Dining at Disney World is one of our favorite things to do. The biggest challenge when dining at MGM is finding somewhere to eat because there aren't many options to choose from in this particular park for sit-down dining.

If you want a restaurant to remember (rather than dining for taste), this restaurant is worth considering. Most of the places that offer some form of entertainment at Disney are very expensive. For table service, Sci-Fi Dine-in is pretty reasonable. The waitresses will take a picture of your family in the car too which is pretty cool.

The inside is really incredible. When you first walk in it looks like you're at a drive in theater because there are lots of cars parked facing the big screen in front.

The booths are set up like a car so if you have a party of six they would sit 2 in the front, 2 in the middle and 2 in the back. There are a few tables also which are finished to look like a car.

Sci-fi was the theme playing on the big screen. Tom and Jerry played a couple of times when we were there.

Reservations
Reservations are very important if you're going to this restaurant because the only way that you can sit inside a car booth is by reservation (407-WDW-DINE). You could get a seat without a reservation, but that would be seating you at a table rather than in the car.

What I didn't like about the table is that you would be facing each other rather than facing the movie screen. If you want to have a conversation with your guests, this would be the only way to go because it's very difficult to have a conversation while sitting in the cars.

We usually make reservations for lunch a couple hours in advance. This time we found that the restaurant was full for a table big enough for us so we initially thought we'd dine there another day. The Sci-Fi restaurant was on our way to counter service so we thought we'd pop in to see if there were any cancellations and there were.

Menu & Taste
We typically only go to restaurants for lunch because it's usually significantly cheaper for our family of 5 however there's very little difference in the menu or the prices at this restaurant. The price range is $11 - $17 for lunch or $12-$18 for dinner. The hamburger is the least expensive item, $11 and is not on the dinner menu.

I didn't think there was much to choose from on the menu, even when looking at the dinner menu. There were traditional foods like chicken Ceaser salad, ribs, BBQ sandwich, etc.

We started off with a $6.00 plate of onion rings to fill my hankering. It's hard to find a good onion ring, but these were really good. They were crispy and not greasy at all. They were good enough to fight over.

I got the $12 Ruben sandwich, a choice that I always pick if it's offered on the menu. My son also had the Ruben and we agreed that it was pretty gross. There was hardly any secret sauce on it and the cheese tasted generic. The meat was tender and piled on but wasn't very flavorful. The bread didn't taste like rye and the restaurant was too dark to identify it further.

My husband chose the steak sandwich for $16.00. It was served open faced served with a few onion rings. I had a bite of his and it was delicious. The steak was very tender and the sauce was very flavorful.

Described as:

Butcher Tender Steak Sandwich on toasted Ciabatta bread with a portobello mushroom, mixed greens, red and green bell peppers, onions, tossed in blue cheese vinaigrette, served with onion rings $15.99

The kids had the Mac & Cheese kid's meal for $5.00. It was a bowl of Mac with a small beverage. Other choices for kids 9 and under were traditional items like a hamburger, grilled cheese or chicken nuggets. My 3-year-old only ate a few bites of the Mac & Cheese and my 6-year-old ate every bite of hers.

The desert was in the $5 range but even more temping would be sweet frozen drinks ($9.50) which look like milk shakes but were loaded with liquor in them.

Service
Our waitress was nice and friendly though she hung around a little too much for my liking. The appetizer came out quickly, then the food came after we were done with the appetizer. Perfect timing for food and drink refills.

Overall
The same things that made the restaurant a novel idea such made it annoying as well. The room is extremely dark as it is at a drive-in movie. The problem I had with that was that it was hard to read the menu, see the food or read the bill. It was also very loud because there was a speaker in our car window so it made talking to the kids difficult especially since they were seated in a different row. Luckily they were entertained so didn't need much attention.

My son usually thinks everything is cheesy but really enjoyed this restaurant probably because it had a big movie screen. My son says he recommends the restaurant, just not the Reuben.

My 6-year-old really liked the restaurant and listed it as the number one thing that we did at MGM for the day. My three-year-old listed it 4th.

My husband and I thought it was a really neat experience. My husband seemed to think it was better than I did but that's probably because his meal tasted better.

The whole family agreed that the atmosphere was really cool. Definitely worth doing once.




Recommended: Yes

Kid Friendliness: Yes
Vegetarian Friendly: No
Notes, Tips or Menu Recommendations 407-WDW-DINE for reservations
Best Suited For: Kids and Families