glow cups
Approximate Price of Entrees: DDP - would have cost us approx $ 130
otherwise
Rate the following (1-5, five being the best!)
Food: 5 - everyone liked the food
Service: 5 - had a great waiter
Atmosphere: 5 - what a blast! Love the entertainment! Everyone had a
great time sitting in a car and watching the movie clips.
Okay for Children: YES!
Okay for Couples: Yes, even couples enjoy it. You could request the area
off to the back
Be Sure to Try: Spinach Artichoke Dip was great. All the meals we tried
were good.
General tips: MUST do ADRs - saw people turned away constantly!
TheMouseForLess tips: DDP
Extra Comments: A great experience!
Who: Rob, Karen, Kids, and Grandma
Where: Sci-Fi
When: 12/23/05
What: Lunch
Approximate Price of Entrees: Kids Cheeseburger 4.99, Cookie Shake
3.49, Onion Rings 6.99, Kids Mac-n-Cheese 4.99, Cookie Shake 3.49,
Reuben Sandwich 11.99; Bacon Cheeseburger 12.98, Reuben 11.99,
Strawberry Shake 3.49
Rate the following (1-5, five being the best!)
Food: 5
Service: 5
Atmosphere:
Okay for Children: Yes
Okay for Couples: Yes
Be Sure to Try: Cheeseburger was really good. Reuben was huge!
General tips: Definitely have an ADR! There were absolutely no lunch
seatings available without an ADR that day.
TheMouseForLess tips: Lunch is a good option. A bit cheaper. Reuben was
huge and could have been shared, unless you are my DH. He won't share
any food. We had the DDE card and that saved us 20%.
Who: Jensen Family (Me (29), DSis (31) DMom (66), DDad (64)
Where: Sci-Fi Dine-In
When: 12/3/05
What: Dinner - Fosters Draft Beer ($5.00), Bud Light Draft Beer ($4.50),
Marsha's Martian Shake ($9.50), Orbiting Oreo Shake ($9.50), Shrimp Penne Pasta
($17.19), 2 BBQ Chicken Sandwiches ($14.19 ea), Baby Back Ribs ($16.99), Small
House Salad ($4.99)
Approximate Price of Entrees: $103.14 Tota
Rate the following (1-5, five being the best!)
Food: 4
Service: 5
Atmosphere: 5
Okay for Children: Yes
Okay for Couples: Yes
Be Sure to Try: The milkshakes, they're so delicious! I've heard people say
how good they are, and didn't try them until this trip.
General tips: Definitely make an ADR if you plan to go here. We were here
in the first week of December, which is supposed to be a slow time, and they
were turning people away who didn't have an ADR.
TheMouseForLess tips: Go here for lunch when the entrees are cheaper.
Extra Comments: I know this is one of the big hit & miss places for food
quality at WDW, but we've never had a bad meal and really go for the atmosphere.
Who: Judy NYC
Where: Sci-Fi Diner
When: August 25, 2005
What: Early dinner
Approximate Price of Entrees: We used three table services. Myself = chili $4.99, Coke $2.19, Flat iron steak $16.99, Hot fudge sunday $4.99. DD(9) = km chicken nuggets $4.99, Fruit and chz $1.99, Dessert ice cream $2.99. DS(14) = cheesecake $4.99, Onion rings $6.99, Shrimp penne pasta $16.99, Sprite $2.19.
With tax and tip this was $85.40
Rate the following (1-5, five being the best!)
Food: 3 - The appetizers and deserts were great. The main course
however was horrible, the chicken nuggets were dreadful. The steak was
lousy, hated the sauce
Service: 5
Atmosphere: 5 - The kids loved the cars and the funny movie clips
Okay for Children: Yes
Okay for Couples: Yes
Be Sure to Try: The chili was wonderful as was the sundaes
TheMouseForLess tips: Maybe not dollarless but you could stop her for a
appetizer and desert for a light lunch, this is probably what we
would do in the future.
Who: The DiMella's (me)Angela 45 , (dh) Bob 48, (ds) Danny 19
(DD) Samantha 15
Where: Sci-Fi Dine Inn
When: July 2005
What: Dinner
Approximate Price of Entrees: $16.00 each
Rate the following (1-5, five being the best!)
Food: 4
Service: 4
Atmosphere: 5 really cool place!
Okay for Children: Absolutely
Okay for Couples: Kinda
Be Sure to Try: The milkshakes!! We had the onion rings which were crunchy. The ribs were full of sauce and fell off the bones.The shrimp penne pasta was very good.
General tips: If you don't like sharing your "car" with others, ask for a table in the back if you're 2 people or if you're a family tell them you'll wait for a smaller car. We had a couple behind us and we found it very uncomfortable. You can't really talk to them since the seats are a little small for turning around in so you just had 2 people on top of you. You could hear their whole conversation!!
TheMouseForLess tips: We used the DDE card here. I would share your meals. I gave DH some of my pasta and he gave me some of his ribs.
Extra Comments: The place was really different. The films brought back many memories of being a kid. The service at times was a little slow, but it was very busy. I would get a table in the back next time. They looked a little more comfortable.
Who: Stephanie in Idaho & DH Eric
Where: Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater at MGM
When: May 4, 2005
What: Lunch - We shared...Onion Rings, Bacon Burger, Big Bang Dessert, & Iced
Tea
Approximate Price of Entrees: Approx. Total $32...Used 1 TS Credit on the MYW
Dining / Paid for an additional Iced Tea...$2.
Rate the following (1-5, five being the best!)
Food: 4
Service: 5
Atmosphere: 5
Okay for Children: YES...kids will love the theaming here.
Okay for Couples: Yes?...if you don't mind someone sitting in the front of
your car...LOL.
Be Sure to Try: The Onion Rings were great.
General tips: If you do not wish to wait 2 hours for your meal make sure you
make ADR's!
TheMouseForLess tips: The MYW Dining Plan is our hero!
Extra Comments: We had excellent service this time! Our waitress split our
entree in half, and I think we had full servings of french fries each. Very
well done!
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