One evening, Olaf threw some (fairly benign) shade at me as he was making his way around the large “Frozen”-themed dining room. A couple of nights later, Paul Rudd, as Ant-Man alter ego Scott Lang, implored me to activate the wonky Quantum Core contraption sitting on my table, thereby potentially messing with the molecular structure of my food. Yes, I was engaged and entertained. But, try as they might, neither the Nordic snowman nor the diminutive Marvel superhero could distract me from my meals.
That’s because they were delicious.
You might expect the dining experiences would be well themed and injected with whimsy aboard the Disney Wish, which is set to sail its maiden voyage on July 14 and will be the fifth member of the Disney Cruise Line fleet. This is a Mouse House production after all. What you might not expect is that the food itself would be wonderful. It is creative, artfully presented, tasty, and decidedly elevated compared to the more pedestrian meals served in the main dining rooms on the mass market cruise lines.
DCL pioneered the concept of “rotational dining.” Instead of having one or perhaps two ginormous dining rooms, as is the case on most other cruises, The Wish, like its sister ships, has three venues. Passengers are assigned successive seatings in all of the restaurants, and their servers follow them from venue to venue. That way, the waitstaff can get to know the guests and dote on them with attentive service. It’s a clever arrangement.
Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure is a dinner theater-like experience. The premise is that guests have been invited to a royal engagement party for Kristoff and Queen Anna. The meal is punctuated by performances of familiar tunes from the “Frozen” canon along with appearances by the perky characters. The animatronic Olaf is mighty impressive.
While children will likely be enchanted, I’m quite a bit outside the target demo for silly snowman hijinks. Also, it was a tad hard for my family to pay attention to the show and simultaneously pore over the tempting menu, order our meals, and converse with one another. That’s standard issue for dinner theaters I suppose.
Some of the effects in the tricked-out dining room/theater were apparently not working during our performance. (We were aboard the first sailing of the Wish, and many things were still in preview mode.) That may have had an impact on the show’s continuity.
But oh, the food.
I started with “Anna’s Koldtbord,” a smoked fish appetizer that was heavenly and skewed well to the Scandinavian theme. Like many of the dishes, it prominently featured dill. The pan-seared Chilean sea bass I ordered for my main course was deliciously moist and tasty as well as beautifully plated with a seared scallop sitting atop the fish, and white asparagus, peas, and kohlrabi offering contrasting colors and textures.
“We marry what we put on the plate with the story,” says Steve Walker, culinary director for Disney Cruise Line. “The food tells a story in itself.” The commitment to story extends beyond the food and can be seen in the custom-designed dinnerware, flatware, and other details. “Nothing is off the shelf,” Walker notes.
All of the Wish’s dining rooms were wonderful, but my family and I gave Arendelle top honors. The dishes were uniformly scrumptious. It’s a bit amazing to me that the kitchen can produce 700 servings, virtually all at once, and achieve such a high level of quality and artistry—and do the same thing at the same time at the ship’s other two restaurants.
The service was great; if anything, it was too attentive, with our servers frequently hovering in our vicinity and perhaps a smidge too eager to clear our dishes. Then again, we were assigned early seatings, and the staff needed to clear the restaurants and prepare them for the second round each evening.
“When the concept for the Worlds of Marvel restaurant was announced, we had a blank canvas,” says Andy Bell, culinary development manager for Disney Cruise Line. “We were able to add playful touches to the dishes.”
And how. For my main course, I opted for the lamb shawarma salad, which is a deconstructed take on the sandwich favored by the Avengers. An elegant interpretation of a fast-food item, it featured tasty roasted lamb served over pita triangles, roasted chickpeas, pickled cabbage, and other vegetables, and topped with tzatziki sauce. I started with a truly jumbo shrimp–a nod to Ant-Man’s Pym Particles– served over corn grits and collard greens.
The menu includes bao buns, “Wakandan” salads, and other references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The stark (see what I did there?) dining room has a vague industrial vibe. Apparently, the guests have been invited to attend a “Quantum Encounter” presentation hosted by Ant-Man and The Wasp. Taking a cue from the Animator's Palate dining experience on DCL’s other ships, the Worlds of Marvel includes screens throughout the dining room on which the characters appear. Predictably, things go horribly wrong during the demonstration, and other Marvel do-gooders are called into action to save the day.
I was prepared for some MCU action. What I wasn’t prepared for was the humor. Rudd and Evangeline Lilly, aka The Wasp, are laugh-out-loud funny. I was afraid the dulce de leche ice cream in my Pym doughnut sundae might come out of my nose.
The third dining room aboard the Disney Wish is 1923, an ode to the year that The Walt Disney Company was founded. (I wonder what The Mouse has in store to mark its centennial next year; it has to be something big, right?) Its Art Deco touches recall the Jazz Age and make for a stylish decor. The twin dining rooms (one is named for Walt Disney, the other for his brother Roy) are filled with animation cels, maquette sculptures, and other artifacts from the studio’s long and celebrated history.
Unlike the ship’s other two dining experiences, there is no show here. Guests have to actually make an attempt to converse with their table mates (sigh). The food leans into California cuisine. I was particularly taken with my ahi tuna appetizer, which was exquisitely arranged on a stylish black plate. The melt-in-your-mouth fish came adorned with pickled lotus root, yuzu mayonnaise, especially tasty seared oyster mushrooms, and something referred to as “black sesame brittle.” I haven’t a clue what it was, but it was quite good.
My son, who is a vegetarian, adored his “Buena Vista Soft Shell Tacos” entree, which featured quinoa instead of meat. Prepared with salsa fresca, pickled red onions, cashew cream, and other ingredients, the dish was another example of DCL chefs taking a fast casual staple and transforming it into something unexpected, delightful, and sophisticated.
For breakfast and lunch, guests can visit Marceline Market, the ship’s equivalent of the cruise ship buffet. Instead of getting the food themselves, servers behind glass partitions load up diners’ plates at the various stations. I hope this is a pandemic-era trend that sticks around.
The food in the nicely appointed market was generally quite good. The congee available at breakfast was a surprising and delicious dish.
Also available for lunch, as well as an informal dinner, is Mickey and Friends Festival of Foods, a food hall of sorts that offers items such as barbecue, pizza, burritos, and soft-serve ice cream. Fast-food offerings such as these are often found on other cruise ships, but it is a new and welcome concept for DCL. While the food was serviceable, nothing really stood out. For reasons that are unclear to me, many people were going bonkers for the unremarkable chicken tenders, which are apparently a DCL thing.
I did not get to try the adults-only, premium dining offerings on the Disney Wish, which include Enchanté, an especially upscale restaurant overseen by decorated chef, Arnaud Lallement, and Palo Steakhouse, which features Italian-inspired dishes along with chophouse favorites. I did, however, once have the pleasure of dining at Remy on the Disney Fantasy, which is also under the stewardship of Lallement, and it was one of the best culinary experiences I ever had.
There are other places to grab treats, snacks, and bites throughout the ship. And there are certainly plenty of bars aboard that offer beverages, not the least of which is the Star Wars: Hyperspace Lounge. Guests might want to cap off one of their dinners there by indulging in a Kaiburr Crystal cocktail, which goes for a mere $5,000. And yes, that’s in U.S. dollars, not Imperial credits.
Are you planning to sail aboard the Disney Wish? To what dining experience are you most looking forward? How have you enjoyed the food on other Disney cruises?
Very nice.