Margaritaville at Sea Islander is the second ship in the Margaritaville at Sea fleet. We’ve just returned from one of the ship’s first voyages and made sure to test out all the dining venues. Now, we are back and share all the details with you in our complete guide to the Margaritaville at Sea Islander restaurants with menus. See what we liked and what we suggest you skip during your cruise on this “new” ship.
Complimentary Margaritaville at Sea Islander Restaurants
When it comes to complimentary dining, Margaritaville at Sea offers a traditional main dining room and cruise ship buffet. There’s also free burgers, Mexican, pizza, and ice cream at various stations around the pool deck.
While the main dining room and buffet did fall a bit short for us, we enjoyed the casual options especially the burgers and pizza.
Fins Main Dining Room (Deck 2)
Fins is the main dining room on Margaritaville at Sea Islander. Unlike most cruise line MDR’s, Fins is completely open seating, nightly from 5:30 to 9 PM. There are no set dinner times; there is also no ability to pre-make reservations to dine here.
Each evening, guests need to wait in line to dine at this restaurant. If there are no tables available, you will receive a pager much like a restaurant on land. Unfortunately, the average wait time for a table of two was 40-45 minutes during our sailing.
The restaurant does feature a new menu each evening with a selection of starters, entrees, and desserts. Some of the highlights included the Cajun Gumbo, Caribbean Egg Rolls, Braised Short Ribs, and 48 Hour B&B Pudding. Overall though, we would say this main dining room experience was mediocre at best.
Of note, guests can enjoy all the appetizers and desserts they want, but extra entrees will cost $7 each. Yes, even a second entree costs extra money.
Fins is also open for breakfast from 7:30/8:30 to 9:30/10:30 AM serving typical breakfast selections like omelets, French toast, pancakes, eggs, and breakfast meats.
However, Fins is not open for lunch at all, not even on sea days.
Breakfast | Wine List | Dinner 1 | Dinner 2 | Dinner 3 | Dinner 4 | Dinner 5
Mexican Cutie Cantina (Deck 9)
Mexican Cutie Cantina is a poolside eatery on the portside of Deck 9 nearby the 5 O’Clock Somewhere Pool. This venue serves quick service style Mexican food for breakfast and lunch. Think BlueIguana Cantina on Carnival or El Loco Fresh on Royal Caribbean.
For breakfast, the venue is open 8 to 10:30 AM daily serving breakfast burritos with Mexican eggs, sausage, chicken, and potatoes, along with additional toppings.
The venue reopens for lunch from 12 to 2/3:30 PM serving tacos and rice bowls. The meat selections include chicken, pork, and beef. Guests can then further customize their meals at the small nearby toppings bar. Cheese quesadillas are also available. However, there is no burrito option for lunch, nor are there nacho chips.
Cheeseburger in Paradise (Deck 9)
Opposite the Mexican Cutie Cantina, you’ll find Cheeseburger in Paradise on the starboard side of the pool deck. As the name implies, this station serves customizable burgers from 12 to 6 PM daily. Toppings include lettuce, tomato, onions, islander sauce, mushrooms, sauteed onions, pickles, hot peppers, and more. Alongside the burgers, you can enjoy some pretty tasty seasoned fries.
If you don’t like burgers, you’re out of luck at this spot as there are no other options available like chicken sandwiches, hot dogs, or veggie burgers. However, if you do like burgers, you don’t want to pass these up as they definitely rival Guy’s Burger Joint on Carnival Cruise Line.
Port of Indecision Buffet (Deck 9)
The Port of Indecision Buffet is Margaritaville at Sea Islander’s pretty lackluster buffet. While technically three stations, there were only two identical stations open during our sailing. The Port of Indecion Buffet serves breakfast from 7 to 10:30 AM, lunch from 12 to 2/3:30 PM, and dinner from 6 to 9:30 PM daily.
Breakfast featured all your typical selections including continental items, eggs and breakfast meats, fruit, and more. For lunch and dinner, you can expect to find a small salad bar, a soup of the day, cold cuts, a limited selection of hot entrees, and desserts. At lunchtime, there’s an area for hot dogs and sausages as well.
