My guess is that this is common to all cruise ships because there’s a reason for it. The main restaurants are churning out hundreds of meals an hour. It’s hard to do that and have each one be top notch. The upcharge restaurants probably have their own kitchens, or their own part of the main kitchen, and are only serving tens of meals an hour: so they can focus much more on quality.
I’m very pleased that I managed to get a reservation at Palo on the Magic. I booked brunch so that I don’t miss out on the standard three rotational restaurants. Many critics — not least Touring Plans itself — say that brunch is better than dinner.
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Yes, that is what I’ve been reading / watching about how the food is made. However, Disney in particular gets called out for it (possibly b/c they’ve set the bar so high with their good theme park food?). I was actually going to recommend Palo brunch to you! 
If I get to go on a DCL some day–what am I saying, it’s a major bucket list item–ahem, when I go on a DCL one day I will definitely be booking Palo or similar at least once.
This may also be because they’ve set the bar for pricing, too. If you’re going to charge a premium over other lines, people are going to expect a premium product. I know I am!
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I tend to think I’d like the food on DCL, but I am easy to please when it comes to restaurant food. I have, however, heard better things about other cruise lines’ food, such as Princess. (But, I have yet to take my first crusie, so this is all from other sources.) The one big takeaway for me is that I’d want to sample a specialty restaurant just to see the difference. I’m booked on a Princess cruise for a year from now and I plan to do at least one dinner at the steak house, just to see. I agree with mousematt that the experience of going to the DCL main restaurants is not to be missed so I’d probalby also do the Palo brunch or similar if I were with them.
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I still get major sticker shock when I price DCL compared to other cruise lines, but I still really want to do it. The cruise I have booked is solo, so when I add in my family of 5 the price for DCL goes sky high (and I’d like to have my kids along if going DCL). Still, I’d like to do it someday, even if we can only afford a short one.
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Disney > RCL even RCL has more and bigger ships. Disney food is better, the upscale dining is some of the best food I’ve ever eaten, the service is better and to me the most important thing is not being up sold all the time which RCL felt like a car dealership to me in that regard.
Can you elaborate? I had to cancel an RCL because of covid, and I’d like to do one soon enough. I have never experienced this on Princess or Carnival or NCL. I don’t want to feel like we are batting off sales all the time. We are looking at Independence class. Thanks!
@Kitty_Ellas_Mom Oh, you’ll have fun. I pretty much always have fun . . . but I but a lot of prep work/research into making sure that happens! On big cruises, though, I just really have to make sure my expectations are managed.
Like you go to the bar and they try to sell you the wine tasting and then a chef comes by and tries to sell you the chefs table and then when you walk on there are all these people standing around with advertisements trying to sell you drink packages. That kind of stuff didn’t happen on Disney at all except the water package once at the pool. There was more of that kind of nickeling and diming you for extras especially the first day of the cruise. Kind of like walking thru a mall and the girl at the flat iron booth tells you she loves your hair and can she flat iron it. I just don’t like that.
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I did Chefs Dining table and Remys and Palo. Both Remys and Palo were better than the Chefs table. Our waiters on RCL told us that if you rate something bad like the quality of the food they are the ones that get punished for it on RCL and i didn’t like that either. And the masseuse was great on RCL but the pedicurist/manicurist was so rough. It hurt so bad. I’ve never experienced anything like that. There was a part of the ship that smelled bad that I would avoid that hall but that might not be an issue on the brand new ships. It just didn’t feel anywhere the same level as Disney but I did Disney first (and I did still have a wonderful time I’m just comparing the things Disney did better). I enjoyed the ice skating show and rink, the musical was alright but not as good as BatB. I did enjoy some of the paid for restaurants and there are more of those on RCL but I didn’t like the food very much in the main dining room and I liked Disney’s better.
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Thank you.
We did DCL in 2014. They did give us the whole spiel re: tips. Glad to hear they’ve dropped that.
I would love to do another DCL someday, but I can do 2-3 non-DCL cruises for the same price, so it won’t be for a while. 
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I can understand that logic.
Developments have developed.
Per my other thread I’ve called time of death on my August WDW trip.
So I’ve booked the MSC Virtuosa — in addition to my DCL cruise. It’s another UK only cruise. Seven nights, veranda cabin, all-inclusive (including drinks) and it does actually stop at places you can go visit. End of August.
So I’ll get to see both sides of the cruising experience.
I’m not fully excited yet — I’m anxiously awaiting my friend Sarah’s confirmation that she can look after Calvin. If not, I’m screwed. I already paid the deposit. I got a bit excited.
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I am excited and happy for you! You deserve it!
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Hey - at least you can cruise from your own country. See. You do have something we don’t have.
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This is actually quite confusing. Where is the consistency in the rules?
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You really don’t have any problem asking for the moon, do you?
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(This is sarcasm, by the way.)
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