Adult Solo Dining Reviews: Remy Brunch, Palo Brunch, Palo Dinner & tastings!

[Lisa F]

I know a lot of people are stressed and anxious right now about things, but I just got off the 2/22 Fantasy and wanted to share my reviews of the adult dining I did as a solo. I didn't find much except a few references to people who have done Palo Brunch solo, and I figure there will be at least someone else interested in how things went down for me - both from the food/experience aspect and from the solo aspect.

Also I did all 3 of these adult dining experiences and will at the end compare and contrast them for those who are considering which to do (since it's just me it is cheaper to do all 3!)

I also did 3 tastings and will talk generally about how those were and also specifically how they were solo.

I did a 7 night eastern caribbean with SWDAS and 3 sea days.

I did Remy Brunch at 11:30 and then Mixology at 4pm on the first sea day
I did Palo Brunch at 10am and then Wine Tasting at 1:45pm on the second sea day
I did Palo Dinner in lieu of my 2nd Enchanted Garden dinner
I did chocolate and liquor tasting at 3:45 on St. Thomas day after a morning only excursion.

I will devote one post to each experience with photos and thoughts and then offer some final thoughts and comparisons and of course answer some questions along the way. Hoping to bring a little lightness and fun to the board while reliving a completely awesome vacation! So stay tuned, this is just the intro (yes I'm such a tease!)

A little background on me - I am CC gold, having taken 5 cruises prior to 2005 and then I took my son with his grandparents (my parents) on the Disney Dream in 2018, so I have a total of 6 cruises under my belt but my 2018 Dream cruise was my first in a VERY long time and first on the Dream class. I am familiar with Palo brunch and dinner from the classic ships of old, and this is probably the only place in the world where people won't think I'm nuts but along with those "being unprepared for a test in high school" nightmares I also have some nightmares about "not booking Palo in advance" even though it was like, decades since my last Disney cruise. Even so, I did not do any adult dining then, choosing to focus on family togetherness stuff (though I will say that the drink of the day helped immensely with that) but on my most recent cruise, I was really hoping my now highly independent kiddo would allow for me to do some solo adult activities and I booked a bunch.

I really agonized about whether to book Remy or Palo for brunch and ended up at some point saying "what the heck, it's vacation!" and booked both. I worried about whether it would be too much, but they are both such vastly different experiences, it was not remotely too much - so if you're wondering and interested in both, I'd absolutely do both in the same cruise hands down.

I did NOT want to book any dinners because I figured it would be too weird as a solo with other couples dining, but I had such a lovely time at both of my brunches and was made so comfortable I ended up booking Palo dinner for later in the cruise while on board (this actually worked out fine because I could not have really planned something ahead of time until seeing how my cruise was laying out.)

The way my schedule laid out with tastings and wanting to keep SWDAS completely clear for Star Wars activities, I ended up with Remy brunch before Palo brunch and wondered if that would be a mistake... because as a psychotic Disney World planner I worry about stuff like that. It was absolutely not a mistake.

I also wondered if having a brunch and tasting on the same day would be too much but also, that worked out just fine too - I made sure to keep them as far apart as possible (hence the early Palo brunch) but approximately 4 hours was fine - it gave me 1.5-2 hours for the meal then a couple of hours to lay around like a beached whale or a python digesting a small human, take a nap and sober up for the tastings. So if you're thinking about it - I would not schedule it right after but 3:45-4 hours after worked out alright for me.

So that's it for general info. I am waiting for my google photos to sync so I can start writing up Remy! Enjoy!

 

[suedon70]

Yes! Looking forward to your reviews of Remy brunch and Palo dinner

 

[JM_97]

Can't wait to hear about Palo brunch! That's the one thing I definitely want to do on my next cruise.

 

[Magical_Suitcase]

Yea, so happy you are sharing your solo experiences! Love your writing style and am looking forward to sharing your vacation vicariously.

 

[AZMermaid]

Yay following along! If we have to reschedule our July cruise, we will likely have a sizable OBC to use... so we may be doing multiple premium meals too!

 

[anjuan]

Very excited to hear about your experiences since I'm signed up for both brunches as a solo!

