Casual Dining change on the Magic

[Grumpy's Mom]

Did anyone else see the "Disney Cruise News" on the DIS Discussions Forum page? It is right underneath the announcement that Eisner is leaving. Maybe you all saw this, and I just hadn't noticed it.

What does this mean:

DISNEY MAGIC – CASUAL DINING

Casual dining aboard the Magic is now full serve instead of buffet.

Topsiders is not a buffet anymore?

 

[pppiglet]

Buffet is now just breakfast and lunch.Dinner is full serve. (from what I've been reading here)

 

[Mary Anne]

We ate at Topsiders for dinner one night on the 8/28 cruise and were served, it was not a buffet at dinner.

A couple of items of note:

1) We really enjoyed it. You could eat anytime between 6:30 and 8.

2) It was really very quiet up there, very few people, very little kids. My DH said it was almost as nice a Palo's. Granted the food was fresh prepared like Palo's but the peace and quiet at dinner time without a lot of kids was soooo nice. (Don't fame me, I expect kids and somethimes loud kids on the cruise, it was just nice to have a quiet meal with my older kids who are not old enought for Palo's)

3) They had it closed the last couple of nights of the cruise as I think they felt if you ate there you might "stiff" your normal staff in the dinning room.

4) While I guess we didn't have to, we did tip the guy who served us. He was very good for a trainee and again, it was a great meal.

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

Mary Anne, I assume they had a menu - what was it like?

 

[Mary Anne]

Yes the did have a menu.

It was pretty basic but did include some of the hightlights of what was being served in the dining rooms. you could get soup, salad the main meal and desert. Actually the desert was slightly different from what I found anyplace else on board, more plain but really good.

I know I had salad and a steak. I think my DH had some kind of shirmp. He said it was very good.

Again, the food was pretty par with what was being served in the dinning room, for us the big draw as the peace and quiet.

I wish we had discoved it earlier in the trip, I thought it was buffet which we don't care for. I also like being able to eat anytime I felt like it, not just at my assigned times. We found first sitting to be too early and 2nd to late.

We also like that the chef came out to every table and talked to us about the meal. Very nice touch.

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

That sounds great - we had the late seating on our first cruise, which we liked, except that there wasn't much time afterwards to do anything. We thought the early seating would cause us to feel like we had to hurry back to the ship from whatever we were doing - so Topsider's is a good compromise.

Thanks for filling me in!

 

[Ginny]

Bonnie -

I'm a little surprised that they are "announcing" this now as we were served when we at up there on our Christmas Cruise. But, perhaps they have expanded it to a full-service experience with an expanded menu. We love eating at Topsiders, at least once, just for the variety, relaxed attitude, the view and QUIET!

I just checked with Chuck (as the old memory is questionable) but as we recall they had three entrees (so it was a limited menu), full cocktail service but your dessert was buffet style.

The evening we went up there, there were only 3 other families and it was older families................no infants or toddlers (which I kind of missed). I think it will become more popular with time now that it is full serve.

 

[thegales]

Mary Anne wrote:

Don't fame me

You're a star! Now comes the paparazzi. Sorry, you've now been 'famed'

 

["Ginger"]

It was like that when we were there last Oct. You could walk up to the buffet counter to view the entrees but you ordered them from your server.
Unlike Ginny's experience we couldn't get the desserts, again our server took that order.
But, we did make our salads, like a salad bar.

We got back from an excursion one day with little time for the 3 of us to get ready for early seating. We remembered Topsiders was open for dinning, so we didn't have to rush to get ready. Plus, we didn't have to get dressed up, you can go to Topsiders in shorts and jeans.
I thought the food was better than what we were being served on our regular rotation dinning. Like another poster has said, fresher, made to order, like Palo.
We enjoyed the fact that it was not crowded and no kids throwing food across the room.

BTW-we did remember to take some cash with us for a tip.

 

[RobinMarie]

We are on the late seating for our East bound cruise. While we are waitlisted for early dining this might be a nice compromise for us!

 

[jmcross]

This may be a dumb question but if you eat at Topsider's for dinner should you tip the server?? If so, how much would be appropriate?

Thanks,

Joanne

 

[mum of two pirates]

AAre you sure it was the kids doing the food throwing, after reading about the couple fighting at dinner on anougher thread.

 

[Mary Anne]

I don't know what the "norm" is for tiping on this but we were 4 people and my DH gave the person taking care of us $10.00