Staying flexible can often lead to a better vacation experience, especially when you’re taking a cruise with kids.
Even if you’re taking a magical family vacation with Disney Cruise Line, stuffing your cruise schedule with too many activities can lead to cranky kids and stressed-out parents.
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It’s always a good idea to plan some downtime and have multiple options for how to enjoy your time based on everyone’s moods. This can include keeping your options open at mealtimes, too.
But when it comes to dinner on a Disney cruise ship, your options for family dining are somewhat limited, and that’s something many loyal Disney cruisers would like the cruise line to change.
A number of passengers made that clear in a recent discussion in the DCL community on Reddit. Many families who sail with Disney Cruise Line love its rotational dining system, where passengers rotate to a different themed dining restaurant each night, but it’s not for everyone. Some say dinner is simply too long.
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Adults can enjoy additional dining options with Disney Cruise Line’s adult-exclusive specialty restaurants, but dinner options for families are somewhat limited.
Image source: Disney Cruises.
Disney cruise passengers want more options for dinner
Dinner in the main dining restaurants typically takes 1.5 hours or longer, and some passengers want to enjoy a quicker dinner on certain nights. Besides room service, poolside pizza and quick-service bites are available, but many passengers are looking for something more from a sit-down perspective.
“Not everyone wants to spend 1.5 hours at dinner but also don’t want pizza/room service either,” downsouth003 explained in the Reddit discussion.
Passengers would like to have the option to eat dinner in the cruise line’s buffet-style restaurants, Cabanas and Marceline Market, where breakfast and lunch are served. The cruise line offered a casual dinner service at Cabanas in the past, but does not currently offer a sit-down family dinner option outside of its main rotational dining restaurants.
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“My biggest complaint is the lack of food options at dinner,” Snowday2025 noted. “With young kids/toddlers, sometimes you just don’t want the hassle of eating a long meal in the dining room, but want something other than room service. We have to be quick to get up to the pool deck options before they close if we decide we don’t want to go to the dining room.”
The fact that most of the quick-service food stations on the pool deck close by dinner time is also problematic for passengers.
“If they are not going to have the buffet sit-down option return, please at least keep all the pool deck food open till 10 p.m. — not just the pizza,” GreatBigBeautifulTmm suggested.
Disney cruise passengers want new dinner menu items too
The discussion also revealed that loyal passengers would like to see the main dining restaurant dinner menus refreshed occasionally to provide some new dishes to try.
“Been on 7 cruises. On 3 ships. I’m tired of eating the same things. They really need to do something with the menus,” jrobertson50 wrote. “They need more tastings; they get booked too fast.”
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“Change the menus. Most menus have been the same since the ship first sailed with little change,” jimfish98 pointed out. “There are favorites, but there is plenty of room to make some changes so every cruise doesn’t feel repetitive.”
Another passenger suggested that something as simple as having a small section of the menu with rotating specials would improve their cruise experience.
“This is the biggest one for me,” Doctor_Juris agreed. “I know changing menus is a huge logistics issue, and some people will complain if their particular old favorite isn’t available. But they need to do something to mix it up. Maybe add 1-2 extra ‘seasonal’ items each night that they rotate in and out.”
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