Oh look, there's a Chick-fil-A under the Manta Coaster!
Chick-fil-A's have been popping up as dining options at Busch Gardens and SeaWorld Parks here and there over the past couple of years, so I shouldn't be totally surprised to see one here at SeaWorld, Orlando — but I am a little surprised. They've always had a great in-house chicken product at the SeaWorld-based counter service locations – but I guess the lure of renting out the space to a business partner is more lucrative and diverse than just running food service locations yourself – even if they mostly offer a competing product.I'm not really a fan of Chick-fil-A. It's okay – I've got no beef with the food quality or the ethos – it's just not all that cravable to me, for what they charge for stuff. If you like Chick-fil-A – you'll likely feel the same way about this new location in SeaWorld. As near as I can tell, it's staffed by Chick-fil-A employees and not SeaWorld cast… so the food quality and service you've come to expect at Chick-fil-A is present at this location as well.
There's not much of a walkway in front of the Chick-fil-A®. If you're looking at the building from this angle, the main entrance door is on the far left. The "order pickup" area is also just around the corner on the left.
They are only serving a reduced menu, (kind of like a rest-stop version of Chick-fil-A off of a highway somewhere). You'll not find any of the combo meals or seasonal favorites here. There's just a couple basic chicken sandwiches, some nuggets, waffle fries and a couple of milkshakes – that's about it.
What is the same as one of the full-sized locations outside the park – is the friendly service and slooooow delivery time from placing your order to picking up food. As I mentioned, I think the staff here are employees of Chick-fil-A and not SeaWorld. I was able to have alert, cheerful conversation with the person behind the register and the "order pickup" person while I waited – and you would be hard pressed to do that with most of SeaWorld's cast members.
The Ordering Process
The new Chick-fil-A is located where the old Seaport Pizza used to be... so it's sort of positioned between the Manta® and Penguin Trek coasters – but also next to the Seaport Market Jumbo Turkey Leg booth (when it's open).The old Seaport Pizza location didn't have much of a visible kitchen area – so a major demo of the inside space has taken place and everything is more open and orderly now. There's a station-based dividing line (because it can get quite busy around peak dining times) and you gradually make your way to the counter.
There's no indoor seating at the SeaWorld, Orlando Chick-fil-A®. The interior is used for the kitchen, order placement, and payment areas. While it's not busy now, the line will wrap around those stanchions in the middle (black poles with ribbon ropes) at peak dining times.
Once in front of a register – you'll be able to fully see the menu boards and can place your order and pay for it. Mobile Ordering is available at this location, but (unless I'm mistaken) that's done through the SeaWorld app and not the Chick-fil-A app.
Once you've placed your order, the "food pickup window" located on the left-hand side of the building. This is where things took a familiar, "let's wait forever for the order to come up" feeling that you usually get at Chick-fil-A. Both Mobile Orders and In-person orders are picked up from this window – but for having such a tiny little menu, you'd think they would be able to get ahead of more of these orders.
Here's a closer look at the "order pickup" location. It's on the left side of the Chick-fil-A® building.
From my in-person order placement time to finally being handed a bag of food, it took 18 minutes – and I mean, there really wasn't "that" many people there. There's only three sandwiches and two nugget options on the menu – it's not like there's a couple dozen different items to put together.
Seating at SeaWorld's Chick-fil-A
Once you've been handed your order, you'll find seating options on the left and right of the restaurant. The left side option gives you a great view of the Manta® coaster, while the right side had a view of the Penguin Trek coaster.
Here's a look at the seating area on the left side of the Chick-fil-A®. It offers a great view of the Manta® coaster.
I think because the order pickup window is on the left side – the seating area tends to be a little more crowded… guests just don't walk past the front of the building to check out the right side seating area. Both of these seating location photos were taken within minutes of each other.
I don't think some guests know the right side seating area even exists... it was never quite as crowded as the left side. On this side, guests have a partial view of the Penguin Trek coaster.
Chick-fil-A Nuggets
Eight count, served with Chick-fil-A dipping sauce
price at time of review : $8.59
item score : 6/10
So the Chick-fil-A Nuggets here are no different than they are outside the park – which is probably welcome news to most guests. There's just nothing about it that's ever really "wowed" me so I'm kind of "ho-hum" on the whole Chick-fil-A phenomena. The chicken (nuggets and sandwich) are (probably) marinated in something, and then dredged though buttermilk and then coated with a 20 spice breading mix, and pressure cooked in 100% refined peanut oil.
Here's a look at the eight piece nuggets from Chick-fil-A at SeaWorld, Orlando. Grilled nuggets are also available (usually) at this location.
This time, we tired out the Chick-fil-A sauce and the Polynesian Sauce – again, neither of which really did anything for me – but they were both fine.
The Polynesian and Chick-fil-A dipping sauces are just two of the options at Chick-fil-A.
Chick-fil-A Waffle Potato Fries
Medium, served with Ketchup
price at time of review : $4.39
item score : 6/10
Here again, these are the same as you would get at any Chick-fil-A outside the park. The Waffle Fries at Chick-fil-A are cooked in canola oil and were hot and fresh when they were handed to me.
Here's a closer look at those Waffle Fries from SeaWorld's Chick-fil-A. These are exactly the same recipe as the Chick-fil-A Waffle Fries that you get outside the park!
Like most Waffle Fries, the first one you eat is great... and then they just seem to get cool and dense fast. Thankfully, there was a small plastic container of ketchup to dip them in – that helped a bit.
I'm told the milkshakes at Chick-fil-A are pretty good, although I've never tired one, they do have cookies and cream, chocolate, strawberry and vanilla available for $7.99. I don't know much about their Chocolate Fudge Brownie or the Chocolate Chunk Cookie… they both looked somewhat pre-packaged and a little dried out.
Conclusion
If you like Chick-fil-A outside the park, you'll like Chick-fil-A inside the park – so there's a bit of safety in that I suppose. Guests that don't visit SeaWorld all the time might not know the chicken product over at Seafire Grill is actually pretty good… as are any of the chicken nugget or chicken finger options that you'll find at most other SeaWorld counter service locations.If this were Disney, I could point to a number of other counter service locations and write something like "you can get something unique and better over at such and such a place – that's different than the same chicken sandwich you can get outside the park. But this isn't Disney, it's SeaWorld… and the current truth of the matter is… there's only a 50/50 chance that you will find better counter service around the park.
Price-wise... the prices here are a little higher than what you might pay at a Chick-fil-A outside the park, but they actually end up being in-line, or even little less expensive than what the other SeaWorld counter service restaurants are charging.
So would I go out of my way to get here... probably not. But if you're in the area and want to pick up some "safe-bet" food that's exactly like the Chick-fil-A you eat at home… then it's not a bad option. If you are willing to walk a couple steps — I'd still recommend Dockside Pizza (you stand a better chance of getting hot, fresh pizza if you don't mobile order at Dockside), the Sesame Street Food Trucks (but only if you're going to get their amazing grilled cheese), or even something like Voyager's Smokehouse – which isn't actually that far away from Chick-fil-A.
