Cannot request dining rotation anymore?

[Maggie'sMom]

i don't understand what the difference is. if i want a specific rotation, lets say eraerae, they say no but if i want enchanted garden 3 times they say yes. is it not really the same request? the only way you could do enchanted garden 3 times is to get eraerae. am i missing something? lol, i don't get it. seems they are making this hard for themselves.

The difference would be if DCL decided it wanted to change the dining rotations for a cruise from one that they typically have, e.g. 1231231, to one that isn't normally used on that itinerary, e.g. 1231223. Using your example, someone might request a rotation starting in Enchanted Garden because they wanted to be there 3 times, thinking DCL would be using the 1231231 rotations. But DCL shifts the night Pirate Night is on so that the rotations they use are 1231223. Now the person who wanted to be in Enchanted Garden 3 times is only there twice and they are in Royal Court 3 times. Although they got what they requested, i.e. a rotation starting in Enchanted Garden, they didn't get what they wanted, i.e. being in Enchanted Garden 3 times.

If DCL makes them submit the request as "I want to be in Enchanted Garden 3 times", then they would know to assign them to AERAEER rather than to ERAERRA

 

[PrincessShmoo]

i don't understand what the difference is. if i want a specific rotation, lets say eraerae, they say no but if i want enchanted garden 3 times they say yes. is it not really the same request? the only way you could do enchanted garden 3 times is to get eraerae. am i missing something? lol, i don't get it. seems they are making this hard for themselves.

Under the current rotations if you want, say, Enchanted Garden 3 times, yes its the same as saying "I want ERAERAE". But, by only requesting "I want Enchanted Garden 3 times" allows for any changes they may make in the future for rotations. The rotations may change so that the EG 3X rotation could be ERAEERA, or RAEERAE, or AEERAERA, if DCL wants to switch up the menus/themeing on any given cruise.

 

[Flossbolna]

We got the same information back from our TA recently as well. According to the cast member she spoke to they are still taking requests, just not for specific dining rotations. ie you can request that you want a certain restaurant 3 times (on the 7 day cruises), or if you want to be in a specific restaurant on formal night, etc. It sounds like they are doing that so that they can change up the dining rotations as needed. We wanted a specific rotation because we wanted to avoid being in PC three times (doing the Wonder in Alaska next June), so I ended up asking if we could request Tritons be our 3-time restaurant and they put that request in no problem.

I think this makes a lot of sense. It makes people request what they really want (i.e. Pirates Night in Parrot Cay or three meals in Royal Palace) instead of deducting from that goal which rotation would fit what they want. Besides giving Disney more flexibility in changing rotations, it also ensures better guest satisfaction as they will better to accommodate those wishes.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

The only issue I see is those people who make other arrangements for, say, Pirate night, and then Pirate night gets switched once onboard. Our Dream cruise last year, they moved Pirate night from night 3 to night 2 once onboard. I don't know whether they attempted to reach everyone who had reservations at Palo, say, on night 3 (hoping to avoid the pirate menu) to move them to night 2 or not. But that would be a mess.

 

[AquaDame]

On Pirate night they play different Pirate clips. Some are from Jake and the Neverland Pirates, some are from Pirates of the Caribbean, and some from Peter Pan. That's what I remember when we had AP on pirate night. It was mostly making of art and stuff.

Personally I LOVED this... it would be the only thing I would request specifically.

 

[wilkeliza]

Personally I LOVED this... it would be the only thing I would request specifically.

It was amazing. To be honest our request on our engagement cruise created the perfect rotation for us. It was the only cruise where we genuinely cared about where we were each night and it worked out perfectly. The staff was also amazing and even remembered us from our cruise the same time they year prior! They kept joking that we should just get married on the beach at CC since we seemed to have a Fantasy love story haha.

 

[Greg0ire]

For the rotation, will one of the three nights in same restaurant be Pirate Night? I'm torn with this night. I don't want my kids to miss out on all the fun yet I hear it's a good night for Palo because the menu isn't great. Is the main fun for Pirate Night the Deck Party or is it both the party and the dinner?

 

[wilkeliza]

For the rotation, will one of the three nights in same restaurant be Pirate Night? I'm torn with this night. I don't want my kids to miss out on all the fun yet I hear it's a good night for Palo because the menu isn't great. Is the main fun for Pirate Night the Deck Party or is it both the party and the dinner?

The main fun is the deck party and fireworks. In the other dinning rooms there isn't much that goes on.

 

[Greg0ire]

thank you

 

[anricat]

The only issue I see is those people who make other arrangements for, say, Pirate night, and then Pirate night gets switched once onboard. Our Dream cruise last year, they moved Pirate night from night 3 to night 2 once onboard. I don't know whether they attempted to reach everyone who had reservations at Palo, say, on night 3 (hoping to avoid the pirate menu) to move them to night 2 or not. But that would be a mess.

Indeed, this happened to us, but prior to sailing. And our dining rotation on our 5 night is such that the middle night restaurant is only visited once. I called DCL to see if the rotations will change and they said that they aren't. So basically, every person will miss a restaurant's menu. Which is weird. So we're going to Palo on that night and there's a restaurant now that we won't even visit. I requested a specific rotation so that we're NOT missing Animators, but lots of people will completely miss that menu (which stinks because those pasta purses are awesome). I'm hoping we can get the dining rotation we asked for for that reason. We'll see.

