Restaurants on Margaritaville at Sea Paradise
Going on a cruise means that you’ll get fed well. Here are the dining options and restaurants on Margaritaville at Sea Paradise to help you plan where to eat and what to expect on your cruise. Don’t get your hopes up too much though, there are slim pickings for restaurant options on this cruise.
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Every cruise line seems to have a premium steakhouse restaurant that you need to pay extra for. Royal Caribbean has Chops Grille, while the Margaritaville has JWB Prime Steakhouse. However, a fancy steakhouse doesn’t really fit in with the laid-back, no-frills Jimmy Buffett lifestyle or vibe. He was, after all, the guy who wanted nothing more than a Cheeseburger in Paradise.
Having a steakhouse onboard is obviously a profitable option on any cruise line. This is why Margaritaville felt the need to add it to their list of dining options. The menu at JWB is nothing groundbreaking, with a decent selection of steaks, from sirloin to filet mignon. There are also red and white wine options included with the meal.
JWB Prime Steakhouse does not have its own seating area. It’s only a small section that was carved out from the Fins main dining restaurant. There’s a curtained area that serves as the entrance, but you can see JWB as you walk in or out of the main dining area. Employees tout packages and reservations when you first board the ship, with incentives if you book in advance.
JWB Prime Steakhouse is located on Deck 8, aft (back part of the ship).
All the cruise lines we have tried so far typically have a pizza joint that is more or less open all day. It’s one of those nice cruise perks that anyone can have freshly made pizza on a cruise at any time, at no additional cost. That’s why we were surprised that Margaritaville forces you to pay extra for pizza (and some pasta dishes) in their Italian spot, Frank & Lola’s Pizzeria.
Frank & Lola’s is located right next to the main shopping area on Deck 9. It is a fairly small spot with about 15-20 tables. The menu isn’t very extensive, and we were just not willing to pay $5-6 for a slice of pizza when we could have other free options onboard. Frank & Lola’s also has a whole pizza available, but again, no, we just don’t want to pay that much onboard.
The table decor looks pretty fancy for a pizza joint, but we did not see many people dining here. You are free to sit by the lounge chairs in front of the stores and you’ll get a view of the pizza place. Odd choice to have fancy table decor for pizza and to charge extra for it for this cruise line, but let us know what you think.
Can’t live without a Starbucks coffee or do you need a specialty coffee more than the one readily available (and free) from the buffet? The Margaritaville coffee shop is conveniently located on Deck 9 where all the shops are, as well as Frank & Lola’s Pizzeria.
Right beside the specialty coffee is a place to get gelato. They’re usually manned by one employee, so if it’s really busy at the coffee side, expect a wait. The specialty coffee and the gelato are additional paid experiences and are not included in your cruise fare. We have personally not tried grabbing a coffee in Starbucks or the gelato place to provide a good enough review of the restaurant and experience as a whole.
Fins Dining is the cruise equivalent of the Main Dining Room, which is a generic term for cruise lines like Carnival and Royal Caribbean where most cruisers eat dinner. It has a fine dining-type feel, with tables with white linen, wine glasses, sparkling clean cutlery, etc. And just like at other cruise lines, you are allowed to order anything from the menu at Fins Dining. There is an exception for special premium items like filet mignon, where you need to pay extra. You don’t need to order the paid items anyway, as the main menu has plenty of options for appetizers, entrees, and desserts.
In terms of beverages, however, you are out of luck unless you purchased a beverage package. If not, the best you can do is to have unsweetened iced tea or water. Coffee, wine, spirits, and soda, are all extra. During embarkation day, you can grab a drink package and get a cute plastic tumbler with a character on top. That cute plastic tumbler is only for sodas and costs $29 for the duration of your cruise.
While we are on the topic of drinks, let me just explain how the drink packages work at Margaritaville at Sea. Unlike traditional cruise lines where you can get unlimited drinks, Margaritaville has a package that allows you to pre-pay for 10 alcoholic drinks for $99 per person. That averages around $9.90 plus tip per drink.
