Cabana's and other food questions.

[FirstTimeDC]

I have some questions regarding the Dream and it's food....

1. Cabana's - I've heard it's stations. Not just a "buffet" line. I'd like opinions on this. How it worked. And if anyone has pictures that would be great! Also, do all the "stations" have the same thing or different things?

2. The fast food places. How many are there? What are they? Anyone have pictures or menu items? Are they near Cabana's? Can come eat at Cabana's and others go get pizza or hot dogs and bring into Cabana's?

3. Ice Cream. Would love pictures or menu. Is it soft serve, hard dipped, self-serve, do they serve it? Do they have toppings? Do they have 24 hour soft serve?

Ok, that's all my questions for now. Thanks!! Pictures would be fantastic!

 

[qohweddings]

Great questions....

We leave on the Dream Sunday and one of our previous issues with the buffets onmy Disney's other ships was people chatting away, wandering aimlessly and in general holding up the buffet lines.

On a few other cruise lines we found stations (salad, grill, hot food, cheese and fruit - think mini food court) worked really well.

My partner is a soft serve (chocolate) junkie - so I'm anxious to see what the responses.

We'll try to post some information and pictures after Sunday...

 

[FirstTimeDC]

Thanks, I'd love to see or hear whatever on the subject. Seems a bit chaotic...however, Disney usually knows how to do things well and move a crowd...so anxious to see how it works.

 

[Lost in Xanadu]

The stations were like Italian and American and pacific rim... There were others, but it worked fairly well.

The ice cream is softserve... self serve... On deck 11 by the beverage station. We got that a couple times, but preferred room service bring us Mickey bars

If you like root beer floats, take a 2 liter of root beer with you!! No root beer at the beverage station.

 

[Lost in Xanadu]

Oh, and if you can avoid Cabanas immediately after embarkation... I would. We were sent there and couldn't find a place to sit for 20 minutes. We ended up sitting on the pool deck and dealing with the love bug swarms

 

[mmouse37]

Check out this trip report.....there are tons of pics of almost anything you can think of onboard the Dream....first post has an index of photos.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2650672&highlight=timon

I can tell you that when we cruised the Dream we found Cabana's to be great...some don't like the set up but I thought it was much better than the buffets on the classic ships. On the Dream you are not supposed to wait in line...you are supposed to walk right up to each station and fill your plate (obviously if too many people are using the tongs you would have to wait your turn).

Also, fast food places are at the other end of the ship from Cabana's....you can walk from one to the other but they are probably further apart than you think. The soda stations are on the Cabana's end of the ship, not the fast food places so to get a drink you do have to walk to the other end by Cabana's to get a drink and then back to the fast food area if you want to eat at that end.

MJ

 

[flexsmom]

We really liked the set-up at Cabanas. Every time we ate there, we were seated first, and then were invited to go up to choose our food. It didn't take long for the kids to figure out the "station" approach - and we thought the process was much quicker. (As a tip - we also loved our sit-down dinner one night at Cabanas - a great way to get a "window seat" overlooking the water with the kids instead of Palo!)

Fast food on deck - we're fans of the chicken fingers on the Magic/Wonder and were relieved they were essentially the same on the Dream. Also liked the wrap/panini station. The one odd thing about this area was that we could not find any napkins anywhere close to the food windows.

Ice cream - sorry to report, none of us liked the ice cream on deck. It was more like that "ice dream" stuff that seemed a bit chalky and a weird texture. If we wanted ice cream, we did Mickey bars or ordered it in the dining rooms, where it was much better. The ice cream at CC also seemed more "normal" to us.

 

[Otimon]

We sailed the Dream in March and loved Cabanas.

If you care to PM me I have some pictures of the restaurant, wonderful views from there and the food line. Would be glad to share.

The restaurant is quite large (horseshoe shape around the aft of the ship) and can be hectic at times. There is no line but instead you can go right up to any of the many stations and help yourself. The stations are repeated if you continued to walk the entire restaurant. This is something quite different from the Magic and Wonder.

 

[Samantha_Mommy]

My daughter loved those Mickey bars? She ate them on every dessert! Do they charge you if you ask them to bring them to your room????

 

[Lost in Xanadu]

My daughter loved those Mickey bars? She ate them on every dessert! Do they charge you if you ask them to bring them to your room????

No, but you are expected to tip. We tipped $1 for each bar

 

[sorul82?]

It sort of reminds me of Chef Mickey's.....sort of. Cabana's is set up in a semi-circle with duplicates of a lot of items on each side. There are gaps or breaks between areas so you can just hit up the area that has what you want. There are "carts" that have other items like salads, seafood, etc.

I like it better than a traditional buffet line. You don't have to wait behind the slow salad makers when all you want is mashed potatoes.

I guess you could say Cabanas is more like Golden Coral and Enchanted Garden is like the K&W cafeteria.

 

[jetskigrl]

I loved the idea of Cabana' because you don't have to wait in the whole line to go back for one item. The problem is that most people on our cruise didn't understand it (and while some CMs seemed to be trying to explain it...it wasn't enough).

The lines on both sides at breakfast went out the doors and people were giving me dirty looks all over the place when I would just walk up to a station to get something. It was kind of uncomfortable for people that were using the stations as intended.

I'm not sure how to remedy that unless the CMs explain the process to each group as they enter.

 

[addlema]

The cast member told me it was "stations" and not to form a line. As soon as I heard that even with all the dirty looks I would just tell people "They say no lines, stations." and get my stuff and wander off. I was trying to lead by example.

The poor cast members looked like they were really having a time trying to explain this to people..

 

[addlema]

ALso.. I thought it was a huge design mistake to put all the "fast food" on the other end of the ship from the drink stations. It seemed silly to have the drink stations right outside cabanas that had all the extra drink stations inside it.

They just need to add 2 more stations port and starboard next to the "Fast food".

The pizza, hamburgers, brats, hot dogs, panini's, and Chix strips were all awesome..

Also the banana and strawberry softserve was yummy. I didn't notice the chalky consistency others are mentioning.

 

[FirstTimeDC]

Thanks everyone. Very helpful! Just to clairify....one the Magic/Wonder the "fast food" places are on deck but pretty close to buffet. By other end of the ship ...do you literally mean the front of the ship or more mid-ship? We were on Magic last year. We would get pizza or chicken, etc., grab our drink from outside drink station and sit at a table by the splash area. Is this something do-able? I'm not getting a good feel for how it's set up.

Also, do they have fish at the fast food station? Magic had fish at the one that had chicken fingers.

Ice Cream - What flavors do they offer in the soft serve and do they have toppings? I thought I saw a photo of CM's serving ice-cream - not a self serve one?!?

Thanks, all!

 

[lvstitch]

Does anyone know if they have Corn Dogs in Cabanas on the first day? It's kind of a tradition with me and my friends to have them as soon as we board.

 

[Zandy595]

Here's a link to the layout of deck 11. http://www.cruisecritic.com/images/cabinguru/disney_dream_deck11.gif Click on it to make it bigger.

 

[FirstTimeDC]

Thanks for the layout. It does look like a hike to get from Cabana's to the fast food. Can you bring the "fast food" into Cabana's?

 

[sbtrfly74]

I loved the layout of Cabanas, the only problem is it looks like two duplicate sides and you really need to wander the whole areas. Once you start seeing duplicate stuff you think the rest is all the same so we missed out on mickey waffles and pancakes one morning. I was also disappointed that they didn't have any sushi the two days we went for lunch that I was looking forward to soo much