Disney Cruise Line’s Palo overview page, mentions the outside deck with an al fresco dining option on the Disney Dream and Disney Fantasy. However, after digging a little deeper, it appears this is being offered across the fleet and may have bene an option for some time sliding under this blogger’s radar.
Outside Deck
Palo is located on every ship in the Disney Cruise Line fleet. Aboard the Disney Dream and the Disney Fantasy, you have the option to dine al fresco—and bask in the fresh ocean breezes—on the private outdoor teak deck.
Guests first began to notice the option when booking Palo brunch and dinner aboard the Magic’s Mediterranean cruises this summer. I’d like to thank Sarah for passing along these screenshots from her online booking screen for a June Mediterranean cruise on the Magic showing the al fresco option.
Since weather conditions will certainly play a role in wether or not guests can opt to sit outside when dining at Palo, this is not an something you can book online. However, after speaking with a customer support representative at DCL, guests interested in al fresco dining should still pre-book Palo online as usual and if weather conditions are conducive, ask to be seated outside when you arrive for your reservation.
It will be interesting to see how this is handled on the classic ships compared to the Dream and Fantasy which have a more protected outdoor seating area than the open aft deck on the Magic and Wonder.
I have a hard time seeing how it will work on the Magic and Wonder short of using the seating outside Cabanas a deck below. While this would work, it isn’t that convenient for the servers and brunch guests. Weather would need to be cooperative for it to work on the deck immediately outside Palo and would require both guests and servers to either use of the door in the private room or the main entrance.
Disney Magic Aft Palo Seating Area
Regardless, I am absolutely interested in al fresco dining at Palo if the weather is cooperative. I should note, the photos of the plates are from 2014 on the Dream. Emily and I had drinks outside Meridian prior to our dinner reservation. I do not recall an option to sit there on this evening, but I believe this was around the time small bites were being offered at Meridian which would explain the table setting.
If you have had an al fresco dinner or brunch at Palo, please let us know what you thought of the experience below in the comments.
We have not done it but we have seen a few people eat out there on the Dream and Fantasy. Always seems very windy. We like to go to Meridian in the evening/night time and on one occasion the bartender told us if we wanted dinner or dessert that we could sit out there. We declined because it was so windy and had just eaten dinner.
It was not an option on the Wonder as of two weeks ago. In fact, we had a nice chat with our Palo server about Guests walking (or even exercising) in the area and not seeing Guests inside due to the almost one-way mirror windows. We enjoyed a well over 15 minutes selfie session by a couple of teens. Some Guests brought up food from Cabanas too. This was during Palo brunch offering.
I like to do yoga in that area every sea day morning around 10:30-11:00. I am a large middle age man and I never knew there was brunch going on behind the glass, as you can’t see in. Well, I believe the Palo brunchers were getting a free show. Lucky them!
The story we were told was of a middle age woman practicing yoga, and did not “appreciate” the staff making her aware there were Guests dining inside.
Just checked and this is an option on the transatlantic next month. We find it to be too windy most of the time for that to be enjoyable imho.
I’ll need to keep that in mind when I go in January on the Fantasy! Didn’t know it was available last time…
We did it on the Fantasy in 2013. We checked in for our dinner reservation and they asked us if we wanted to eat outside. It was fantastic! Ate right up by the railing. Only ones out there! We loved it!
Crazy, I really wish I would have asked years ago when I took those pictures.
On the Dream in March there were people dining outside. I think they still need to work on logistics for this. We were seated very close to the buffet area, but our server was also responsible for the outside table. This made for a lot of walking for him and some extra wait time for us.