Is this a typical Disney dining experience?

Just back from our first Disney cruise on the Disney Magic (4 nights). In the past we have only cruised on Princess and Royal Caribbean, so those were our reference points. Overall we had a great time but we were really surprised about our experience in the rotational dining rooms. I'm wondering if we just got unlucky with the servers assigned to us?

On the first night we were assigned to dine at Lumiere's. We ordered a bottle of Chardonnay to celebrate the voyage, but the wine that was poured was not chilled at all. My husband commented on that and asked it to be put on ice. Serving white wine cooler than room temperature seems like a very basic thing. I don't think the bucket had enough ice because when we tried again at the end of the meal it still wasn't very chilled but we drank some anyway and let it go, asking them to keep the rest for our next dinner. Water glasses were not topped off without asking, and when we asked for water there was a wait of several minutes. The food took a very long time to arrive, but we thought maybe that was our fault as we had not lined up early (we arrived on time but other tables next to us were already full). Our child got very tired of waiting as we had the late dining time of 8:15 pm and didn't finish until 10:15 pm.

On the second night we decided to go to Cabanas instead to eat quicker and missed Animator's Palate. Cabanas had excellent and prompt service. It was not crowded and we were able to get a great window table with no wait.

On the third night we had the pirate menu at Animator's Palate. We arrived early to line up and were the second party to enter the dining room. We had looked at the menu ahead of time and told our server right away that we were ready to order. We hoped to expedite the arrival of the courses this way. Service was still very slow and the people sitting in neighboring tables again got their food prior to us even though we had ordered several minutes prior. Our assistant waiter was totally focused on other tables and did not stop by, so we were not able to get our white wine saved from the 1st night or order apple juice for our daughter. We asked the main server for beverages and he chased the assistant server down who FINALLY arrived as we were already eating entrees. She mumbled "I'm sorry" as she poured the chardonnay that again had not been chilled. Water glasses again were not topped off and when the head server stopped by we had to ask him if we could get some water. We also had to follow up on where our food was when the wait was so long and others had already been served several minutes earlier. We left again feeling frustrated and that our strategy of arriving early had not worked.

On the last night we dined at Rapunzel's. We talked to the server at the beginning and voiced our wish that having looked at the menu in advance we would like to order right away in the hopes of getting the food faster. It helped a little bit but again we did not see the assistant server and water glasses were not refilled until dessert time, and after asking twice.

We observed the servers participating in some of the dining room entertainment (e.g. carrying lanterns at Rapunzel's), so maybe they are just stretched too thin?

On several occasions across these dining experiences my husband's food was delivered to me and mine to him. No big deal, we could redirect. Just another indication the servers were overwhelmed.

What should we do differently next time? We are hoping this was not the typical experience.

In past cruises we have normally given our servers a cash tip in addition to auto tip. I was sad this time the service did not warrant it. We enjoyed the food to the most part, just not the service.

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. From my Disney cruising experiences I can say this was not a typical dining experience. My rating of the dining staff on my Disney cruises range from highly acceptable to outstanding. Many times we have been asked by them throughout the cruise if there's anything they can do better. I wonder what happened with your serving team to cause them to ignore you so. Did you note this on the disembarkation questionnaire? Here's to hoping your experience is better on any future Disney cruises you may be on.

No, this is not typical, but in 30 DCL cruises, I've had some less than optimal serving teams as well. The "cure" is to talk with the head server (they person who is supposed to come around each night and ask you if everything is OK). He is in charge of about 8 serving teams and will either correct the situation or move you to a different team. If you cruise DCL again, I'd suggest that you speak to him on the first night if things are not satisfactory.

And yes, we've had that team where the food was always slow and cold....but many more times we've had excellent service.

Glad you enjoyed Cabanas. We've never had a bad experience there.

Thanks for confirming this is not the norm. Thinking the service would improve, we did not discuss with the head server. During a longer voyage we would have had to, but next time if this happens we will address it on the first night.

We failed to complete the survey, we have always done that on previous cruises though.

I'm sorry this was your experience. I'll just add my voice to those saying that this is not the norm. We've always had great servers. Our meals have stretched out pretty long, but I feel that they would have been expedited had we asked. I don't think getting there early makes any difference. However, telling them that you wanted your food quickly should. I would second saying something to your head server if things are not going well. I hope you get one of the normal amazing servers next time you cruise with Disney.

Out of curiosity, what did you think of the rest of the cruise in comparison to Royal and Princess?

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Out of curiosity, what did you think of the rest of the cruise in comparison to Royal and Princess?

Most of our cruises over the last 5 years have been on Princess Royal class ships (Royal and Regal). In comparison the biggest gap in our experience was in dining service as explained above as well as food availability. On the Magic the buffet was not open all day long and a few other venues also closed early. Even the pizza place Pinocchio's ran out of pizza every day (they would make more, but it surprised us they could not keep up with demand for something as basic as cheese pizza). Princess keeps the food going all day long but we also tend to eat too much. It was actually nice not to overeat for once on a cruise! Now that we know how the dining venues operate we could optimize our days better next time (and I will try to book earlier to secure the early dining). Since we had the late dining time of 8:15 pm we always got hungry in the late afternoon and found many food venues closed. We ended up having pizza every afternoon.

Other differences noted:

• Kids' club - Disney is the winner, their Oceaneer Lab and Club were amazing as well as the staff. We have also had very good experiences with the Princess kids' club - the facility is much smaller but our daughter enjoyed the activities very much and ability to get to know her travel companions in that more intimate setting. When we went on RCCL she was still too young to go to the club but we did check it out and it seemed nice.
  
