Disney Cruise Line: Dinning

The cruise ships have three main dining rooms. You alternate between them for the duration of the cruise. You however, maintain your dining staff from you server to the dining room management, and your wait staff quickly gets to know you and your family.

The three dinning rooms are the Animator Pallets, Parrots Cay, and for the Disney Magic it is the Lumiere’s and for the Disney Wonder it is the Triton. These are the three family dining rooms. There is an adult’s only dining room called Palo, but a special reservation and extra fee is required for this experience.

Animator’s Pallet is a themed after Walt Disney animated movies. As you enter the room you see many artist renderings in black and white. As the dinner goes on the works of art start to have color and end off in full color. The dining staffs also change their clothes to reflect the color in the dinning room. To top it off, a special visitor comes for a parade through the dining room - Mickey Mouse in his Sorcerer’s Apprentice’s outfit comes and says hello to the guests.

The Parrots Cay is a second dining room that is decorated in a Caribbean theme adorned with parrots. The third dining room is a formal dining room – but the theme is different depending on your ship. If you are on the Disney Magic you will have a Beauty and Beast Dining room with rose accents and an elegant design. If you are sailing the Wonder the dining room is themed after the Little Mermaid and is called Triton.

The meals are very nice and they offer a wide selection. If you have a special dietary need it is best to notify the cruise before start you cruise. They are very flexible and if you need to they will make something off the menu if possible. The meals always offer a choice of appetizers, soups or salads, entree, and also dessert.

There are two different seatings for each of the dining rooms – early seating and late seating. The dining times will vary depending on the cruise ship and are your seating is generally set up when you book your cruise.

There is also a limited buffet, counter service venues for snacks (including pizza, hot dogs, and burgers), and also room service if you do not want to dine in the main dining rooms. The buffet is not always open so check the hours if you want to eat there.

Now the dining services can be very loud and also very slow. They dining service progresses in a very leisurely fashion – with menus and drinks first, then the appetizer course, followed by soups and salads, the main entrees, and then the desserts. For some children this can be very hard as with the noise and activities can be very overstimulating.

When you book your cruise, you should work with Disney or your travel agent to try and make arrangements to have your table in a quieter area of the dining room. If your family member is also on a special diet you should notify them at the time of booking to help the cruise line to make alternate arrangements.

While you are on the cruise, speak with the dining staff (either to your server or to the dining room manager) to help with any special arrangements that may be necessary. They may not be able to do everything that you ask, but they will try their best to ensure you have a pleasant dining experience. When we went, our table was on the main aisle, central to the activities that were occurring in the dining room. This made it very difficult for our son, and we found ourselves having to leave early on the first night. Our wait staff and the head waiter noticed this, and asked us the next day how they could help. We were unable to move to a different table because there were none available, but the wait staff were able to speed up the service to help ensure our children would be able to make it through the entire meal before becoming over stimulated.

Again the key to a successful dining experience is to communicate your needs and be flexible with the solutions offered. The staff is extremely helpful and will work with you so you can have a pleasant dining experience.