Disney Cruise Line: Dining!

Gentle readers I have to apologize for the lack of pictures that will accompany this post. It’s just that whenever we went to dinner all I could do was eat. And eat and eat and eat. This is due to something I didn’t really expect about all the sit down restaurants:

You can order as much as you want. 

But let me back up a moment and explain the different dining options you have - there are several areas that are pretty much “walk up and get food” areas that are open for most of the day. You’ve got your Cabanas, the main buffet area, where you can get just about anything you desire at any time, along with some pizza, burger, and ice cream joints around the main pool deck (Flo’s Cafe, Eye Scream and Frozone Treats).

Then you have your sit down restaurants (Enchanted Garden, Animator’s Palate, Royal Court), where you are assigned a table and a restaurant for dinner, which are usually also open for sit down breakfasts. 

On top of all of this there are two other restaurants (Palo and Remy) where you can pay an extra fee to have what is a phenomenal dining experience.

Let’s start with your regular sit down restaurants:

Enchanted Garden

This restaurant is very pretty with light fixtures that look like flowers and throughout the day they change colors and open up more and more as the hours go by. We had both breakfast and dinner here and while they were perfectly delicious (I had perhaps my favorite dish of the cruise here for dinner!) it was my least favorite of the big three.

Animator’s Palate

We ate here for dinner twice on our cruise and it was a riot each time! Unlike the earlier boats whose walls change color from black and white to the full spectrum as you eat, instead they give you a placemat where they ask that you make a little drawing of whatever you’d like (they give you step by step instructions for people who have animator’s-block) and they collect them before the food comes out. And the food is so great you almost forget about your placemat until suddenly there’s a big show where your drawing earns a starring role! On the many, many flat screens incorporated throughout the restaurant you get to see your creation dance around with classic Disney characters! It’s pretty great.

Royal Court

This is definitely the prettiest of the restaurants and I wish we had been scheduled to eat here more often. All the classic Disney Princesses are created in beautiful mosaics on the walls and the seating is plush and indulgent. As is the food of course! I particularly liked the detail given to the bread baskets here–they’re little Cinderella’s coaches! 

So for these three restaurants you do not get to pick where you eat dinner, you are scheduled for the duration of your trip at one of these each night. However, wherever you eat if you can’t decide between two entrees you can order them both! Or if you like an appetizer you can order a second one no problem! It’s great if you happen to love food, but watch out that you still fit into your bathing suit when Castaway Cay rolls around.

And if at any time you decide you don’t want to eat at these restaurants there’s Palo and Remy. Palo is an upscale dining experience based around Italian food and–and I know this will be controversial–I’d recommend skipping it. It was nice, but it didn’t blow us away and we felt like we would have had a better time at a regular restaurant with our tablemates that night. That said their souffle dessert? Amazing. One of the best things we had the whole cruise! But you can skip Palo because you can find the recipe for this very easily on the Disney websites.

I do, however, recommend that you go to Remy.

Go to Remy every damn day if you can get the reservation! Remy is like having a Victoria and Albert’s right on the boat with you–in fact Victoria and Albert’s own chef Scott Hummel is one of the two chef’s menus you can select from when you are there. This is a multi-course meal that is worth every extra penny you have to spend.

At one point they roll up a cheese cart–a whole cart full of cheese!–and they have you select what you want, then pair it with things you would never have thought of that make the cheese even more delicious. And there’s a little someone watching over you the whole time:

Just thinking about it makes me want to take another cruise.

While you’re there make sure they show you the “special” wine list. It’s mostly so you can laugh at it. If you can buy something off it, what are you doing reading tumblr?!

Next up: Other Things To Do!