Getting main dining time off wait list?

[SCDVC2000]

I’m sorry this has probably been beat to death here but I couldn’t find.
We have a cruise on the wish next spring. My wife and I and our 6 kids (3-16). Never done a cruise today and When I called to pay today, they said we have a lab 8:15 dining time. I know my little kids won’t be able to do that. Is there any chance we could get the earlier dining time? Thank you all

 

[happycamper47]

Call back and ask to be moved to early dining. You'll get put on the wait list and my guess is it will probably get changed.

 

[kiford]

You can put yourself on the wait list online through your booking. We booked a cruise beginning of last January with friends for a cruise at the end of that month. They put us on the wait list and we were moved about two weeks later. There's never any guarantee, but try the waitlist and, if you don't get it before you cruise, go to the place that they make dining changes once you board (you'll find out where that is on the Navigator app) and see if you can get moved then.

 

[otten]

I’m sorry this has probably been beat to death here but I couldn’t find.
We have a cruise on the wish next spring. My wife and I and our 6 kids (3-16). Never done a cruise today and When I called to pay today, they said we have a lab 8:15 dining time. I know my little kids won’t be able to do that. Is there any chance we could get the earlier dining time? Thank you all

Most people do seem to get off the wait list. I believe you can add yourself via the website. If not, call.

Closer to the sailing is when they start pulling people. If you don’t get moved before sailing go to dining changes once you board.

 

[VTNuke]

We have been wait listed several times and have always made the main dining. If you actually board and are still on the wait list, go to customer service. They may not be able to accommodate you, I don't know, but they literally will bend over backwards to try and make it work. I wouldn't stress about it too much.

 

[Flcruising]

Consider keeping the late dinning.
Do you want your kids to see the shows?
If so take them to the early show and eat late. They can always get something to eat on Deck to tide them over and no one cares if they fall asleep at late dinner.
If you don't want them to see the shows then try for early dinner. But we like for ours to see the shows. They love them.

 

[DisneyDad0315]

I’m sorry this has probably been beat to death here but I couldn’t find.
We have a cruise on the wish next spring. My wife and I and our 6 kids (3-16). Never done a cruise today and When I called to pay today, they said we have a lab 8:15 dining time. I know my little kids won’t be able to do that. Is there any chance we could get the earlier dining time? Thank you

My family is sailing on the Magic on Saturday and when we first booked, we were assigned second dinner at 8:15PM. That is not a deal breaker for my family, as we are based on the west coast and the ship departs on the west coast. No time change for us. Also, my kids are night owls. But my wife said first dinner would just work better for us. She didn't want the kids filling up on popcorn during the show and ruining their dinner. I put a waitlist request and it came through a couple months later. I did not get any type of notification that my waitlist came through. I just noticed my dinner change from second dinner to first.

 

[MommyCMickey]

Waitlist and you’ll probably more than likely get main 5:45 dining. Our cruise next month we were waitlisted for 5:45 and got it and then for our 2 next year, same exact thing. The one next month we booked only a little less than 3 months out and still got it moved

 

[pearljammer]

I’m sorry this has probably been beat to death here but I couldn’t find.
We have a cruise on the wish next spring. My wife and I and our 6 kids (3-16). Never done a cruise today and When I called to pay today, they said we have a lab 8:15 dining time. I know my little kids won’t be able to do that. Is there any chance we could get the earlier dining time? Thank you all

Agreed with previous post, you are likely able to change dining time on the app, if not, call and request.

We too had been put on a wait list for main dining for the Wish and were notified at the last minute the request went through. We showed up to find out it was a shared table but after night one, we were able to get moved to private (per our request). Given the size of your party, I can’t see a shared table being an issue. Enjoy! Exciting times ahead.

 

[4 mickey]

Yes try the waitlist
it’s a chance you’ll get it
for some cruises I got it some not
when I travelled with my son and his family we had late and never move to early
what we did is make the kids eat something from poolside offerings ( split a plate of nuggets or a piece of pizza if it’s the hungry feeling your worried about
and we went on our late dinners and they ate from kids meal with no problem and strangely even if late they were so well behave even if it’s normally late for them to eat

 

[DisneyConvert]

Consider keeping the late dinning.
Do you want your kids to see the shows?
If so take them to the early show and eat late. They can always get something to eat on Deck to tide them over and no one cares if they fall asleep at late dinner.
If you don't want them to see the shows then try for early dinner. But we like for ours to see the shows. They love them.

