Wine Packages and Palo? Disney Magic

[Madhattermad]

Hi Everyone,

I'm flirting with buying a premium wine package on the Disney Magic for my European Cruise in Aug. If I do, can I use it at Palo Dinner?

And follow up question, if I instead go for the 'experienca del vino' add on, does the whole table need to have it? or could I enjoy the good stuff while my philistine hubby grabs a pint?! (please don't come at me, this is a joke, I love DH very much and I don't think I'm fancy cause I drink wine)

Thanks

K.

 

[TinkLoverSam]

I don't ~think~ you can use your package wine in Palo, we didn't try and they did send the end of the wine from Palo to the dining room to be consumed at dinner (we did order 3 bottles of wine at brunch though)

I am sure that not everyone needs to do the "experienca del vino" at the table, you can have that while DH has a beer, no problem.

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Also, be sure that the wines in the premium package are worth the extra price to you. My dad is a bit of a wine snob but even he felt that the classic package with a few from home bottles was a better deal $$ wise than the premium package.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

Yes, we have used the dinner wine packages (classic) for Palo several times. Just let them know once you are seated and the server introduces themself. They will hand you the same wine list as in the MDR.

 

[Madhattermad]

Any views on the wine experience being worth the price?

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Any views on the wine experience being worth the price?

So for a 7 night cruise my dad bought a 7 bottle and 3 bottle package in advance and we brought along some wine as well. (we were a group of 8 with 6 adults)

We had looked at what wines were included in the packages and decided that for our tastes the classic package was a better deal than the premium. We didn't feel that the "premium" wines were worth the price difference from the classic package. Whether or not it was cheaper to do the package than a la carte, I'm not sure but it was nice to have the cost pre-paid and know that the wine was already taken care of.

 

[cedricandsophie]

We always get the classic. It works fine for us. And we have used it in palo. We were a little annoyed that 2 of the wines listed on the classic package were unavailable after we picked it. One was a Malbec that we like a lot with no offer to substitute lAnd we decided to order a bottle at palo that was not on the package. That too was unavailable and the Somalier came to tell us and suggest another bottle. I asked how much was it and he ‘thought’ it was only $5 or $10 more. I asked him to confirm the price. He came back and said $3. And we said fine. But any other restaurant we have been in if A specific brand was not available you would get offered a different bottle at the same price. First world problems.

 

[cougar87]

Are you allowed to bring your own bottle of wine to Palo? We are partial to California wines and they just don’t have a very big selection? We do not mind the corkage fee.

 

[elsawasajedi]

Any views on the wine experience being worth the price?

We're wine snobs but yeah we found precious few bottles on board that were good value. The cheaper bottles were way over priced compared to what you should pay (even recognizing that industry standard is between 2-2.5x retail) and the expensive bottles were more of a good value but again expensive (by expensive I mean over 200/bottle).

If it helps our 'average' price we pay retail (at the store) is somewhere around 40 dollars a bottle of bordeaux when we shop. So we expect to see those same bottles (or similar quality) for anywhere between 80-100 dollars in a restaurant.

on DCL we saw bottles we thought of almost undrinkable quality (we were familiar with the brands/names) that retail around 11-12/bottle that when you worked out the package would be like paying 35-50 dollars. I'm not paying that much for undrinkable wine (my opinion).

 

[elsawasajedi]

Are you allowed to bring your own bottle of wine to Palo? We are partial to California wines and they just don’t have a very big selection? We do not mind the corkage fee.

I think its just corkage. We brought 4 bottles between husband and I on board in dec, planning on doing so again in Aug.

Agnostic of the whole package value question, the bottles that we did find interesting (that weren't in the package) at restaurants on our dec cruise they were "out of" similar to what someone else posted here. Seems that folks figure out pretty quickly what the value for money and quality bottles are and those go first.