Ok, I am SO lost. Booked a 3-night on Disney's Dream. Overwhelmed by info, links, descriptions... argh!
Starting a thread for the newbie I am at cruises. PLEASE help!
1st, let's start with my basic ned: FOOD - when we do the DW parks, we have the meal plan. We stop and eat QS whenever we like, or I book sit-downs months in advance. How the heck do you eat on a ship? Do I book my meals? Eat when I want? Is all food included? Certain restaraunts have additional costs? (I know alcohol is extra).
I'll ask more questions as we go. Thanks in advance!
Congrats!
As far as food goes for breakfast Cabanas will be open all morning and its a huge buffet style environment. They have just about every breakfast food you can think of and some things you probably didn't realize were breakfast foods. No need to reserve. Since you will be on the Dream you may also do breakfast at Enchanted Garden as well. Same food as Cabanas just a different location. On your last morning, you will eat breakfast in the restaurant that you had dinner in the night before. If all this is just too much food and you want something simple and quite you can always have room service deliver breakfast to your room or you can head Cove Cafe for a good coffee and some pastries. Coffee's and lattes at CC do have an additional cost but the pastries there are complimentary.
For lunch, again, Cabanas is open and will have swapped out the breakfast food for lunch food. No need to reserve, just stop in any time during lunch as much as you want. In addition to Cabanas, there is Flo's cafe that includes Luigi's pizza, Tow Mater's grill, and Filmore's favorites. Here you can get burgers, salads, pizza's, and sandwiches virtually all day. Flo's is located conveniently between the adult pool and the family pool. Again, no need to reserve, just pop in as much and whenever you like. Also located between the adult pool and family pool is EyeScream which will serve softserve ice cream all day long. (NOTE: you can have mickey bars, in addition to regular food, delivered to your room at no charge!) Also next to the family pool are the drink stations. These are self serve coke& coffee stations. These are available all day long as well, no extra charge.
For dinner you will be assigned a dining rotation and it will either be early, 6:15, or late, 8:15. You will receive your rotation and seating time about a month before your cruise when they mail you your cruise booklet. Since you're doing a three day you will have one dinner each at Animator's Palate, Royal Palace, and Enchanted Garden. You may be seated with another family/couple during the dining. You will have the same wait staff each night as they move with you from restaurant to restaurant. If you decide rotational dining isn't for you the you can just go to Cabanas! For dinner Cabanas turns into a sit down restaurant where you can order from ANY menu from the other restaurants that evening. This is good if you just don't want to sit with other people, want to eat dinner at a different time one night, or just because you feel like it! Additionally, say you're at Enchanted Garden and nothing is appealing to you but you really liked what you saw on the Royal Palace Menu they will bring you anything you want from any other menu. Also, there is no limit or real structure to ordering. You want 3 entrees for dinner , do it! You want 2 appetizers, a salad and 2 desserts, do it! the service team will even encourage you to try multiple items so you are happy.
The above assumes you have no specialty dining reserved, i.e. Palo brunch or Palo/Remy dinner. Palo and Remy are by reservation only and do incur an additional fee.
All this to say that, even after 3 days, you will be tired of food because it is ALWAYS available!
To speak to your alcohol comment. DCL allows each guest of drinking age to bring either 1 6-pack of 12oz beer OR 2 bottles of wine on board PER PORT. So if you decide to grab an extra bottle of wine or some more beer at Nassau you may bring it back on the ship and enjoy it.
Finally, BOOK A PLACEHOLDER WHILE ON BOARD! Its a fully refundable $250 that is applied to a future cruise that you have 18 months to book. The PH will also get you 10% off non restricted cruises. PH's are only available while you are cruising. Not getting a PH was my only regret from our first DCL cruise.