Date Night at Palo on the Disney Wonder

What is Palo?

Palo is an upscale Italian dining experience that is available for an extra cost on all four Disney Cruise Line ships. Brunch (on select days) and dinner are served here for guests 18 and older with a reservation. 

How much does it cost?

As of writing (May 2020) the cost for brunch and dinner is $40 per person. There is a wine pairing options available for dinner that is an additional $59 per person. 

Is there a dress code?

Yes. While the main dining rooms onboard have a dress code that does not allow swimwear or tank tops, the dress code at Palo is a bit stricter. It allows guests to dress up a bit, and to enjoy a date night or a date for a late morning or early afternoon brunch. Here is the dress code directly from the Disney Cruise Line site: 

“To preserve the elegant ambiance of this restaurant, you are asked to adhere to a dress code when dining at Palo. We recommend dress pants or slacks and a collared shirt for men, and a dress, skirt or pants and a blouse for women. Jeans may also be worn if in good condition (no holes). Please no tank tops, swimsuits, swimsuit cover-ups, shorts, hats, cut-offs, torn clothing, t-shirts with offensive language and/or graphics, flip-flops or tennis shoes.”

Changes since our last time at Palo.

Prior to our most recent cruise in February 2020, the last time we dined at Palo was in late November 2017. Since then things have changed a bit at dinner. The meal now begins with an amuse bouche, which is a one bite dish that in French literally means to make your mouth happy. The dish is a potato gnocchi with a mushroom sauce and Parmesan cheese.

Additionally, in the past a trolley wad brought out for antipasti serve automatically. Meats, cheese, veggies, all of them delicious, were brought to out and served table side. This is no longer automatic, but it can be ordered as an appetizer.

This meal at Palo…

Amuse Bouche 

Potato Gnocchi - As mentioned above we were presented with a single potato gnocchi to start the meal. The gnocchi was tender, and was served with a mushroom sauce and Parmesan cheese. All the flavors of the dish went well together. I could have eaten a whole entrée sized portion of these little potato pillows.  

Bread – Like all good Italian meals, dinner at Palo includes bread. A basket with crunchy thin breadsticks, crispy Parmesan cheese crisps, and rosemary flatbread is brought to your table. All three breads were delicious. The breadsticks are like what you would get on an antipasti platter and had a nice crunch to them. The Parmesan cheese crisps were thin, almost cracker-like, crisps with a whole lot of delicious Parmesan cheese flavor. The rosemary flatbread, though, was my favorite. Soft flatbread with fresh rosemary – it had a pizza kind of texture and taste to it that was quite good. 

Appetizers 

While we were enjoying the bread, our appetizers arrived. We each order one, and they both involved seafood. 

Fritto di Calamari e Gamberi – This calamari dish, is not like any other calamari we’ve had before. It is tender, because it is soaked in buttermilk before it is breaded and lightly fried. The breading is light and crispy. Along with the calamari is a flavorful tender breaded and fried shrimp. The dish is accompanied by a lemon-garlic mayonnaise and marinara sauce. Both sauces are flavorful. The marinara had a bright tomato flavor, and the lemon-garlic had a brightness from the lemon and that savory taste of garlic. They both paired well with the seafood, and cut through the fried-ness of it all. The lemon-garlic mayonnaise was my favorite of the two sauces, though. 

Ciuppin Soup – This soup was a combination of seafood in a garlic, basil, red wine, and tomato broth. The seafood consisted of mussels, shrimp, calamari, monkfish, and red snapper. The seafood was all tender, and cooked well. The brother was great with the seafood, and on its own with some of that delicious bread from earlier and the crusty garlic bread that came with it. 

Between our appetizers and our entrees, we were brought a palate cleanser to remove the flavor from our appetizers so that we could fully enjoy our entrees. The palate cleanser is a delicious lemon sorbet with a single fresh blueberry. We were also asked to order our dessert at this point. The reason for ordering dessert before your entree arrives is just in case you want to order either of the soufflés. These soufflés are made to order and are brought to your table warm, straight from the oven. More on those later. 

Entrees

We each ordered one entrée for ourselves, and then we got one to split in half. 

Agnolotti – This dish is my absolute favorite thing to eat on a Disney Cruise. It is delicious. Tender pasta filled with slightly sweet butternut squash filling. The pasta pockets are served topped with crumbled amoretti cookies (yum!) and buffalo mozzarella. All of this is in a sage brown butter sauce. The whole dish is just amazing. We had it the first time we had dinner at Palo and we tried to make it at home. It was good, but not as good as at Palo.  

Grilled Beef Tenderloin – Grilled beef tenderloin cooked to your desired temperature, in this case medium rare. The meat was tender and full of flavor. It is served with pancetta potatoes, sautéed spinach and two sauces. The first sauce is a wine sauce that was rich, and pared well with the beef. The second sauce was a Gorgonzola cheese sauce. Neither one of us are fans of blue cheese, but we really like this sauce! It was rich, creamy, and went really well with the beef! It tasted more like a cream sauce and did not have that funky taste of blue cheese. 

Saffron Arancini – We’re big arancini fans, so we couldn’t pass this up. Fried rice balls are served with ginger and carrot puree and heirloom tomato salsa. We were excited about this dish, but it was kind of a letdown. It was too bready. Having left it until after our first entrees may have contributed to our disappointment with the dish. It wasn’t a bad dish, but it wasn’t let best dish of the evening, either. 

Dessert 

Chocolate Soufflé – We both finished our meals with a rich, warm, fresh from the oven chocolate soufflé. As we mentioned, the soufflés are baked to order and are brought to your table warm and fresh from the oven. The chocolate soufflés are perfect for chocolate lovers. Rich, moist, warm chocolate cake is served with vanilla and chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream. The combination of the warm and the cold, the rich and the creamy, and the chocolate and vanilla is just perfect. We really enjoy this dish – so much so that we made it home for dessert for Thanksgiving. This dish is one of the reasons that we picked dinner for our meal at Palo. 

We finished the meal with an after dinner “farewell” drink. A combination of apple brandy and lemon sorbet. Delicious. If you’re not a drinker, there is a not alcoholic version as well. 

We really enjoyed our meal at Palo and look forward to eating there again on our next cruise.  

Do you have a favorite meal at Palo? What about a favorite dish? Let us know in the comments!

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