 

[tlprice]

Thank you! I have my 8th cruise booked for June and it was the first time I was able to get a Palo brunch. I have tried before, but nothing was ever available and since it is just me, I never pushed to get a reservation once on the ship. I am a little apprehensive about doing it by myself, so I can't wait to hear your experiences. I did the Remy dessert thing solo on my first cruise and it was pretty great, but I did feel a little self conscious being the only solo (I think they gave me the best table though and my server was FABULOUS!)

 

[SamFaniam]

Looking forward to seeing your reviews. I hope you and your son are both feeling well, as I know you were concerned about the sick kid on the bus.

 

[Lisa F]

So apparently I had my auto backup turned off for my photos so it took most of last night to update my photos. But now I have them! I did not mean to be a tease!

So now - Remy Brunch.

There are not a lot of reviews about this experience out there. A few. I remember reading shortly before I left that the menu was due for an update and it was, in fact, a little bit different from all of the reviews that I have read - not a total overhaul but a few changes and tweaks.

First of all, I wanted to address dress. I was so busy and stressed at work going into this trip that I ended up packing a couple of nice but comfortable dresses and that's it. I wore them for "formal" night, I wore them for my brunches, I wore them for Palo dinner and I even wore it one night just because I felt like it. I wore the black one for brunch and REALLY agonized over whether to wear a pair of basic black thong style sandals (but with a back) or strappy high skinny heeled shoes. I know what the dress code says but I was really agonizing over whether I could get away with the more comfortable shoes. In the end I decided on the fancy shoes, but once I got there and saw everyone else's shoes I wished I had worn the comfortable ones. I really didn't get the feeling that anyone was looking at my feet (even though I was looking at everyone else's) and when I went up to the podium no one seemed to check it out either. This is for brunch, maybe they care more for dinner. It was fine either way as it's not like I spent much time on my feet, just a little.

So the brunch began as I've read in other reports. You go into this room and they have little tables set up with a couple (just one for me) glasses of included champagne and some Jamon Iberico Pata Negra (fancy ham from Spain.) When I walked in the chef was already talking to the two couples there and a 3rd couple arrived after I did. I arrived a bit early and was brought right in so it struck me as kind of weird that it felt like I showed up after the presentation had already started. The chef was the French dude, I'm guessing "Amaud" by the name on the menu. I am normally pretty good with accents but since we were all grouped around him and he kept switching who he made eye contact with I found him very hard to follow. He gave a talk about the Iberico ham and then the sommelier explained the champagne options... there was the base champagne option for $35 per person which contained 3 pairings, 1 pairing per two courses and then dessert. Then there was the upgraded pairing, which is 5 pairings and I believe that I blocked out the price of it once he said it but it was definitely 3 figures somewhere. He showed us all of the bottles and talked about the champagnes and he, too, had a heavy accent and had the back of his head to me for much of the time so I didn't catch a whole lot of what he said.

Here is a picture of the Iberico ham, it was delicious - kind of like proscuitto but it is a bit more fatty (not in a gross way but in a luxurious way) and a little less chewy. I liked it a lot. I may have eaten the outer "petal" of my jamon rose before taking this photo:



and here is the included champagne and also a big tray of napkins, it's almost like they knew who they were dealing with here!



I don't see what kind of champagne this is on my menu and I don't know a lot about champagnes so it wouldn't ring a bell anyway but it was great with the ham and I'm sure you can google another Remy review and find out. From henceforth it shall be known as the kind of champagne that makes Lisa make poor financial decisions.

And since I accidentally posted this I will continue my review in the next post... I promise I have not been drinking champagne!!!

 

[Lisa F]

So the other thing that happened at this intro to brunch session is that the chef brought out this plate under a glass dome with a removable top on the dome containing a black truffle. I've had truffle oil and I've had things with tiny black bits in it but I don't think I've ever seen a full out truffle before. Honestly, it looks like a big turd under a glass dome (I am not really super fancy even though I can play a fancy person with the best of them) but man did it smell AMAZING! He let everyone take a whiff saying you'd be spoiled for "truffle oil" after and he was right - nothing really compares to real black truffle and it was an amazing opportunity to see a huge whole one that probably cost a few hundred $$ for one that size, and we also got to smell it for free. If you wanted to taste it, it was an upcharge (i mean, it's Disney after all!)

