A brand-new ship has joined the fleet at Disney Cruise Line, and you know what that means — brand-new restaurants, snacks, lounges, and so much more to explore.

Meet the Disney Adventure, a ship packed with over-the-top spaces, immersive dining, and more food options than you’ll probably be able to try in a single sailing. From quick bites between activities to elaborate rotational dining restaurants. Tonight, we’re trying Animator’s Palate Restaurant, so come along with us!

Atmosphere

This restaurant is a unique dinner show celebrating Disney and Pixar animation. Your drawings will come to life right before your eyes! This is part of the ship’s rotational dining. Let’s go inside!

When you first enter the restaurant and sit at your table, the color palette is a simple black and white.

You’ll see simple sketch artwork on the walls, also done up in mostly black and white colors.

As your meal progresses, though, color starts to fill the room…and the walls. By the end of your meal, everything comes to life in full vibrant color, music, dancing portraits, and more.

The place setting at each table encourages you to create your own artwork and draw a character.

At the end of the evening, the characters you drew come to life on the walls and dance for you and everything!

But enough about the restaurant — what’s on the menu here?!

Menu

The menu features a variety of Asian-inspired small plates, like a Dragon Roll, Wonton Soup, and Chicken Satay.

Entrees include Butter Chicken, a Pan-Seared Branzino Fillet, a Beef Tenderloin dish, and more. Several desserts are also available.

And now, onto the main event — the food!

Eats

You start your meal with a Bread Service. The breads include a Spring Onion Cheese bread, Soft White Bread, and Whole Wheat Rolls.

For our starter, we grabbed the Chicken Satay with Coconut Rice, Cucumber, Kepap Manis, and Roasted Peanut Dipping Sauce. The chicken is well-cooked, but still juicy. It also has a lovely char on the outside, but it isn’t crunchy. The peanut sauce was just okay, though. It was runny and a little too sweet for our liking. The rice was perfect. The cucumber was SPICY — that surprised us…in a good way. It was vinegary and packed a little bit of a punch.

The Dragon Roll is a Spicy Tuna Roll with Freshwater Eel, Avocado, and Unagi Sauce. This was a solid, well-prepared sushi roll with an interesting fish. However, it had that straight out of the fridge thing going on that we might expect from grocery store sushi, and not fine dining sushi. However, we guess we can say it would make great grocery store sushi?

For entree, we ordered the Laksa Lemak made with Prawn, Tau Pok, Laska Leaf, and Chili. Now, this dish was unfamiliar to us, so we were really excited to try something new. Laksa Lemak is a popular Malaysian noodle soup, and this one had a wonderful broth that was spicy, but didn’t have a heavy fish seafood taste, although there were prawns in the soup. The prawns were meaty and cooked beautifully, too. We also loved how the Tau Pok soaked up the flavor while still remaining springy.

The Pan-Seared Pacific Scallops are served with Truffle Cremini Mushroom Risotto, Toasted Hazelnuts, and Arugula-Lemon Oil Drizzle. This was one of our favorite entrees that we had with the rotational dining. The scallops were well-cooked, so they weren’t overtly chewy, although they did have a bit of grainy texture that some people might not like. The risotto was another big surprise for us. It was perfectly cooked, not too sticky, and the truffle flavor was beautifully done and didn’t overpower the dish. You also get a LOT of mushrooms. The arugula-lemon oil also adds a subtle touch of flavor.

Of course, you’ve got to make room for dessert, which we did. The Salted Caramel Cheese Cake sounded AMAZING, so we grabbed that. It’s a Vanilla Cheesecake with Dulce de Leche Glaze and Peanut Butter Rice Crisp. We’ll just tell you it tasted as good as it sounds. This might have been our favorite dessert while on our cruise. The cheesecake is soft and creamy, while the dulce de leche glaze adds flavor and additional texture. It wasn’t too sweet, but it had that classic caramel flavor. The peanut butter rice crisp base is a stroke of genius because you get that nice, light crunch with it.

We also ordered the Almond Pear Tart with Poached Pear, Almond Frangipane, Matcha Soil, and Vanilla Ice Cream. This was another big hit with us. You had these gorgeous poached pears over an almond frangipane that offered a fruity and nutty flavor. The matcha soil tasted more like green tea leaf than powdered matcha, and it paired nicely with the other flavors.

However, we’ve said it before. Disney tends to go way too thick with the pastry shells, and they tend to be dry. That was the case for this dessert, too, so we just mostly ate the filling.

Overall

Of all the rotational dining restaurants we visited on our cruise, this one might just be our favorite. The restaurant’s theme is always a fun one to dine in, but the food here really surprised us in so many great ways. This was probably one of our favorite meals on the Disney Adventure, and all three courses were delicious and satisfying. This is the kind of restaurant you go to when you want to make a core memory.

We will be bringing you more dining reviews and looks at everything on the Disney Adventure. Be sure to stay tuned to DFB for more!

REVIEW: Did Our ‘Big Hero 6’ Dreams Just Come True on the NEW Disney Adventure Cruise Ship?

What do you think of this restaurant? Let us know in the comments below!