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Dining

Disney makes onboard dining very special. For starters you don’t dine in the same restaurant every night. “We figured that a family on vacation wouldn’t ordinarily eat at the same restaurant three nights in a row,” says Amy Foley of the DCL. “So why would a family on a cruise ship want to eat in the same dining room every night?”

Instead, you experience “rotation dining,” trying a different onboard restaurant each evening of your cruise. (Your server and tablemates rotate right along with you.) On the Magic, there’s Lumiere’s, with a theme based on Beauty and the Beast. On the Wonder, your fine-dining option is Triton’s, named for the Little Mermaid’s father. On the Dream it’s the Royal Palace, home to Cinderella and her princess pals. (At this writing, the restaurants on the Fantasy have not yet been named.)

Other nights are more casual. On both the Magic and the Wonder there’s Parrot Cay, where the mood and the food is Bahamian. On the Dream there’s the Enchanted Garden, inspired by the gardens of Versailles and featuring an environment that changes from day to night in the course of your meal.

But Animator’s Palate—which is available on all ships—is the real showstopper, an interactive dining experience in which the restaurant transforms into a brilliant palette of color as you dine. The meal begins in a room that is utterly black and white, right down to the framed animation sketches on the wall and the servers’ somber attire. With each course, more color is added to the artwork, the walls, the table settings, and the servers’ costumes. By dessert the whole room is glowing. On the Dream and the Fantasy, the restaurant has one more wonderful touch. Crush, the surfer-dude turtle from Finding Nemo, appears and interacts with diners, using the same type of technology found in the popular Turtle Talk With Crush attraction at Epcot. “Having Crush greet him by name and interact with him was the highlight of the whole cruise for my 4-year-old son,” says one father. “When he found out about the restaurant rotation—in other words that we wouldn’t be going back to Animator’s Palate the next night—he was, excuse the expression, completely crushed.”

On all four ships, adults have a fourth dining option, Palo, an Italian restaurant perched high atop the ship, offering a sweeping view of the ocean. Palo serves wonderful food and is very popular. So popular, in fact, that if you want to book a table, you need to do so either before you leave home or immediately upon boarding the ship. There’s a well-worth-it $20 surcharge for dinner or brunch and $10 for High Tea, which is available only on longer sailings. Excellent wine-tasting classes are held there as well.

Helpful Hint

So where do the kids eat on the night Mom and Dad dine at Palo or Remy’s? First of all, make sure you don’t plan your date night on the evening when you’re scheduled for Animator’s Palate. It’s a thrill for kids and adults. Once you do choose a night and make a reservation at Palo, you have two options for the kids: sign them up for one of the kids’ programs that includes dinner, or escort them to the buffet or one of the fast-food restaurants for an early meal. Afterward, drop them off at the kids’ center and head upstairs to Palo or Remy’s.

On the Dream and the Fantasy, you’ll find a second adults-only option called Remy’s, with an opulent setting and a French-inspired menu that’s a nod to the film Ratatouille. Scott Hummel, the executive chef at Victoria & Albert’s at the Grand Floridian, is one of the consulting chefs and many of his dishes are on the menu; in other words, while a meal at Palo’s is on par with California Grill, Citricos, Flying Fish, or Jiko’s, Remy’s takes it a step farther, offering cuisine and service more like you’d find at Victoria & Albert’s. Ergo, there’s a $75 per person upcharge for dining at Remy’s. If you go with the six-course tasting menu and add a wine pairing with each course, the price goes up an additional $99. Certainly not a cheap night out, but it’s a meal to remember, with many little surprise touches