Disney Dining

[zarkarella]

I have only been on Carnival cruises and I was hoping someone who had been on both could tell me the major differences in dining. Thanks!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I have only been on Carnival cruises and I was hoping someone who had been on both could tell me the major differences in dining. Thanks!

On DCL there are 3 Main Dining Rooms. You will be assigned to a specific table number. Your rotation and table number will be printed on your KTTW when you check in at the port.

During your cruise you will dine in each of the MDRs (in the order on your KTTW card). You will have the same servers (and tablemates, if you are at a table with more than just your party) in each room.

Each MDR has it's own Signature menu. So, for 3 night cruises, that is what you will have. Longer cruises will have the 3 Signature menus for 3 of their nights, the other nights, all MDRs will serve the same menu on the same night.

There are also extra-pay adult dining options, Palo on all the ships and Remy on the Dream and Fantasy. And quick serve locations on the pool deck (burgers, hot dogs, pizza, wraps, salads). Also room service.

 

[ilovetexas]

Also, and this is where I love the way DCL does it, if you have late dining, your show is during early dining and vice versa. You don't have to wait until late at night to see shows, which is excellent for those like me who fall asleep at 10 pm.

 

[zarkarella]

Is it like Carnival where you can have as much of something as you want? Say I'd like two of the appetizers? Also, I found menus on Allears, are they fairly up to date?

 

[jk8]

Yes, two of everything if you want! I personally loved 2 desserts if I could not decide.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Is it like Carnival where you can have as much of something as you want? Say I'd like two of the appetizers? Also, I found menus on Allears, are they fairly up to date?

Yes. One night I just had a salad and an appetizer for my meal. Well, also dessert.

The menus there are pretty much correct, from what I read. Another place to see menus is here:
http://disneycruiselineblog.com/

 

[ilovetexas]

As it relates to service, portion size, food quality, etc., they are basically the same. I've found the food to range from yucky to excellent on both, with most somewhere between.

You can do the same on DCL that you do on CCL, request extra servings, send things back if you don't like them and get something else, etc. They are happy to accommodate your requests.

 

[Mickeyhugger]

Though I will say I give Carnival a slight edge over DCL dining room food, the rotational dining experience is awesome. And our family prefers Palo over the Carnival steakhouse.

 

[TwinPrincessMermaids]

Wow. I don't give any edge to Carnival vs Disney with one exception (my DH doesn't like their square hashbrowns, he likes them fresh made.)

Just did Carn Dream in Feb/Mar. Most of it was good. It wasn't unusual though. Steak, veggies. The appetizers are very very small bites now (unless you get a salad). So you could sample things, but it took a while for the next one to come and our dishes sat in front of us for a long time (because it was like a bite or two size appetizer). I'm not exaggerating. They were somewhat quality but if you order shrimp cocktial, you literally got four lil small cocktail shrimps for your appetizer (which doesn't go a long way.)

To me Carn food either tastes like tomato sauce base or butter. Occasionally they had a nice squash soup or a greek salad or an ethnic sushi or indian offering. The thai soup was good.

But Disney's food was much more interesting. I LOVED their asparagus soup in the garden, and my DT loved their tomato soup. Both were good. Dad had an amazing shrimp cheesecake looking appetizer in the Animators palette, that was tastey. All the pastas were good. DT raved about the Grand Marnier souffle in the Royal Palace. All the sundaes were good. The pineapple desert, dad didn't like it, he told the head waiter and they brought us a plate of choc covered strawberries the next day 'from the pastry chef with apologies'.

You can still order some of this and some of that like Carnival. That's the point of a cruise I suppose, especially with DCL since you are paying more than Carn. All our dinner services were a delight.

The scrambled eggs in the Cabanas buffet were SOOO GOOD that DT and I actually brought some down to the MDR (boy were they surprised!) they were buttery or something I don't know but amazing.

Can't say that about Carv. I was pretty much over the buffet and sooo ready to have some authentic island food when we got to port. I also got borderline food poisoning after my 3rd day hitting lunch at the Tandor Indian buffet...that was a really, really uncomfortable night. The next day, I lived on fish and fruit (and for most of my trip really) because I was so afraid of getting sick again. Again, this was Carn, not Dis.