Yeah, we did late dining when our son was little and it worked out fine. The show was family time and we all enjoyed.

Plus lots of Atrium activities before/after.

The Servers got them through their meal by 9:15'ish (including dessert) whereupon the Youth Activities Counselors would "collect" the kids and take them up to Deck 4.

Nothing like that on other cruise lines.

 

[Flip flops in winter]

FYI, the youth counselors no longer "collect" kids during dinner, just FYI. That was gone during covid and never came back.

OP, if you don't get an email in the weeks leading up to your trip, you didn't get moved to main dining. You'll need to go get in line to ask for it first thing when you get on board. We have been moved to main dining every time except for once. At the advice of others on this board we tried out late dining (first time in 7 cruises) and while it didn't ruin our trip, it was NOT for our family - we are east coast with 3 kids. 2/3 of which slept through dinner at the table, very cranky. It was not comfortable and while our dining team tried to make it enjoyable, our kids were miserable which means we were miserable. I left around the 1st course every night to take the little kids to bed before we became "those people". We also typically do longer cruises though. Since you are doing the Wish, the trip is going to go by like a blink. Just saying, if you don't get moved for some reason, it won't be the end of the world since the trip is so short. That doesn't really sound like a silver lining but it could be.

Also, if you do main dining, you still get a late show. My kids have never had trouble sitting through the late show. The shows are shorter than dinner, so they are always in bed earlier than they would have been if we had late dining.

 

[SeattleSuz]

I’m sorry this has probably been beat to death here but I couldn’t find.
We have a cruise on the wish next spring. My wife and I and our 6 kids (3-16). Never done a cruise today and When I called to pay today, they said we have a lab 8:15 dining time. I know my little kids won’t be able to do that. Is there any chance we could get the earlier dining time? Thank you all

I held my reservation for our Spring Break cruise, with the request for a main dining time. Then I emailed the initial person who replied to my email regarding the main dining wait list and she was fabulous. She talked to her supervisors who then reached out to the Dining department to try and get us bumped to the main dining time. Literally the day that we needed to make a payment to actually reserve our cruise, I got an email showing that they had bumped us into the main seating. It's definitely worth it to reach out directly to them if you can.

 

[RedHead0186]

OP, if you don't get an email in the weeks leading up to your trip, you didn't get moved to main dining. You'll need to go get in line to ask for it first thing when you get on board.

I don't think you always get an email. On my cruise two weeks ago, quite a few families got moved to main dining, and they never got an email. They found out by checking the app/website and saw it had changed.

 

[LordVader]

Just going to say we just got off the Wish about two weeks ago and my daughters age 2 and 5 had no issue doing the 8:15 dinner. It let them see the shows, do kids club and swim a lot more.

Plus if they got hungry before, we would just go to Marceline Market or go to the pool deck for something easy.

 

[emmabelle]

In October we had late dining on the Dream out of NYC. We were never moved from the waitlist so we went and waited in front of Enchanted Garden as soon as we boarded. The Maitre D said he couldn't promise anything but we were moved in the app like 30 minutes later.

 

[OpieDoodle]

Add yourself to the waiting list ASAP. Unfortunately, my last cruise I just got off we were not able to be moved to early dinning and it was miserable for my family. Multiple sleeping kids at the table and even some of the adults in the party struggled to make it.

Its to the point my family if we can't get main dinning in the future we likely won't book the cruise. We love spending family dinners as a way to share our days and have a little family time.

 

[randumb0]

I'm sailing in April and was moved to main dining. I received no email though it shows on the website

 

[kiford]

I don't think you always get an email.

You don't. We were moved along with our friends (who made the request). I saw it by accident when I logged in. I mentioned it to her a couple of weeks later and she was unaware that it had been granted. They just change it in your booking.

 

[TheOther51]

Came to ask the same question. Thanks for this helpful thread!