In comparison to other cruise line buffets, this one was small and lacked variety. However, the gem here is Frank and Lola’s Pizzeria.
Frank and Lola’s Pizzeria (Deck 9)
Unlike MVAS Paradise which features a pizza parlor, Frank and Lola’s Pizzeria on Islander is found within the buffet. This centrally located station is open from 12 PM to 2 AM daily serving up slices of cheese, pepperoni, or mushroom pizza.
While still good, the slices are smaller and there wasn’t as much variety when compared to Paradise. The wait times for pizza also fluctuate as the pies are small and the staff do not make many at a time. Thus, you might need to wait in line for a bit to get your slice.
Still, it does rival the pizza on Virgin Voyages and Princess Cruises.
Ice Cream (Deck 9)
It’s not a cruise without some soft serve ice cream, right? Luckily, Margaritaville at Sea Islander has two stations, one on each side of the ship near the buffet entrance. These stands serve cones and bowls of vanilla, chocolate, and twist from 12 PM to 9:30 PM daily.
Specialty Margaritaville at Sea Islander Restaurants
While you don’t have to spend money on food while cruising on Margaritaville at Sea Islander, there are quite a few up-charge restaurants that might be worth the splurge. There’s a signature steakhouse along with several casual a la carte options and a Sparkling Wine Brunch.
While the JWB Prime Steakhouse was a bit of a letdown for us, we did enjoy the selections at Island Eats and the Tiki Grill as well as the brunch.
If you are considering dining at a few of these venues, you might want to purchase a dining package. The options available include:
- Ultimate Dining Chill- $119 per person
- Prime Dining Package- $69 per person
- Far Side Sampler Package- $59 per person
Additionally, the Islander Signature Chill Package (from $459 pp) and the Ultimate Islander Escape (from $739 pp) include specialty dining along with many other add ons.
The Ultimate Dining Chill package includes one of each of the following: JWB Steakhouse, Sparkling Wine Brunch at Islander Dining Room, dinner at Islander Dining Room, $25 dining credit for a la carte purchases at each Tiki Grill, Island Eats, and Far Side Sushi. The 18% gratuity is also included.
The Prime Dining package includes one of each of the following: JWB Steakhouse, Sparkling Wine Brunch at Islander Dining Room, and dinner at Islander Dining Room. The 18% gratuity is also included.
The Far Side Sampler package includes a $25 dining credit for a la carte purchases at Tiki Grill, Island Eats, and Far Side Sushi for a value of $75. This package is only available for guests 18+.
Far Side Sushi (Deck 2)
Margaritaville at Sea Islander doesn’t have a dedicated sushi restaurant, but it does offer sushi and a few other Asian-inspired dishes at the Far Side of the World Lounge.
This Pacific-themed venue hosts various activities during the cruise. So, if you get hungry along the way, you can order up a few items off this a la carte menu.
Far Side Sushi is open for lunch on sea days from 12 to 3 PM and nightly from 5 PM to late.
Islander Dining Room (Deck 3)
A bit odd, but the Islander Dining Room serves a dual function. It is the restaurant for suite guests, but also an up-charge restaurant for other guests. Guests can pay $20 per person to dine here for dinner or $15 per person to enjoy Sparkling Wine Brunch on sea days.
The Islander Dining Room is basically the second floor of the Fins Main Dining Room. It serves the same menu as Fins with an additional insert of a few upgraded offerings (3 apps, 2 entrees, and 1 dessert). Although, there’s really nothing all that upscale on these exclusive menus. There’s no lobster or escargot or anything along those lines. Some selections included shrimp cocktail, ahi tuna, crab cake, flat iron steak, blackened salmon, and beef wellington.
Personally, the only benefit to dining here for us was to avoid the wait times at the main dining room.
We did enjoy the Sparkling Wine Brunch though. This menu features both breakfast and lunch items, but given we dined here at 9:30 AM, we only sampled breakfast items. The chicken and waffles and the overnight French toast were both good. There’s also items like steak and eggs, huevos rancheros, and a burger on the menu.
