Palo "Book Twice the Dining"

Hello Cruise Critics,

It has been quite a while since I've cruised on Disney, a I recently got an e-mail stating the following:

"New Online Reservation Opportunity

You're now invited to make 2 dinner reservations at Palo during your cruise, as long as one of your reservations is on the first night of your cruise. Reservations are subject to availability and a specialty dining charge will apply"

I have a few questions:

1) Does this mean I'm limited to making only two reservations at Palo for the entirety of the cruise?

2) Does this mean I'm limited in making only two reservations online before the cruise?

3) Does this mean something else entirely and I'm just reading too much into it?

Thank you in advance for your time!

It seems to me that it implies that we were only allowed to make one reservation per sailing. (Which is news to me, but then again I’ve never tried to book twice). But now if you book Palo the first night, you can also book a second night. I’m not sure if that’s accurate, but that’s how i read it.

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Thank you for your response! I had to read it a few times, but that is what I thought too.

Just to be clear, in the past each person 18 or over could make ONE reservation at Palo for each type of meal they were serving--ONE dinner, ONE brunch, and in ancient times, one high tea. I would interpret this to mean that you can make two dinner reservations provided that one of them is on the first night of the cruise. I would also take it to imply that you can still make a brunch reservation.

A little trick that those of us who are frequent cruisers know--you can often get a second Palo dinner reservation without this special offer. You made your most desired reservation in advance. Then let the Palo manager know that you are interested in an addition opportunity and would like to be "wait listed." On day 2, you are likely to get a call notifying you that they do or do not have the availability to give you a second reservation. Day 1 is limited to one of each type of reservation for each guest. After that, any remaining spots are up for grabs to anyone who wants them.

Oh how I wish they still did high tea! That’s such a fun thing to do with a little girl. [emoji7]

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Oh how I wish they still did high tea! That’s such a fun thing to do with a little girl. [emoji7]

 

 

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Palo is and always has been adults only. High tea did not include children. Check out the Royal Tea if you want a children's event with princesses.

Oh that’s right. It didn’t even think about that. I did take the plunge and schedule the princess tea on our next cruise. Should be fun! They’re only young once, right! [emoji847]

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You are now allowed to book two Palo reservations in advanced as long as one of them is on the first night. When you go to the adult dining page and choose the first night, it says First Night Palo, the others nights will just say Palo. I think this is also true of Remy, but we have not tried to book Remy. We did prebook 2 Palo reservations last fall.

I'm guessing Palo must have been almost completely empty the first night of most sailings, hence this new "deal" or promotion. I'm one of those people who generally enjoys the MDR on Disney ships, and definitely wants to meet my dining room staff the first night, so this wouldn't entice me to book Palo the first night anyway. And as moki'smommy pointed out, we've never had trouble booking additional Palo meals once on board anyway!

Iceman, you are absolutely right--both about Palo being empty on the first night and the reason for that. Thus, they established the new category of "first night Palo" which does not count against your allotted Palo visit. I'm sure they'll get enough people to do it to make it worthwhile.

And to OP, it means you can still make one Palo reservation in each category:

1--"First night Palo"

1--Palo Dinner other than first night

1--Palo Brunch

And if you are concierge, you can book more thru them. And if you want more and are not concierge, you can contact the Palo manager and be waitlisted for openings.

The system wouldn’t allow you to book twice. But once onboard if we wanted to go again we could always find a booking. For us we would hate going the first night. It’s special to us to get to know your serving staff.

I had a first night Palo Dinner earlier this month. It was a wonderful start to the cruise.

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The system wouldn’t allow you to book twice. But once onboard if we wanted to go again we could always find a booking. For us we would hate going the first night. It’s special to us to get to know your serving staff.

Under the new system, you CAN book twice because "First Night Palo" is a different category than "Palo." It works the same as booking Palo dinner and Palo brunch--separate categories, you can book one of each. Only now there are 3 categories and you can still book one in each of the three.

No, the old system wouldn't allow you to book more than one Palo dinner or more than one Palo brunch. But once on board, you were able to book additional if available. We actually did 2 brunches on one cruise! It is just a matter of whether they are booked up or not.