The other thing that may or may not be of interest to you is that I had gastric sleeve surgery a few years ago. I can eat what I consider to be "normal" portions, which is a normal serving of protein (4-6 oz depending) and a normal serving of a side or two but not much more than that. But if I "graze" I can eat more than that - I don't do that on a regular basis because it's a good way to get a lot of extra calories I don't need, but it does make holidays and special occasions a bit more festive because I can pretty much try whatever I want if i just take my time and go slow and savor it. And that was my plan with this meal.

So after the ham tasting and the champagne sipping and the truffle sniffing, I was finally brought to my table. One thing I worried about is how weird it might be being a solo in a very couple oriented restaurant... but I'm here to say - not at all. This is my first solo dining experience ever so I was a little nervous, but nothing a glass of poor financial decision making champagne can't fix. I was led to a beautiful booth right at the end of the row of window tables, which was nice, because I wasn't in the middle of all of these couples but off to the side in relative peace and quiet and total comfort. PURELY in the interest of trying to show off where I was, I took a selfie so you can kind of get a little bit of an idea - it was a 3/4" circle booth and quite private and lovely without feeling cut off from the restaurant, staring out at the ocean.





If anyone saw that earlier post about the premium restaurant wines, my PLAN had been to try a nice glass of something with the brunch. But I don't know if it was the free bubbles or the beautiful day or the smell of the truffle or the blue eyes of the sommelier as he talked about what an absolute BARGAIN the pairing was that made my cheap single mother heart go pitter patter, but I ended up going with the champagne pairing. Honestly, not sure what I was thinking given I don't have a huge tolerance and I have read reviews saying it's too much for one person and better split but I blame the included champagne and now realize why they include it.

I was also asked if I wanted to sample the truffle and it was explained that it would be served to me on a creamy pasta dish if I wanted it, 10 grams shaved tableside by the chef, for $50 extra. My math abilities at that point were pretty severely compromised but somehow I came up with a formula in my head involving the cost of the overall cruise, how long it had taken me to save for it, likelihood of me returning to Remy in the near future and probability of me running into a real black truffle in my daily life and I came back with a "yeah, bring it." So here I am now having doubled my original expenditure within about 15 minutes of arriving at the restaurant.

But hey, it's vacation, right?

So the waiter brought the bread and the butter and he explains that the butter is unsalted... there is plain, there is something with red (I think maybe roasted pepper but honestly... tipsy at this point), and something with black, which I think was seaweed - along with a little salt cellar and tiny spoon to salt your own bread and butter, which I found precious because I actually own salt cellars and salt spoons. Oh also I forgot to mention that in the standing intro the chef had explained the bread to us too, how when he got there the bread was soso and it was NOT the baker's fault, but he finally traced it down to them using the wrong flour and then he got the right flour and bread nirvana was reached. He named the flours but as much as I like to cook I don't bake, so the word was meaningless to me - I can't remember now remotely what it was, darn you champagne.

The bread was good, I didn't like the flavored butters nearly as much as the plain because the plain was so lovely and the flavors masked the lovely buttery flavor, which is the best thing about butter. I had to go easy on the bread because I basically won't have room for anything else if I more than nibble at it, but it was worth the nibble. This was served with the first glass of champagne, which is the Taittinger Prestige Rose Brut, along with the first course. It kind of all came out together and I took a photo of it also showing my lovely view.



And here is a photo of just the first course, Asparagus/Egg is all it says in the menu. I'm sure I was given a better description, I'm sure I don't remember it. I remember being directed to kind of eat a little bit of all of the things on the plate together so that's what I did. The asparagus was cooked perfect, nice and crunchy and definitely the woody parts that I subject my family to because I am too lazy to peel it and also too cheap to discard too much of the end was not present. There were also little baby egg yolks presumably from little baby eggs, some creamy sauce stuff (which I can't remember details on) and some flower petals and I think pickled onions, some tiny croutons and a tiny bit of caviar. I remember at this point thinking the champagne pairing was a good idea because it really did enhance the food, which can be quite rich (even though this dish was mostly light and crisp, the sauce and yolks were quite rich.) I cut this into tiny bites and savored each bite with a mix of things on the plate, and already was a good 10 minutes behind everyone else at my seating by the time I was done. During the first course the waiter kept checking on me and I was starting to feel a little agitated, like I was going too slow - but I think he was just trying to figure out my pacing because in subsequent courses he didn't check on me past seeing how it was and then let me eat in peace, but I definitely got the feeling that my pacing was WAY slower than they are accustomed to. But I made a joke about it and he said something about me being on vacation blah blah

