One of our favorite traditions when visiting Walt Disney World is a dinner at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater restaurant in Hollywood Studios. A burger, fries, and a delicious milkshake in the ’50s-themed drive-in is the perfect way to wrap up a day at the park before walking over to the Fantasmic! theatre.
Unfortunately, Sci-Fi Dine-In has changed a key part of their menu – the milkshakes – and the update isn’t a good one.
We’ve always ordered milkshakes (shoutout Oreo) to start our meal. It’s part of the experience! Previously, these would take a bit to come out as they were handmade back in the kitchen. And the wait was always worth it. On our most recent visit we found that the milkshakes were no longer made to order.
Our order of two Oreo milkshakes came out almost immediately. While that sounds great, it was clear that these were premade shakes that were pulled out of a freezer. They arrived in a plastic cup that’s smaller than the old glass milkshake cups. The milkshakes still came with the usual extra-wide straw, but the shakes were so deeply frozen that you couldn’t even try to drink them. We were unable to use a straw on our shakes the entire length of our meal, which lasted over an hour. They were just rock-hard ice cream. Talk about disappointing.
We looked around at nearby tables and saw we weren’t alone at trying to chisel away at our milkshakes. Guests were even leaving behind mostly full shake glasses when they left. We too left the bulk of our shakes behind, unable to make much of dent.
The smooth and creamy shakes are apparently a thing of the past, replaced by something that seems mass produced to save time. That’s noteworthy as Sci-Fi Dine-In has switched up its menus quite a bit over the years (the options keep shrinking), and now milkshakes are one of the few dessert options.
Are we milkshake snobs? Maybe. However, we think this is a bit deceitful. We understand Disney is trying to speed up the service at Sci-Fi Dine-In (it can be very slow and the film reel loop isn’t great on repeat), but it shouldn’t come at the cost of one of the main draws of the restaurant.
This milkshake switch-up has us reconsidering our position as defenders of Sci-Fi Dine-In. Hopefully the old made-to-order shakes will return soon.