It makes more sense to get cocktails if availing the drink package, otherwise, you will be missing out on the savings if you’re more of a wine or beer person, since beers are generally cheaper than cocktails. If you can’t drink, there is the No Feathers option, which is the non-alcoholic option, for $59 for 10 drinks. There is an unlimited soda package, as I mentioned above, or you can just buy your drinks one bottle at a time.
If you don’t want to pay for drinks, you can always try and win a package during Bingo games. It is a bit much if you win a 10-drink package on your second night of cruising, but maybe you’ll be a lot of folks’ best friends by the end of the night.
Alternatively, if you are good with trivia, you can win a drink for your team if you win the trivia games. Aside from buying the drinks, or winning it, your free drink in the dining room and the buffet would be for lemonade, iced tea, water, coffee, or hot tea.
For our two-night cruise, we had different menus for each night, which was a welcome surprise. There are steak options also available for every night of dining at Fins Dining for free, but don’t expect a rib-eye or a sirloin.
The service is pretty good for the main dining, but don’t expect to get the same server every night. They seat you according to whatever tables are available at the time you walk in to accommodate your party. The appetizers, desserts, and starters all change, but there are also some staples on the menu that don’t change.
No! The main dining room is also open for breakfast. The setup is the same as the buffet, with the same food options, but with fewer people.
A server will guide you to a table and will ask what drink you would prefer. Then you are free to grab as much (or as little) food as you want. We think this is a better option to go to than the buffet upstairs.
If the buffet is full, an employee will announce it and limit people from coming in and direct the guests to the dining room. We learned this after our first night, so we default to the dining room for breakfast.
Every cruise line has all-you-can-eat buffets. It’s their trademark and is part of the cruise fare. Royal Caribbean has the Windjammer, Holland America has the Lido Market, and Margaritaville at least got creative with their buffet, naming it the Port of Indecision.
There are two buffet stations, one in the front part, and another one in the back. They serve almost the same thing. However, the buffet has certain hours when they actually serve food.
Breakfast hours vary, but usually between 7 to 10 AM
Lunch hours are from 12 to 3 PM
There’s soft serve ice cream all the way in the back, close to the 5 o’clock somewhere bar. There’s a pasta station, where you can choose the noodles, and the sauce, and a magical chef will mix it all for you. A noodle dish entirely your own!
Craving for a sandwich? There’s a sandwich station on the right side of the buffet when you are facing the back side of the ship. Pick a sandwich, the meat or veg you want to eat or have it toasted (or not). This station is open for most of the day so the lines do get long if the buffet does not have food.
If you are staying on the ship in Freeport, they will provide food for you as per usual in the buffet. It is less crowded than the embarkation day. We will discuss more what to do in Freeport in a different post.
It’s good but you should not expect Michelin star quality. There are varied options when it comes to the meals, but they don’t repeat the entree options for lunch or dinner on either day you are on the cruise. Not sure if it’s the same case if you choose to be a back-to-back cruiser since we only did one round-trip from West Palm.
The 5 o’clock somewhere bar is located on the back (aft) of the boat on deck 5. It is the main bar of Margaritaville and is absolutely packed during embarkation day at lunchtime. This bar is everything a Jimmy Buffett fan dreams of booze, his songs on repeat, and a chill vibe.
You can opt to bring your food from the buffet to the 5 o’clock somewhere bar, but there are also food options you can order from your server. We have not tried eating here, but note that it is an extra paid experience to dine or drink at the 5 o’clock somewhere bar and grill.
And there you go, all the restaurants available at the Margaritaville at Sea Paradise. It is a smaller, older ship that doesn’t have as many offerings as some of the bigger cruise lines and ships out there.
You won’t get hungry on your cruise, but your choices are overall limited to the buffet and the main dining room if you choose not to pay extra for any of your restaurant experiences. I hope you enjoy your Margaritaville at Sea cruise. Let us know what your favorite meal was or if there are any other restaurants we may have missed!
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