Anyway here is another photo just of the asparagus dish, which was super light and super delicious and also super beautiful:



After clearing my plate the second course paired with the rose came out and it was Pate en Croute/Airelles.



I wasn't sure what to expect of this as this kind of a thing is not something I'd choose to order. I am pretty sure that this dish is largely the same as the previous on the brunch because I've seen it before, but just found a picture and it seems that the pate stuff is slightly less gelled and slightly more chunky, which is ok by me. It's served with greens and baby pickled artichokes which I think is the same as before and a little dollop of very dark red jelly, which I thought I heard them say was cranberry, but it did not taste like that to me.... so I just googled airelles and it looks like it is more like a lingonberry, which definitely makes more sense with what it tasted like. I don't know what this thing was like before but I think that the airelles was definitely an awesome addition to this dish - the jelly was SUPER strong so it took me a couple of bites to figure out the right ratio of jelly to pate, but it was delicious - I do not think I would have enjoyed this nearly as much without the jelly to be honest, so yay for this menu tweak. By now the people around me are done a full course ahead of me though because it took me a very long time to eat this as well.

So now we're about to move on to the truffles and the second glass of champagne so I am going to put that in the next post because this is already very long.

 

[BadPinkTink]

looking forward to your solo tastings reviews. I'm a solo cruiser and I plan on doing tastings on my September cruise

 

[Lisa F]

So now we are going to take a break from your regularly scheduled brunch to add in the truffle course. My 2nd glass of champagne, the Pommery 'Pop Gold' '08 (the year my son was born) was poured and my little tiny plate of pasta was brought out to me and then the chef appeared with the truffle (not the big huge one that was living under the dome but a small piece) and the shaver. He let me sniff it again and then began to shave what was to his eye 10 grams, but he had a little tiny end left and said "i'm not going to bring this back into the kitchen" and shaved off a few more slices along with the end onto my plate, so what you are seeing is probably about an additional half portion.

Here is the long view first, showing champagne as well:


and here is a closeup of the dish:



This was, without a doubt, my favorite thing of the whole brunch - so while pricey, I definitely feel it was worth it. My brunch was on Feb 23rd and curiously enough this addition rang up as "valentine special" so I am not sure if they always have truffles as an option when in season or just had a bunch left from valentine's day or what. I have zero regrets about spending $50 on this and if they offered it as a small plate in the meridian lounge I'd be in there every night dropping $75 for a plate of this and a glass of champagne, no joke. The pasta was perfectly cooked with a light creamy sauce, perfectly salted and the truffles were divine. Nutty, earthy, I'm not even sure how to describe it because it's like nothing I've ever eaten. Zero regrets, even now that I've sobered up and realizing it looks like little slices of brains.

Moving on to the next course, they were quite proud that their scallops come from Massachusetts. Well, so do I! Full disclosure: I live on Martha's Vineyard, we get fresh nantucket bay scallops right out of the ocean in season as well as local sea scallops, so I am basically super picky when it comes to scallops. Like even at the stop and shop they are local. There is just no earthly way to compete with that. But anyway, the next course is Pain de St Jacques/Oignon



It's basically a scallop mousse sandwich in non-fancy terms. The crispy top is actually a super thin toasty piece of bread and I believe there was a piece on the bottom that was less toasty. It was super smooth and light and had a nice scallop flavor that paired with the super light creamy sauce and the sweetness of the onions (there was the white part of the green onion that appeared to be lightly braised a bit with the sharpness taken out of it but still crispy and then the charred other kind of baby onion that had a bit of a smoky flavor to it.) This was really good and probably my favorite non premium add on part of the meal but the scallop part did taste ever so slightly fishy (not super fishy, but if you've ever had a fresh scallop you know there is not even a remote hint of fishiness to it, it's all just plain sweet) but that is just my regional snobbery coming out. It was really good and I ate it all. By now everyone else is pretty much done with their meal and getting those extra little pastry things they serve and I'm like WAAAAY behind. No one made me feel rushed about it at all but I definitely was aware of people starting to wind down their meals and I'm not even in the main course yet.

