how do i convince someone that DCL food is not just "hamburgers and hotdogs"?

[disneyberry]

*sigh*
okay. i don't know if there's a point, but a girl can keep dreaming, right?

background to this post:
dbf's parents are cruise fanatics.
they've been on 10 cruises in the past 7 years, but never on DCL.
they've been trying to induct us into their cruise "cult" for years.

dbf and i are big Disney fans. dbf's parents are not.
we've been giving them the same line of "if it isn't Disney Cruise Line, we're not going on a cruise."

anyway, that's the background.

so, whenever dbf and his parents have the same conversation again, something always gets mentioned.
apparently someone dbf's parents know went on DCL with her family, and hated it.
she especially hated the food on DCL and said it sucked, and all there was to eat was food geared towards kids like hamburgers and hot dogs.
so, as a result, dbf's parents believe that to be true, and use that as one of the reasons they do not want to try DCL.

it's been frustrating. and we'll probably never succeed at convincing them, and we'll probably end up going to RCCL instead.
but i thought i'd post this anyway to see if anyone has some comments about this "hamburgers and hotdogs" only food thing. i find it hard to believe.

is DCL food really that bad?
how does it compare to NCL (supposedly the worst of the bunch)?
what about Carnival or RCCL?

 

[Fins2TheRight]

I don't know if this helps or not, but my DW and I just got back from the 6/12-15 Wonder cruise. My FIL and MIL cruise at least two or three times a year on other cruise lines and have talked at length about the food on those cruises. They have never done Disney -- it's not that they hate DCL, but they're both over 50, so they do the other ones. They're not Disney fanatics like we are.

Anyway, now that we're back, the way my DW explained it to them is, where the other lines use food as the big draw to get you on board, Disney uses real entertainment. I will admit that I have only been on this one Disney cruise, but my guess is that the other lines can't touch Disney in that category. If I had to describe the food on our cruise, I would say it was "good" -- on a scale from 1 to 10, I'd say it was between a 5 and 8, although the Filet Mignon at Palo was excellent!

So what I'm trying to say is ... we didn't go for the food!

Just my opinion.

 

[tezb]

I know they serve hamburgers in Plutos but not sure about hotdogs. My teens love the fast food on DCL..so that makes me happy. I have never eaten a hot dog while on a DCL cruise. If you're talking about the meals, I haven't seen those things on the menus...maybe for the kids menu though, which I'm sure is pretty standard on any cruise. The food is fine to me but I don't have any other cruise to compare.

However, regarding getting them to go on a DCL cruise. Why would you want them to if they are so close minded about it. Sounds like they already have their minds made up about DCL and just looking for more reasons NOT to try them. If they did, they would probably be negative about it the whole time. Were you planning a cruise to only go on w/ their family? If not, just do DCL on your own and you'll be much happier. Let them think what they want. For the price we pay to cruise DCL, I never think of it as only eating "hotdogs and hamburgers!"

 

[PamCo88]

Well, the easiest way would be to pull down copies of the menus and ask them to go over them, then tell them they are from DCL.

 

[LVTravel]

I have been on 17 cruises in the past. Two on DCL (Wonder 3 & 4 day) and found the food to be as good as on any of the other cruise lines (RCCL, Carnival, Premier, and NCL (BTW, I don't think NCL's food is bad but all lines have gone down in quality over the years)). Have Jan. 3, 2004 Magic scheduled.

The menu items for the adults are varied and between the three restaurants and Palos you never have to eat a hamburger. You can eat steak, chicken, lamb, duck (sorry Donald) and just about anything else you can think of (didn't see lobster on the 3 & 4 day and did not go to Palos).

What might be the problem for some cruisers is that DCL does not have gambling on their ships. Is this a concern for dbf's parents? We have friends who love kids but will not set foot on a DCL ship because of the no gambling policy. Hey, its their loss and we leave them home. We do cruise on other lines to have fun with them. Go withouth them, have fun and then go again with them on their line and then you can compare and tell them that their line is worse than DCL.

