Dining Room Question

As we gear up for our first DCL cruise on the Wonder in January I've been trying to understand the DCL experience as we are used to Princess. One area I have yet to completely understand is dining.

I know there is rotational dining, but will the dinner menus be the same at every dining room each night or do the menus rotate even within the same dining room? Can you miss a dish that you may really enjoy just because of your dining rotation?

From what I understand Pirate Night has a special menu as well?

Thanks for the help!

There are two different types of nights. On Signature menu nights ( 3 nights of the cruise), each restaurant will serve it's own signature menu. There are 3 of these nights, so by the end of the cruise you will have eaten at each one and seen each of the menus.

The second type is theme nights. One of these is pirate night. There are others to make up the remainder of the nights on the cruise. A 7 night cruise will have 3 signature nights and 4 theme nights. On theme nights, each of the dining rooms serves the same menu. Examples of the theme nights are "Prince and Princess," "Till We Meet Again," etc. You also may see menus/themes special to your location--like "Taste of the Med" on a Med cruise.

By the end of the cruise, each person will have experienced each of the menus being offered on your cruise provided that you eat in the MDR each night. It is honestly easier to experience than to explain! The only thing you need to decide is whether to miss one of the main dining rooms to do adult dining. I honestly recommend that you not do this on your first cruise...or schedule Palo Brunch rather than dinner so you get the MDR experience. After that, pick your least favorite menu and do adult dining then.

The only way you can miss a dish that you wanted on a menu is if you miss a night in the MDR.

I knew it wouldn't take long for you to provide a perfectly written answer as always!

We were debating Palo, but now that you have broken down how it works I think I agree with you, get the full experience then go from there on the next one, after the second mortgage on the house [emoji41] (remember I came from Princess so this is like 2 cruises for me price wise).

Thanks again!

If you do decide you want to dine at Palo or Remy, the disneycruiselineblog has some menus to look at here and may help sway you one way or there other:

http://disneycruiselineblog.com/menus/

They have the date attached so you know how current or old they are, but it does give you an idea of what is offered.

ex techie

Thank you!

I'm doing serious damage on Princess this summer....There are things that DCL does better and things Princess does better.

Keys to remember--READ the Navigator. You'll miss stuff if you don't. Check the location for the complimentary tickets for Princess gathering, Frozen characters, sometimes Marvel characters, sometimes character breakfast. Location will be listed in the "welcome aboard" Navigator that you can get in the terminal before boarding or ask the guide who will welcome you aboard. Get these tickets ASAP. They are limited in number, although it is a lot easier on the Wonder than on the bigger ships.

You might find this old post interesting:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2288391

It was a great post that you did, I even replied to it [emoji6]. I think in most cases cruises lines will have more similarities than differences, but it think DCL is going to be the exception to that rule, but in a good way.

January can't get here soon enough!

I'm doing my first Disney cruise in 3 days. It's only a 3 nighter but it's the same price as one on say RC for 7 nights. I'm not doing any specialty restaurants only because I wanted to try all 3 rotational restaurants. Believe me, I'm a spoiled creature by habit but.....:confused:

We just got back from a 3 day cruise on the Dream and had a great time. The food was the same at each location every night, but since they rotate you to a different dining room you end up with a different menu. They assign you to the rotation, so can't pick which dining room you will be in on a particular night.

Thanks for the dining explanations. We just got off the world cruise on the Pacific Princess so the DCL cruise we are doing on the Wonder in January with the grand boys will definitely be a different experience. There were only 1or 2 children on a segment or two, and most of the time no children at at all. And the dining room was loaded with walkers and scooters. It will probably be refreshing for us to be surrounded with kids and stoles.