The next course was the Poulet Rouge/Corn course. I think this (and the scallop) are the same as before but this was definitely the weakest of the courses. They described the painstaking process of making it, the special chickens they use, the separating of the skin to stuff the corn bread stuffing in the middle of it and then the juicy chicken and the crispy skin. This was absolutely none of that. The chicken was super tough and the skin was not crispy at all but actually a bit rubbery. Of course by now I am completely stuffed and pretty much blotto on the champagne and still afterglowing on the truffles and honestly could not really eat much more than I had already so it didn't ruin the meal for me or anything and I didn't even say anything because what would they do? bring me something else I could not eat at that point? So this is the reason I mention my pacing, I'm thinking this kind of a dish is not something that can really be prepared fresh so they probably time it for their typical service time and I'm sure this sat a good 20 minutes or more because that's how far behind I was between the extra course and my slow pace to begin with. I'm thinking that this particular chicken preparation does not improve with age unfortunately and the meat toughens up and the skin loses its crisp, but I'd love to hear from anyone else who has had it what they think. The little balls looked like brussels sprouts but they were actually spinach wrapped in a full spinach leaf for presentation and nothing really special - just tasted like spinach. They were just ok also. This is definitely the weak spot of the meal, and I just picked at it.



up next: dessert

 

[suedon70]

OMG I'm loving this review so far - after 9 cruises I still haven't dined at Remy and now I really want to due to your review

 

[Lisa F]

So dessert is the biggest departure from the old menu now that I found another recentish review.

Full disclosure: I am not a HUGE fan of dessert. There are certain things I like but if I don't LOVE it, I won't eat it if I'm just meh on it. It has to be absolutely delicious for me to bother. I'm also not a fan of wet cake. it's a texture thing. I had gone back and forth in my head whether to just be a good sport and give the wet cake they had by default a good try because there have been numerous times in my life when I've tried something that on paper I knew I wouldn't like but that in reality I ended up liking (but I really was having a hard time picturing that with wet cake) OR ask if they had an alternate, which I had heard they had if you REALLY didn't like something.

As it turned out, it wasn't an issue, because the wet cake is gone, replaced by a single word. Pomme. Which I know is French for "apple" because I spent a summer in France. The chef actually gave a talk about this too right at the beginning, including a history of this particular dish and details on the preparation which would have been super interesting had I been able to understand more than 20% of the words he was saying. His accent is super strong and without direct eye contact for the whole thing I could only get the gist of what he was saying.

Also a funny thing happened with the champagne. I was pretty seriously tipsy at this point having had 3 glasses of champagne by now but I did recognize that the champagne that he poured out for me was from the premium pairing and I asked him about it and he had, in fact, made a mistake. HOW I had enough awareness to realize this was beyond me. It's too bad I was full and had had more than enough champagne because I ended up with both dessert pairings and only took a tiny sip of either of them. The Pomme was served with some vanilla bean ice cream served in a bowl with an impossibly large rim that put it ridiculously far away when side by side with the Pomme dish. But here is my dessert table, with two glasses of champagne, the Pomme and the ice cream and the ocean.



This dessert was pretty - here is a closeup of just the Pomme (I think I just like saying Pomme honestly!)



So I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how they got a single thin slice of apple that was like 6" in diameter and no hole for the core. In my highly tipsy state this looked like a single smooth slice of apple but now I see in the photo that it's actually a perfect circle composed of many smaller slices of apple - from the top down it looked seamless. So I guess that solves that mystery.