• Upselling, pushing drink package etc. - we personally experienced none of this on Disney. On Princess we always end up with a few souvenir glasses to take home and buy several bottles of wine in the main dining room. On Disney I was asked only twice on the pool deck if I was interested in a drink (zero times during the sailaway party!) and in the main dining room they were not interested in recommending wine options at all (again this could have just been due to our particular service team). We are from California and love trying out new wines, so they missed out on some revenue opportunities with us. We tried two of the bars - Signals and O'Gills. At Signals there were 6 other customers and at O'Gills we were the only ones. Nightlife seemed very subdued on Disney, and it was already subdued on Princess in comparison with RCCL. This was fine with us, just a difference I did not expect - somehow I thought with those great kids' clubs the adults would really enjoy their time in the adults only venues but this did not prove out to be the case at least on our voyage.
  
• Gym utilization - we went to the gym on our sea day as well as Castaway Cay day and there were very few people there. The spa lady was so excited to see us when we first came to go to the gym that she personally walked us to the gym section and wished us a good workout. On Princess Royal class ships the gym gets very full and there may be a wait for a treadmill or exercise bike. This was a pleasant surprise, especially on the sea day.
  
• Space allocated to merchandise sales - Disney is the winner. Their main boutiques were spacious and well laid out. We enjoyed shopping for gifts and souvenirs in them. Both Princess and RCCL seem to favor special shopping events (such as the Outlet at Sea event on Princess that takes place in a dining room) and the actual boutiques are quite small.
  
• Entertainment was amazing on Disney. We only saw Tangled in the theater but it was impressive. There was tons of stuff to do each day that was relevant and interesting to us. It was hard to pick and choose. We like Princess entertainment as well but on some evenings don't see anything that interesting and just hang out in the room watching an on-demand movie.
  
• On Disney the pool deck had very attentive life guards on duty who used their whistles and enforced rules (no jumping!). This was a refreshing difference from Princess where during school holidays there can be 800+ kids and the going can get a little tough in the pools.
  
• I really liked our stateroom on Disney. On Princess we normally get a mini-suite or a full suite but on the Disney Magic we had a deluxe oceanview with the split bath. I was amazed at how functional it was and we felt like we had plenty of space for our family of 3. The only thing I would change is make the TVs a bit bigger.
  
• I loved the towel animals waiting for us in our stateroom. Princess does not make these, RCCL does. We loved the creativity of our stateroom steward - he would assemble our daughter's toys in new ways every night alongside the towel animal or dress them up in pirate bandannas. It was fun to discover what was waiting for us!
  

These are on top of my mind now, it's been 4 days since we disembarked. We definitely want to go back and take another Disney cruise!

Definitely atypical service. We've sailed 10 cruises with Disney. 2 times, we had a bad assistant/drink server. Our main server has always been excellent. Only once did we have a less than stellar dining experience though as on one of the cruises with a bad assistant server, the main server ran around after the drink server and even apologized for them (and we saw them having words about it about half way through the cruise).

Cabanas is always great, I think because it is where they train new servers, so they try extra hard to get into the main dining rooms.

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Cabanas is always great, I think because it is where they train new servers, so they try extra hard to get into the main dining rooms.

That's good to know and makes sense! The server we had at Cabanas was incredibly attentive. It was impressive service for a casual restaurant.

I basically concur with the Princess vs. Disney comments above. We've sailed both lines during the summer (more kids) ad off season (fewer kids).

Princess cabins are small. You have to book at least a mini-suite to get the same space that you have in a "normal" DCL cabin. But in most cases, a mini-suite on Princess is still cheaper than an inside on DCL!

Kid areas--Princess is much smaller, but there are way fewer kids on a typical Princess cruise. They are different, but both are quite good. Princess is in the process of revamping their kid programming; implementing the changes one ship at a time. Both the older and the newer version are good. The biggest difference between DCL and Princess kid programming is that Princess is more intimate, smaller, and more based on scheduled activities while on DCL a child could spend an entire day in "free play" activities if they didn't make the effort to participate in the scheduled things. Some kids like the noise and free play on DCL while others respond to the quieter and more scheduled program on Princess. Both are good.

DCL has life guards. Princess has signs that say "swim at your own risk" and advise parents that they are responsible for their children. One nice thing--on our summer Princess cruise, a letter was delivered to each cabin on the first day. It clearly explained that parents were responsible for monitoring the actions of their children at all times while on the ship or on excursions booked thru the ship and detailed what the penalties could be for actions of ill-behaved children. It was nicely written, but it clearly made the point. DCL could take a lesson from this!

Other than the first day, we didn't experience any "hard sell" of any sort of beverages on our recent Princess cruise. We were offered wine in the dining room twice; it wasn't mentioned after that. Yes, on embarkation day people are out on both lines--on DCL they are selling wine packages and cases of bottled water; on Princess they are selling various beverage packages. Other than that, there was an occasional "can I get you anything?" while seated at the pool deck.

Princess has gone to 43 inch flat screen TVs in all cabins. Ours was wall mounted. Nice.....not that I go on a cruise to watch TV, but still nice. In addition, the movies that were being shown in the theatres and "Movies Under the Stars" were also available on the TVs. These aren't brand new releases, but things that were in theaters about a month ago were common!

Overall atmosphere.....DCL is all about kids. Yes, I'm well aware of "adult only" activities and locations. Princess has a much wider demographic with many elderly people. The atmosphere on Princess is less hectic. Even during summer cruises with hundreds of kids on board, the overall atmosphere was more sedate.

Specialty restaurants--liked them on both lines

Food overall--we received a complimentary upgrade to "Club Class" on Princess. In contrast to previous Princess cruises, the service was very comparable to the excellent service on most DCL cruises. The food was by far the best I've had on a cruise in several years.