Has anyone opted for a later Palo reservation AFTER having an early dinner?

[debbiebones]

Just wondering how many of you would recommend making a reservation at Palo, say at 8:30 or 9 after having dinner during the early seating in one of the dining rooms. I don't want to sound like a pig but I hate to miss any of the other dinners even though I definitely don't want to miss Palo. Any good strategy to this idea?

Thanks!

Deb

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

Palo is a wonderful place to enjoy a 4-course meal -- appetizer, salad, entree, and dessert. You might also want to have drink before dinner and some wine with dinner. The way to enjoy a meal like that is not to arrive when you've already eaten. In fact, we avoided any sort of afternoon snack to make sure we could enjoy our dinner courses.

Yes, there are people on this board who have done exactly as you're suggesting. You may even get some replies saying that it's wonderful idea. I would disagree. The only justification I could see would be for those cases where parents want to accompany their young children to the early seating dinner and then go to Palo later (while the cjildren go to their club); even in such a case, I would avoid eating at the first dinner.

You can't experience everything that the cruise has to offer. It's worth skipping one of the regular dinners to go to Palo.

Also, if you go to the regular dinner and to a late dinner at Palo, you'll miss your evening show in the Walt Disney Theatre. In my opinion, "dinner and a show" makes for a nicer evening than "dinner and another dinner."

 

[4crusinransiers]

We had LATE seating. WE joined our sons for appitizers and drinks at our regular dining room, them left our sons to finish up while we went to a 9.00 palo reservation. This worked well for us and my sons 9 and 11 thought they were cool dining alone for the rest of the meal.

 

[Michelle]

Deb, listen to Horace. Palo is a GREAT meal and you want to be hungry and able to enjoy it all. None of the dinners in the dining room are worth filling up on before Palo.

If you're doing what 4crusinransiers did and accompanying children to the dining room, then what they did makes sense, just get drinks and maybe an appetizer. But really, you don't want to eat an entire meal before going to Palo.

Enjoy!

 

[mog]

That is what we did. We had Palo reservations for one of the formal nights and the kids didn't want to miss formal night in the dining room. So we took them to our early seating - they ate, we just had a glass of wine and an appetizer (in fact, we might have even just shared an appetizer). That way we got to sit and visit with them while they ate then they went to the clubs and we went for our "real" dinner at Palos. It worked out well for us and we will probably do it again this next cruise we have planned. The one thing I would suggest is that you check the navigators, though, because doing it this way you will miss the show that night since you are doing early dinner and then Palos. We found that there were a couple of shows we weren't really interested in anyway and just went on one of those nights.

 

[Hygiene99]

We did the opposite, we ate at Palo early, then went to late dinner, it was Animator's Palate night, so I couldn't imagine missing the show! I only ate once, had dessert twice, but my husband couldn't turn down another dinner! I just dragged him out to the promenade deck and we walked a couple miles that night to work it off!!! It is so hard to miss anything when you are cruising, we always want to get in every little thing, even if it means eating too much!!

 

[DISNEYGATOR]

I went to both dinners as well, did Palo's early (we did the earliest time possible, and then had the late dinner seating...

We only at appetizer and desert at our dinner seating, and boy was i stuffed afterwards.. but that is what cruises are for.. to eat and eat and eat and eat...

 

["Ginger"]

We love going to Palo on our first night aboard. But, we don't wait to miss meeting our new table mates, our rotation wait staff, or our last meal with our DD before we lose her to the Oceaneears Club for the week. We nibble at something at dinner before we go to Palo for real food.

If I didn't have a child I would do as Horace suggest. Nothing till I got to Palo. Will worth skipping the regular meals. On our last cruise we ate at Palo as many times as we could 2 dinners 1 brunch 1 High Tea. If your sailing on the Magic try Topsiders for dinner also, we thought that was the next best thing to Palo. We dined there 3 times on our last cruise.

Gheez! we are Piggy, Piggy's.
I'm dieting now so I can go back and do it again in 37 days.