A few weeks ago Bridget, Marci, and I did a 3 night sailing on the Disney Dream during the Halloween on the High Seas. Having sailed on the Fantasy already this year, I was looking forward to what the vegan options were on the sister ship, and how they handled it for a shorter sailing like this one.
Read about our cruise on the Disney Fantasy here.
The Dream is very similar to the Fantasy with some minor differences in names of places and other little details. One of the things that remained the same was Cabanas, which is the ships buffet. We ate at Cabanas for breakfast during our weekend. We did eat a salad here when we first got on the ship but that was the only time we ate lunch there.
For breakfast on the first morning we stopped by the omelet station to see if they also had the vegan omelet like on the Fantasy, and they did! We ordered up some omelets with vegan cheese and veggies then walked the buffet before finding a coordinator. If you want to have something specially made for you, or you need to know what ingredients are in things (aka not guessing that things are vegan because they usually aren’t), you need to speak with a coordinator. Once we found one we asked about the breakfast potatoes, he also suggested vegan sausage so we said absolutely. We also couldn’t not ask for some vegan Mickey waffles.
Our omelets came out one at a time and took a while, we got our other food before we got our omelets. We had ordered two sausages to share between the three of us, but I guess he heard wrong so we got two plates of two sausages. They looked gross in all honesty, sitting in some pink juice just under them, but they tasted fine and were obviously Beyond Meat.
The omelets were delicious. Apparently JUST has made a new 2.0 version of their egg which is not grainy and it was so much better than what we had on the Fantasy. Not to mention it was actually an omelet and not a scramble.
We did the same thing the next morning, but instead of speaking to a coordinator we just ordered the omelets and ate some hash browns off the buffet. One morning we got vegan mozzarella, and the other we got vegan cheddar. We didn’t specify what vegan cheese, so I don’t know if they have both easily available.
For lunches we stuck to the trusty Flo’s V8 Cafe next to the pool. Here you can find a pizza station, burger station, sandwich station, and a fresh fruit and salad station. Our first day we ended up ordering a pizza with a coordinator, he automatically wrote down “Vegan Margarita” so that is what we got. It was very good and took about 5 minutes.
For lunch the next day we went with some specialty vegan wraps. The vegetarian wraps they have pre-made all contain cheese so we had to speak with a coordinator for these. They’re not the best, but it is a nice option. You can let them know if there’s anything in it you don’t want otherwise you just get a mix of all the toppings.
On the last day we skipped out on eating at Castaway Cay and ate on the ship at Flo’s again. This time we went with the Plant-Based Chili Cheese Brat. This was a Beyond Meat sausage topped with the vegan chili they serve at Cookie’s BBQ on the island and some unmelted vegan cheese. This was great but super messy and I could have done without the unmelted cheese.
Dinners were all pretty good. Our server, Kruno, was wonderful and knew all about vegan options and made us feel very comfortable when dining. Our first night was at Royal Court. Since it was night one we couldn’t really pre-order and had to go with what was available. Luckily for us, they had a already vegan option on the menu here. We started our meal with bread and oil that was all vegan. They also brought out some vegan butter for us to have.
For our appetizer we were given the Pear Salad without the sherry wine dressing, but with balsamic and oil. We had this on the Fantasy as well, it’s not very exciting. For the entree Kruno told us only the Grilled Marinated Tofu was vegan and that the Wild Mushroom-Stuffed Pasta could not be made vegan (even though we were told it could be and was served this on the Fantasy so that made me feel a little uneasy). We obviously all went for the tofu dish.
The grilled tofu was fine, nothing exciting. It was a pretty basic meal but hit the spot. My favorite part was the eggplant and the Israeli couscous. For dessert we were given a chocolate cake/brownie/cookie thing with some raspberry sorbet on it. We had this one perviously but still enjoyed it. The brownie part is pretty soft too which is nice.
The next evening we ate at Animator’s Palate. The night before Kruno said he was going to take care of our dinners for us so we didn’t need to pre-order. When we were seated we were given our bread for the meal which was a mix of rolls and focaccia with oil for dipping. They also brought out some vegan butter again.
Next up was a black bean soup. We collectively didn’t love this. Marci made a comment that it was like a watered down refried black bean bowl. It tasted fine, it was just weird. We were then given a salad that freaked us all out due to how creamy the dressing was. We asked Kruno to double check what was in it and he came back a few minutes later to tell us the ingredients. The salad had a mustard dressing and honestly this was my favorite part of this dinner. We had this same salad on the Fantasy but without a dressing, this mustard dressing is something I would eat at home regularly.
Our entree was an off menu chickpea curry with a tofu skewer. The chickpea curry was good, and a huge serving. The tofu skewer was not good. The tofu first off was super mushy but the biggest issue was that it was the saliest thing I have ever eaten. I don’t know if they ran in on a rub or something like people do with meat, but it was too much to try to even eat it. I would have been fine with just the curry anyway as I love curry. We were also given the vegan entree from the menu, Black Bean Cakes. Both Bridget and I had had these before and neither of us liked them. We are still in that boat with them. They’re just dry and flavorless and they can do so much better.
For dessert at Animator’s Palate we were served another chocolate brownie cake like thing with a raspberry cream. This was way better than the dessert at Royal Court. Too bad we were too full to really enjoy this.
Our last evening we ate at the Enchanted Garden and Kruno had ordered for us again. We were given our vegan bread rolls with a hummus and vegan butter to start. Next came a tomato soup. The soup was pretty good, it was thicker like a sauce, but the flavor was great.
Our entree came next and we were given a pasta with oil, sun dried tomatoes, artichokes and herbs. This was fine, the pasta could have been cooked for another minute or two as it was very firm. But the flavors were nice. I would have been happy with the menu option here which was a Glazed Portobello entree with lentils. But this was okay too.
We ended up asking if we could get the Cucumber Roll off the appetizer menu and they brought them out for us. These were okay, just tasted like some raw peppers and cucumber. Nothing special.
Last was our dessert which was a apple spice cake with coconut ice cream. The cake was super moist and the apple chunks on top were great. All of our desserts on this cruise were great. I am loving seeing actual options and not just sorbet anymore.
We didn’t bother doing breakfast on debarkation day. But if we did, you can preorder your breakfast to have vegan waffles, a vegan omelet, or whatever else you may want.
Since we were there for the Halloween on the High Seas they do a Halloween party and trick or treating. We did stop and ask about options and were told they have a few but nothing with chocolate and basically just sugar hard candies.
Some other hop tips:
– We also utilized room service one day and got some Enjoy Life cookies and Abe’s muffins. We ended up eating the muffins on debarkation day. (Just pay a tip for room service)
– I stopped by Cove Cafe one day for a latte, they have non dairy milk readily available there. (At an additional cost)
– Vanellope’s Sweet Treats had vegan chocolate, vanilla, and a pineapple coconut ice cream available. (At an additional cost)
– We skipped on Cookie’s BBQ at Castaway because we didn’t love it before, they do have a basic Malibu Gardenburger on the island as well as some salads and chili. You can also pre order if you need something else due to allergies. They also have these options at the restaurant at Serenity Bay.
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