Palo Brunch or Dinner Anniversary???

[Princess_Iliana_of_Avalor]

We're not sailing until December of 2019 but honestly, the waiting and not fully planning in advance is giving me anxiety and driving me crazy lol, especially since this is the first cruise we've ever done. My boyfriend and I are having our 6 year anniversary on our cruise (5-Night Bahamas Merrytime) and are super excited! We did want to book Palo dinner for it, but we're wondering if it'll be worth missing one of the MDRs (if we will at all), which in that case we could do brunch, but I'm not too sure if the brunch is worth it or if it'll be as special. Here's our itinerary if it helps:

Dec. 2 - Miami
Dec. 3 - Nassau
Dec. 4 - Castaway Cay
Dec. 5 - At Sea (OUR ANNIVERSARY DATE WE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE PALO DINNER ON)
Dec. 6 - Key West
Dec. 7 - Miami

Please help

 

[Marc D]

Personally, I would do Palo brunch. Even if it’s during the day, it feels special, especially if you dress up a bit. I would also make sure I have a private table in the MDR. That way, you’ll be able to have a romantic dinner every night of your cruise.

 

[missyp]

On cruises less than 7 nights we always choose to only do a brunch so we do not miss any of the main dining room experiences. On longer cruises we usually pick to do at least one brunch and one dinner and miss pirate night since we really aren't crazy about the menu. Both the dinner and the brunch are very special and nice experiences but on such a short cruise and a first cruise, I wouldn't miss the rotational experiences

 

[MomOTwins]

We did the brunch two days ago for our anniversary and it was heaven! They had an amazing chilled seafood selection (king crab, caviar, ahi tuna, smoked salmon, the best shrimp cocktail), wonderful cheese and charcouterie, excellent entrees (I do not care for breakfast food so I got the amazing chicken parm and risotto, and the spicy flabread—both were amazkng; but there were so many other italian main course options to choose from!). The tiramisu and champagne gelatin desserts were also sublime, and the bellinis were delicious. The service was out of this world as well. I enjoyed all of the main dinner restaurants so was glad we opted not to miss any.

 

[lorimay]

Brunch is my favorite meal at Palo.
So that would be my first choice.
But it doesn't matter, this is your first cruise and trust me you become addicted and be back on another DCL ship as fast as you can and then you can do dinner!

Have fun!

 

[lklgoodman]

We did Palo dinner on our honeymoon and then brunch for our last anniversary. We both preferred the brunch. We've been on 4 cruises, 5th coming up and always enjoy having dinner in the MDRs. We'll do brunch at Palo from now on.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

Since your anniversary is on the sea day, Palo brunch will be available. That may be the only Palo brunch offering unless they also happen to do brunch on the Nassau port day (they do that on 3-night cruises with no sea day, but it's less common on cruises that have a sea day on the itinerary). In any case, limited availability may make booking the brunch as a first-time cruiser a challenge. Dinner should be much easier to book, even as a first-time cruiser, since it can be scheduled any night. We enjoy both brunch and dinner and usually do each one once per cruise. For a special anniversary experience, we would choose to do dinner.

 

[southerngirl528]

Well, first Happy Anniversary!! My family and I LOVE Palo, for dinner and for brunch. I have to say we give brunch a slight edge though. The views are lovely, which cannot be seen if you are dining after dark at dinner, which is most of the time. I don't think you can really go wrong, but I would shoot for brunch! Either way, you'll love it!

 

[Shanti]

I much prefer dinner. The food and the ambiance are better.

 

[Princess_Iliana_of_Avalor]

Thank you all so much for your replies!

 

[OKW Lover]

Both Brunch and Dinner at Palo are hard to beat. If you stick with dinner, plan it for Pirate night because that night the menu in all the MDR's are the same so you won't be missing anything unique.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

We love Palo for dinner and have reservation for the upcoming Alaska cruise. Cruising with my DH sister and her husband for their 40th anniversary. First Disney cruise for them so Palo dinner is an absolute. The brunch is great, but dinner is special.

 

[MichelleCanada]

We have only done two cruises - the first we did a Palo dinner and loved it! For our anniversary last week we dinner the brunch. I was very skeptics that I would enjoy it as much as the dinner. Turns out I liked it even more!! Both times it was the best food we had the entire cruise!

** Make sure you tell DCL that it’s your anniversary!!

 

[CamColt]

We did both last week, and I still prefer brunch over dinner. The food is the main reason but missing a MDR is a downside to dinner too. I didn't mind missing a MDR this time since we did back to backs so I didn't really miss anything.

 

[arlopop]

We did dinner on our anniversary, and brunch on a different day. But it was 14 days so there wasn’t really a conflict. Either way I can’t imagine you being disappointed.

 

[ofcabbagesandkings]

Bumping this thread up - would you book a Palo dinner for your first ever cruise or just decide to enjoy the MDR's? It's a 7 night cruise so I was thinking of trying to book for night 4, which should be the Frozen menu if it is the same as this past summer. I definitely do want to book a brunch for our last sea day, just not sure it's worth it to dinner too especially since we would be giving up a "free" MDR meal by doing so. We also have two kids who might be in tired/prone to meltdown mode after their first port day, so I'm also not sure about dumping them at the kids clubs/nursery after a long day of activities.

 

[g_ppetto]

Bumping this thread up - would you book a Palo dinner for your first ever cruise or just decide to enjoy the MDR's? It's a 7 night cruise so I was thinking of trying to book for night 4, which should be the Frozen menu if it is the same as this past summer. I definitely do want to book a brunch for our last sea day, just not sure it's worth it to dinner too especially since we would be giving up a "free" MDR meal by doing so. We also have two kids who might be in tired/prone to meltdown mode after their first port day, so I'm also not sure about dumping them at the kids clubs/nursery after a long day of activities.

We really wanted to do the brunch and booked it as soon as we got on board. At the time dinner was not in the plans. While enjoying the brunch, we were so impressed we asked about booking a dinner later in the cruise, and did on our way out of Palo. Dinner was great too. We were on the Fantasy 09/08 to 09/15/2018. Should we cruise on the Fantasy again, I would schedule Palo dinner for EG night. We froze in the EG and I didn't care for the menu, especially now that I know Dover Sole is waiting for me a few decks up. I should state it is just the two of us.