On Sunday, Writer’s Stop at Disney’s Hollywood Studios debuted a new lounge menu. Among a selection of fairly normal alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, the lounge offers three “plates”.

The warm pretzel was good, but the sipping sauces were awful. The melted cheese tasted as if it had been sitting there for a long time and the mustard tasted off as well.

The cheese plate was standard, nothing too crazy and everything tasted just fine.

The spiced nuts weren’t bad, but shouldn’t be priced at $5.00. They had a nice spicy kick to them.

For being a lounge, there isn’t anything very lounge-y about this place. You have to go to the counter to order, the drink selection is the usual Disney selection, and the menu is abysmal. This is everything a “lounge” at Walt Disney World shouldn’t be. The menu is a lazy cash-grab to offset the loss of several establishments now closed in the overhaul of the park. If you want to stop in and grab a drink to go, this isn’t a bad idea, but removing all of the baked goods to serve three of the blandest dishes I have ever seen at any dining establishment at Disney World that doesn’t have wheels on the bottom? Yikes.

The idea of a lounge to serve guests waiting for Sci-Fi Dine-In is great, and the system works really well with 50’s Prime Time Cafe and the adjacent Tune-In Lounge, but this isn’t working. Why not just cart Sci-Fi appetizers over here? At least that give a better or real) menu. Who wouldn’t stop in for a Sci-Fi milkshake or dessert if offered here? There is a world of possibilities here, but instead, it’s a half-store, half-lounge with almost zero reason for you to visit it. Unless changes are made, Writer’s Stop is a place that you just shouldn’t stop at.

Tom Corless