Sparkling Wine Brunch is served from 8:30 to 11:30 AM, and dinner is served nightly from 5:30 to 9 PM. Just like Fins, additional entrees at the Islander Dining Room are also a $7 fee.
Brunch Menu | Dinner 1 | Dinner 2 | Dinner 3 | Dinner 4 | Dinner 5
Margaritaville Coffee Shop (Deck 9)
Also located within the Port of Indecision buffet is the Margaritaville Coffee Shop. This venue serves specialty coffee along with upcharge breakfast, lunch, and snack options. Unlike most cruise lines though, this specialty coffee is NOT included in the Islander drink package.
Thus, all drinks here will cost you extra money. As an example of pricing, an espresso is $3, a medium latte is $5.25, chai tea is $4.50, and an iced frappe is $5.50. Further, you’ll have to pay $7 for a lunch sandwich, $5 for croissants, $3 for cinnamon rolls, and $4-6 for pastries.
While specialty coffees are a given for us on a cruise, we did try a few of the upcharge food items as well which were hit or miss.
The Margaritaville Coffee Shop is open daily from 6:30 AM to 10 PM. But, unlike Paradise, it doesn’t have that coffee shop vibe where you’d want to chill or maybe do a little work. The only seating is shared seating with the buffet.
Coffee Shop Menu | Breakfast and Pastry Menu | Food Menu
Tiki Grill (Deck 9)
Located aft on Deck 9 in the adults-only area are two up-charge food counters. The Tiki Grill is on the portside. This venue serves a menu of upgraded food items at a la carte prices. There’s chicken wings, conch fritters, buffalo shrimp, and more. Everything we sampled here was good, and we would definitely pay to dine here again.
However, the venue is only open from 3 PM to late. It would have been nice to have these offerings open at lunchtime on sea days as we ended up waiting until 3 PM for lunch on a couple days just to try these items.
Island Eats (Deck 9)
Across the way on the starboard side, also right near the Tiki Pool and Tiki Bar, is Island Eats. Similar to Tiki Grill, this venue also serves a menu of upgraded items at a la carte prices daily from 3 PM to late.
While both menus are heavy on seafood, this one serves lobster rolls, ceviche, crab legs, mussels, and more. Even though it was $18, the lobster roll was good, and we would definitely recommend trying out some of the offerings here.
Of note, if using the dining package at either of these spots, the $25 credit must be used all at one time and can not be split over multiple visits.
JWB Prime Steakhouse (Deck 10)
Lastly, JWB Prime Steakhouse is the most traditional of the Margaritaville at Sea Islander specialty restaurants. This restaurant is open nightly for dinner from 5:30 to 9:30 PM and has an upcharge of $55 per person.
This restaurant is located on Deck 10 overlooking the open atrium which does make it a bit noisy and takes away some of the ambiance that you’d expect at an upscale steakhouse.
The menu features a wide selection of starters from pork belly, to wagyu meatballs, oysters, burrata, onion soup, lobster bisque, and salads. For entrees, the cuts of beef are the obvious choice but there’s also short ribs, rack of lamb, pork chop, pan-roasted chicken, a catch of the day, and lobster on the menu.
Despite the $55 charge to dine here, lobster tail and surf & turf are both an additional $24 charge. If you want to add a 5 oz. grilled lobster tail to your entree that will cost an extra $20.
The filet we had here was perfectly seared to the requested medium-rare temperature. We also enjoyed the pork belly and bib & walnut salad; however, the meatball, burrata, and all the sides were disappointing.
Honestly, we probably wouldn’t pay to dine here again. Instead, we’d spend the money on the up-charge casual eats.
JWB Steakhouse Menu | JWB Steakhouse Kids Menu
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Do you have plans to sail on this MVAS cruise ship? What is your favorite of the Margaritaville at Sea Islander restaurants? Drop us an anchor below to share your dining preferences when cruising.
We Dined at All the Margaritaville at Sea Islander Restaurants: Here’s Our Complete Guide With Menus
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