6:04am. Rory is awake. The curtains are doing their best in the inside cabin but Rory’s internal clock does not care about curtains or time zones or the fact that his parents were up until 11pm watching the ocean from the pool deck after the kids went to bed.
This is how room service enters our lives on a Disney cruise. Not as a luxury. As a coping mechanism.
I put in the order on the app while Rory eats dry cereal from the small container I packed in the carry-on. Gracie sleeps through all of it. Alan does not sleep through it but pretends to with enough conviction that I respect the attempt.
Room service arrives in about 30 minutes. There are rolls and fruit and coffee. I sit on the end of the bed in the dark, drinking coffee while Rory watches an episode of something on the tablet, and I think: this is actually fine. This is workable.
That is room service on a Disney cruise. Here is what you need to know about it.
What Is Included (Free) vs What Costs Extra
Disney Cruise Line room service has a complimentary menu and an items-with-a-fee menu, and the distinction matters.
Complimentary items (included in cruise fare):
- Continental breakfast items: rolls, pastries, croissants, Danish
- Fruit
- Cereal and milk
- Yogurt
- Juice, coffee, tea
- Hot chocolate
- Mickey-shaped chicken nuggets (more on this)
- Pizza
- A rotating selection of sandwiches and smaller items
- Cookies
Items with a delivery fee or item charge:
- More substantial dishes, full entrees, certain specialty items
The complimentary menu is more robust than you might expect, and for early mornings with young children or late nights when you do not want to leave the stateroom, it covers the need well.
How to Order
You can order through the Disney Cruise Line app, which is how I almost always do it. There is also a phone number in the stateroom you can call. The app is faster and easier and lets you track the estimated arrival time.
Room service is available 24 hours, which is the other thing worth knowing. There is no window where it stops.
What We Actually Order
Early morning: Rolls, fruit, coffee. The coffee is not Palo-level but it is hot and arrives at your door and that is the entire point. I order this more mornings than not on every sailing.
The Mickey chicken nuggets: These are shaped like Mickey Mouse and they are on the complimentary menu and they are the one food Rory will always eat. I do not overanalyze this. I order them.
Pizza: Available on the complimentary menu and surprisingly good for room service pizza. Thin crust, decent cheese, basic toppings. Good for an evening snack after the kids are asleep or for a midday situation where someone has a nap going and you do not want to go to the buffet.
Late night after Palo: Alan and I have come back from Palo dinner once and ordered cookies from room service while sitting on the verandah. This is a very good use of room service.
The Stateroom Setup for Room Service
The Fantasy staterooms have a small table area that works for room service setup. In an inside cabin, you are eating on the end of the bed or at the table/desk. In a verandah room, you can take it outside.
The staff delivers on a tray and leaves it at the door or hands it to you. They do not set up an elaborate table. It is a tray. This is fine. You are wearing whatever you sleep in and your 2-year-old is watching cartoons. The atmosphere is established.
Tips for Using Room Service With Toddlers
Order before you are desperate. The 30-minute lead time is real, and 30 minutes with a hungry toddler at 6am is a long time. Order when they wake up, not when they have been awake for 20 minutes and the cheddar crackers are gone.
Use the app, not the phone, if the kids are asleep in the room. No noise.
Order something you know the kids will eat alongside whatever you want for yourself. The complimentary fruit and cereal and chicken nuggets cover most toddler needs.
Tip appropriately. Room service staff are on the same gratuity system as the rest of the ship crew. A couple of dollars per delivery is appropriate and appreciated. We keep small bills for this purpose.
What Is Not Worth Ordering
The full breakfast room service with eggs and hot items is hit or miss. The egg dishes are fine but they travel better than the hot items. By the time a hot breakfast arrives, some items have cooled. If you want a real breakfast, Cabanas or the main dining room is better.
Also: the drinks that are on the chargeable portion of the room service menu are not dramatically better than what you can get at Cabanas for free. If you have a drink package this is irrelevant, but if you do not, the complimentary coffee and juice through room service does the job.
Room Service on Port Days
On port days when we are getting off the ship early, we sometimes order a quick room service breakfast instead of going to Cabanas, specifically because it arrives at the stateroom and we can eat while getting the kids ready to disembark. This is a time management trick more than a culinary experience, but it works.
The kids can eat rolls and fruit while being changed into beach clothes. We can drink coffee while packing the beach bag. We are out the door 20 minutes faster than if we had gone to Cabanas first.
That is the real value of room service on a Disney cruise. Not the food, exactly, though the food is fine. The value is flexibility. The ability to eat when and where you need to, on the schedule your toddlers are running on, without having to herd everyone to a buffet at 6am. With two kids under 4, that flexibility is not a luxury. It is what makes the mornings work.