 

[disneyberry]

thanks for the replies.
dbf's parents don't gamble at all actually.
they seem to love cruising for ambiance, the entertainment, and the ability to eat at nice "sit-down restaurants" w/o worrying about having to pay for their meals.

i do agree, i'm not too keen on having them go on DCL and be grumbly and unhappy the whole time.
that would just suck.
they apparently have an aversion to Disney because years ago they encountered multiple rude CM's and vowed to never again go to WDW again. grudge holders. heh.

anyway dbf and i actually don't want to go on any cruise at all. we'd rather spend our money on a longer stay at WDW, or a weeklong vacation in Europe/Asia/whatever location strikes a fancy... but that's just our weird landlovers' opinion.
the problem is that dbf's parents so desperately want to get us hooked on cruising, so we might eventually give in and just go on any cruise with them so they stop nagging.
then we'll get to be the grumbly and unhappy ones. j/k it's not that we don't think we'll enjoy cruising. it's more that we just don't really have the budget to start up another expensive habit. our land vacations to WDW and other locations around the world are already good enough for us. heh.

btw, where would i be able to get ahold of some menus to show them? (a part of me just wants to disprove their absurd belief even if we don't go on DCL)

 

[LVTravel]

Go to www.castawayclub.com They have menu listings as one of their items on their web site. 3rd item down under most popular info.

 

[scott62]

Make the Palo Chocolate Souffle for them. The recipe was in Disney Magazine and can be found in the following thread: Palo chocolate souffle recipe



We made it at home and it was great!

Scott

 

[samoyed]

Take it from me.... Don't go..... What a drag...

My In-laws are big Cruise people... tried different lines love the entertainment and food.

They also dislike Disney.

They wanted to treat their kids (ie.. me) to a 10 year wedding gift... they decided to book a cruise... They talked to the Travel agent and the Travel agent said with a 4 year old in the group you have to go Disney... Others don't accomodate small children.

I of course said that first, was happy to hear the Travel Agent agreed.

In-laws booked the 3 day cruise for themselves, their daughter and Son's family's (ie. me again). Said they cound not handle any more than three days of disney.

Mother in law complained about the Disney shows and said food was not up to par with NCL.

The trip they wanted the family togetherness lastest for two dinners, (they went to Palo one night without us), they didn't even show up for the send off Party, which is a blast.

Next day on video camara I asked my 4 year old daughter, who did you see yesterday at the deck party.. her answer "I didn't see Nanny and Pappy"..

Take it from me... Don't go.... Go by yourself ...

 

[disneyberry]

LOL, samoyed!
yeah, that's exactly what i don't want to happen.
w/ my situation though, it's dbf's father who really dislikes Disney.
dbf's mom actually started to "forgive" Disney, and wanted to plan a Land and Sea vacation to WDW/DCL mainly because dbf's nephew (her only grandson) is almost 5 now and she wants to go on at least one trip to WDW with him before he gets older.

(as an aside, sheesh it'd be so much easier to type all this if i could just type MIL and FIL... but don't know when that'll happen w/ the way dbf is )

anyway, dbf's father is completely like "No way!" with the Land and Sea vacation idea.
we're thinking maybe we'll have to go w/ 4nights WDW and 3nights RCCL Sovereign instead, in order to get him to agree.
he still totally has a grudge on WDW though, and he already made some excuse like he's been on the Sovereign before and doesn't want to go to the Bahamas again.
he just wants to avoid WDW so bad. heh.

anyway, thanks LVTravel for the link for the menus, i'm going to print it out and show them.

 

[figment52]

Originally posted by LVTravel


What might be the problem for some cruisers is that DCL does not have gambling on their ships. Is this a concern for dbf's parents? We have friends who love kids but will not set foot on a DCL ship because of the no gambling policy.

Gee - and I thought the NO GAMBLING was part of the draw to DCL. All that floor space for more fun things. IMHO