I was full on Disney (my fault) but never got sick. My DH said for him, the Disney food was good but not great, some of his meat was over cooked. I thought they cooked chicken and fish really well and moist and their sides (root veggies etc) and sauces were great.

Unless you order MEAT AND POTATOES, the portions weren't gigantic. If you did order MEAT AND POTATOES, the portions were enormous! So just keep that in mind if you want to sample a few diff things. Basically we all got together and decided to try different things and then passed the dishes around so we didn't get too full.

There were a few exceptions where we would order something we really knwe we would like for each of us. And my DH likes French Onion soup, he ordered x 2 of them and they brought them two at once (which is a great way to save time too.)

Bon appetite!

 

[missyp]

The reason the eggs have that creamy texture is they throw the entire egg into the machine that mixes them up. It is the ground up shell that gives them that texture. This is a frequent practice for places that make large quantities of scrambled eggs. I try and stick to the fried eggs, once I found out about the shells I could no longer eat the scrambled on the ship

 

[PrincessShmoo]

The reason the eggs have that creamy texture is they throw the entire egg into the machine that mixes them up. It is the ground up shell that gives them that texture. This is a frequent practice for places that make large quantities of scrambled eggs. I try and stick to the fried eggs, once I found out about the shells I could no longer eat the scrambled on the ship

Source?

 

[EPCOTatNight]

The reason the eggs have that creamy texture is they throw the entire egg into the machine that mixes them up. It is the ground up shell that gives them that texture. This is a frequent practice for places that make large quantities of scrambled eggs. I try and stick to the fried eggs, once I found out about the shells I could no longer eat the scrambled on the ship

I don't believe this.
Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[PrincessTrisha]

Though I will say I give Carnival a slight edge over DCL dining room food, the rotational dining experience is awesome. And our family prefers Palo over the Carnival steakhouse.

I agree - I give the edge to Carnival when it comes to food. And DCL has nothing that compares to the warm chocolate melting cake.

One of the main differences I've seen between the two menus is that Carnival has a more substantial "everyday" menu to go along with the nightly choices so that you know there are good standard choices for appetizers, entrees and desserts that will be available every night.

On DCL, just like Carnival you can order as much of anything that you like. And don't forget you can order Mickey Bars for dessert (they are on the kids menu but anyone can order them).

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I agree - I give the edge to Carnival when it comes to food. And DCL has nothing that compares to the warm chocolate melting cake.

One of the main differences I've seen between the two menus is that Carnival has a more substantial "everyday" menu to go along with the nightly choices so that you know there are good standard choices for appetizers, entrees and desserts that will be available every night.

On DCL, just like Carnival you can order as much of anything that you like. And don't forget you can order Mickey Bars for dessert (they are on the kids menu but anyone can order them).

I don't know what the warm chocolate melting cake is, but the chocolate lava cake in Parrot Cay is great

And the chocolate soufflé in Palo is to die for.

The Grand Marnier soufflé in Triton/Lumieres is fantastic also.

 

[zarkarella]

I have been on a Carnival cruise recently (last October) and they have really cut back on their food... it just wasn't as good as it has been in the past. I will miss the warm chocolate melting cake, though, as I would get that almost every night.

 

[TwinPrincessMermaids]

I concur. Yes the melting cake is good. But everything else has been cut back quality-wise. We didn't even have lobster tail that I can remember on our last 7 night with 2 formals...

 

[PrincessTrisha]

I concur. Yes the melting cake is good. But everything else has been cut back quality-wise. We didn't even have lobster tail that I can remember on our last 7 night with 2 formals...

Last October we had lobster on our 7 night Carnival cruise (it's the first formal night). We also enjoyed the comedy brunch which has awesome food (chicken diablo was outstanding as was the macaroni and cheese with bacon) plus I find their vegetarian and shrimp dishes to be very good.

Only on DCL did I ever have a menu where I had to skip an entree because there was nothing I would have liked (and the server refused to bring me the plain chicken).

 

[johmapri]

Thanks for asking this. Good info to know.