The crust was sort of a lighter shortbread type texture and not too sweet, the apples were very soft in texture (almost like solid applesauce, you could have eaten this without teeth) but the overall dish fell kind of flat for me. But as I said, I'm kind of not a super big dessert person to start with and I'm overly picky about desserts in general, and will more often than not be meh on whatever dessert I am served, so I may not be the best judge of this. I think they were maybe mostly relying on the apple flavor, which kind of goes away when you cook it, and I prefer my cooked apple desserts to be more spicy with a little more texture/bite etc. Also I was stuffed full, this may have tasted better if I was actually hungry when I ate it. It was not remotely BAD it just wasn't OMG GOOD WORTH ALL THE CALORIES DECADENT DESSERT.

By now the restaurant was deserted and one of the other waiters took my stuff away and I heard my assigned waiter scolding him around the corner because he had taken it too quickly and rushed me, but I was done - stuffed full and could not eat another bite. He brought those little pastry things and I did take a tiny nibble off one of them to see what it's all about but it was way too sweet for me, not my thing and I was done eating for a good long while at that point. I paid the bill, way overtipped because I was drunk off my butt and got it together enough to teeter out on my skinny high heels until I rounded the partition outside the meridien bar, at which point i had the presence of mind to take my shoes off rather than try to balance on a rocking boat all the way back to the room. My kid was at that point happily doing whatever he was doing so I got into my swimsuit and went down to the rainforest room and got in the hot tub for a bit and then sat on a heated tile lounger like a beached whale and napped for a good hour.


My total bill with tip was $200 (Yes I could have had dinner for that).

Was it worth it? Yes, absolutely no regrets doing it once. The food was BEAUTIFUL, and it was different than what I would normally eat and also what i'd normally choose given the choice. The overall experience was definitely worth it and I am super glad I did it.

Would I do it again? No, I would not - mostly because the menu is set and there was nothing I had (beyond the truffle, which was an add on anyway) that I am dying to eat again. If they had more like the dinner menu where you try this or that, I might give it another try to try new things - I really enjoyed the overall experience that much. But as far as the specific stuff I had, not dying to eat any of it again and too expensive to have it "just because."

Would I try dinner there? I absolutely would, but I would NOT do it solo. First of all, my brunch was a lot longer than anyone else's because of how slow I eat, I'd probably end up in there for 4 hours if I was by myself and that is WAY TOO LONG for a solo meal. I WOULD however try it if I could ever get my boyfriend on a Disney cruise. We are in a long term committed relationship but both divorced and the finances are complicated, so I have gotten into the habit of just taking the kiddo on a vacation "just us" once every 1-2 years. But I would enjoy doing the dinner experience with him - it would probably pace out normally as I'd probably end up just letting him eat whatever I don't rather than sitting there and finishing the whole portions of things over a longer time. It would be fun to try multiple things as well, just a few bites of this or that. But sitting there alone and trying to get value out of that expensive meal does not super appeal to me, there are more courses and they are bigger and I definitely think it's an experience to be shared.

But if they ever did a complete overhaul of the brunch menu I'd give brunch another shot someday.

and that, my friends, is Remy Brunch solo.

 

[Mich123]

Enjoying your report and writing style! I had looked for Remy reviews prior to our trip and didn't find too many. We ultimately decided against it, partially because I was worried DH might not like some of the food and partially because we ended up adding an entire cabin for our DD20 and a friend who ended up joining us. Remy would have been a lot less expensive!

 

[Mich123]

*deleted double post

 

[tlprice]

That's the same table I had when I did the Remy dessert thing on the Dream. Maybe it's the solo table? Thanks for the review. Now I know I would not like the Remy brunch. There were too many things on the menu that I would not like. I'm looking forward to your Palo brunch review.

 

[Magical_Suitcase]

Thanks much for sharing. I love trying new foods but except for the truffles and pasta, I doubt this would be a meal for me. Dinner maybe but brunch looks too limiting in choices. I applaud you for dining solo. I enjoy eating alone but sometimes, it is a bit uncomfortable to not have someone else to bounce conversation off of and to share the experience.

 

[mike314]

Thanks for the review!

 

[CynthiaC925]

Your review was fabulous! Thank you! I’ll be on my first solo trip April 18 so thanks to you I’m not as nervous about doing so!