 

[sweetlovin]

I don't care about rotation, but I do care about servers. I have certain servers that know me. (i.e. my waiter on the Magic who served me for the 30 nights while on EBTA, Baltic and Norway) When I sail the Magic, I want that server. On the Fantasy, I want the server that I have come to know and my kids have come to know. When i first started sailing, I had no idea, so it wasn't a big deal. On the Wonder, there isn't a server that I have really clicked with, so no requests. I really hope they do not take away server requests.

 

[kiapepito]

What are the rotations on the Wonder for 7 days?

What are the menus for each night and what shows would Animators Palate have?

Thanks!

 

[Sir William]

Good Grief. That's why you should just chill and enjoy what your rotation.

FWIW, AP is our least favorite MDR and we prefer any rotation that puts us there only twice instead of three times. Secondly, we like to dress up on formal night and AP has the least attractive ambiance for that night. However, we've only requested a specific rotation once. On our last cruise we decided to just take what came up and, of course, we ended up in AP on formal night. DW doesn't like Palo all that much and is even less interested in Remy's so that is not an option. I haven't requested any rotation for our next cruise but I'm very tempted.

 

[MarkF0wle]

The only issue I see is those people who make other arrangements for, say, Pirate night, and then Pirate night gets switched once onboard. Our Dream cruise last year, they moved Pirate night from night 3 to night 2 once onboard. I don't know whether they attempted to reach everyone who had reservations at Palo, say, on night 3 (hoping to avoid the pirate menu) to move them to night 2 or not. But that would be a mess.

This happened on our cruise I believe, although I wasn't dining at Palo or Remy, the letter/note/email (I forget how the contacted us) said that they switched all the Palo/Remy reservations between the two nights. My initial thought was that it would be a bummer if you booked Palo/Remy for a certain day due to it being an anniversary or something but I reasoned that there would probably be fewer people needing to change back for this reason than people wanting to change to avoid pirate night who had originally booked to avoid pirate night meal rotation.

 

[cwdefouw]

The only issue I see is those people who make other arrangements for, say, Pirate night, and then Pirate night gets switched once onboard. Our Dream cruise last year, they moved Pirate night from night 3 to night 2 once onboard. I don't know whether they attempted to reach everyone who had reservations at Palo, say, on night 3 (hoping to avoid the pirate menu) to move them to night 2 or not. But that would be a mess.

I can tell you that we are experiencing the very scenario you are wondering about. We always book Palo for Pirate night. On our Magic 5 night western next week, they switched the Pirate night from night 4 to night 3. They notified about a month ago by sending us the following email...

Thank you for choosing a Disney Cruise Line vacation. We are looking forward to sailing with you later this year.

During your sailing our popular Pirate Night will take place on Tuesday evening following our day in Cozumel instead of on Wednesday evening.

We realize that some Guests may have planned their reservations at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique around this popular event night. Therefore, we have automatically switched the days for the pre-booked reservations for this experience. This means that Guests with pre-booked appointments at Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique on Wednesday will now enjoy their appointments on Tuesday at the previously booked time, while those previously booked for Tuesday will now have a make-over on Wednesday. All other pre-reserved services, including Palo dining reservations, will remain as originally scheduled.

Should you have any questions, please feel free visit the My Cruise Plans section of our website at www.disneycruise.com or contact us at 1-866-325-6685 or 407-566-7797.

You may also refer to the Personal Navigator that will be delivered to your stateroom during the cruise for additional information on all of the scheduled activities.

Again, we look forward to welcoming you aboard soon and providing you with a magical sailing.

Sincerely,

The Cast and Crew
Disney Cruise Line


We did not try to modify our Palo reservation, but I would expect it might have been difficult to get the change made, if we had tried.

 

[mom4fun]

Which restaurant would be best for formal night on the Magic?

 

[kddlm]

I just requested EG, RC, AP, EG, RC, RC, AP for our March 2016 cruise. They put in the request, but also mentioned that the rotations may be a little different. I'm fine with that, I'm just hoping I don't get the one we had last time which had us at AP 3x.....that was our least favorite of the 3 rooms (aside from the show). We were in EG for formal night.

 

[tup1830]

Who knows, it may become a on-board experience that you sign up for...pick from a set rotation, create your own rotation (aabbcca, acacaca, bacaaaa,etc.), let us do the picking....all for an nominal fee of only $49 per passenger

 

[kddlm]

Who knows, it may become a on-board experience that you sign up for...pick from a set rotation, create your own rotation (aabbcca, acacaca, bacaaaa,etc.), let us do the picking....all for an nominal fee of only $49 per passenger

With everything else Disney has been doing, it would not surprise me

 

[WDWChloe]

I just requested EG, RC, AP, EG, RC, RC, AP for our March 2016 cruise. They put in the request, but also mentioned that the rotations may be a little different. I'm fine with that, I'm just hoping I don't get the one we had last time which had us at AP 3x.....that was our least favorite of the 3 rooms (aside from the show). We were in EG for formal night.

So they did apply your request to your reservation? That's good to hear!