Late seating with young children - our experience

[Pea-n-Me]

On our first cruise we had the early seating. Kids were fine at dinner (6 yr old twins) but we didn't like having to leave the fun around 5pm to go back to stateroom to shower and dress for dinner. Kids never ate much at dinner, had snacks, pizza, etc... all day by the pool.

On second cruise chose the late seating thinking we could relax more and take our time getting ready for dinner, possibly nap late afternoon? Also thought kids might enjoy going to Oceaneer Club since they didn't eat anyway, and perhaps DH and I could have a quiet meal or two alone. NOT!!!

Reality was, DS too excited to nap during daytime. Kids insisted they wanted to come to dinner with us. And we really liked getting formal pictures together as a family. So we did go to dinner as a family each night at 8:30pm and BOY WAS THAT A BIG MISTAKE!!! Our kids were very tired, restless and generally annoying. We were feeling pretty guilty and stupid that first night, but then we looked around to see it wasn't only our kids - for as far as the eye could see, MANY families were having the same exact problem - not only with little kids but older kids (8-10 or so) as well!! Many kids fell asleep in their chairs and some left to put their kids to bed. We have a great shot of our DS at Animator's Palate sunburned and fast asleep in front of a big plate of pizza, fries and brocolli!!

For us Lesson Learned: 2006 cruise will DEFINITELY be early seating - even though they will be 8 then. WE really enjoyed the leisure time in the evening but it didn't work for the kids.

Anyone else have any thoughts/ideas/experiences themselves about this? Thought people who might be on the fence about it might find it helpful....

 

[lbgraves]

If I couldn't get first seating on a cruise, I would have to book a different date where I could have it. DS fell asleep at the table Sunday night at early seating. We hadn't figured out when to get them down for their naps or rest time at that point and he slept the entire meal. When he woke up the servers had wrapped his meal up beautifully and we enjoyed the show, then he ate in the stateroom watching a movie before going to bed.

 

[lovethattink]

Sorry late dining didn't work out for you. It worked the opposite for us. And I requested it for the next cruise, Sept 30th. Both dh and ds (age 10) are not morning people, but are night owls. He and another boy at our dining table excused themselves each night at around 9:30 and headed up to the Lab for activities. We got to enjoy dessert and "adult" conversation. This time we will be doing this with an infant in tow. So we will see how that goes. I was the only one tired at dinner, since I'm a morning person and got up at 6am.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Good point - we should have factored in that we are early risers. Were hoping for naps, though...

 

[jwann]

TOTALLY AGREE WITH THE OP!!!!
We had early seating for our first cruise and didn't know how great we had it so we stupidly changed to late for our second cruise. YIKES! In addition to your experiences with kids we also experienced other negative consequences from late seating:
1. Since dinner was so late, we snacked some in the late afternoon so we ended up not being as hungry at dinner.
2. Thus, we filled up faster at dinner but kept eatin of course
3. So we were sleepy and tired from full bellies just when we wanted to dance and party.
4. So we went to bed early and often got heartburn.
5. We never got to eat any of the late night buffets, etc - we were too full!

For us - It works better to have early seating: We are usually gettin' really hungry around 6:00 (early dining time), we filled up at dinner, walked around for about 30 minutes before the show, sat down in the theater to watch the show, headed down to the dancing, by that time we were thirsty and not as full so we could have a specialty drink , and then by the time the late night snacks came out we were slightly hungry and could try a couple samples from the buffet! Yes, it means that getting ready for the evening events starts earlier, but you are on vacation -- don't spend an hour getting ready for dinner! Get out of your swimsuit, brush your hair, put on a little makeup, slip on a comfortable dress (or whatever - as long as its comfortable!) and have a FUN NIGHT!

 

[scrapcreator]

When we booked our cruise, late seating was the only available. Dd (9) and dh are night owls. They will be taking pictures of me asleep in my salad and salmon, LOL!

Sorry the later seating was so awful

Jeanne

 

[OurDogCisco]

I also think it depends on where you live as well. We live on the West Coast so early seating would not be fun at least until we got use to the time change. I think, also different times work for different families. Only parents know how their kids could handle the dinner seating times. When we have done West Coast cruises we only do early seating because our kids could never make it to late seating. However, on the disney cruise we did late seating and it worked out fine! Also, my kids are late risers as well..... We were lucky if we made it to the breakfast on sea days....

 

[jdm]

I totally agree with OurDogCisco. I think it HUGELY depends on where you are from. We go to Florida every Feb from Wa state and we never really acclimate to the time change. We sleep late, go to bed late, and eat late. We sailed 3 years ago and had late seating. Our kids did fine. I couldn't imagine doing the early. We were just never hungry that early in the day and enjoyed not having to rush through our daily activities to go get ready for dinner. Not too mention getting to sleep a little later on the last morning! We are booked for Feb 13th Wonder and I booked late seating again without hesitation. It's what works best for us.

Jenn

 

[hopelea]

We had early seating. My dd's were 7 & 9 at the time. They had been going non stop from the moment we set foot on the ship. Semi-formal night I have a picture of my 7 yr old dd, in her Minnie Mouse costume dress asleep in my arms at the table. (I only ate what my dh would cut and put into my mouth ) It is the best picture of the whole trip. I can't imagine what it would have been like if we had late seating.

We have early again in April.

 

[luvsTink]

We want our children to be at least somewhat able to enjoy the shows and so we booked late seating thinking that it would be good to do the shows early/first. Was this wrong? Are kids able to stay awake for shows after an early dinner?

Anne

 

[mom2sean_n_alex]

I would have prefered the early seating too! I have 2 sons ages 3 & 1. We would have done much better with an earlier seating... they got awfully whiney. DH prefers to eat early so by the time dinner got here he was grumpy LOL So I had three grumpy ones to deal with at dinner! LOL

The one thing I did like about the late seating was the longer afternoon to do 'stuff' the boys napped in the middle of the day, and DH & I switched off 'free' time. They would have gotten up from naps without much time to do anythign before dinner. BUT all that I would still prefer the earlier seating, just to have less whining!

 

[lbgraves]

Both of our kids were fine with watching the shows after early dinner. DS went to the club & missed a couple of them but DD was wide eyed for ALL of them. She LOVED the shows & came home and started performing her own shows.

 

[tvguy]

We're west coasters, so on east coast 6 pm seating is like 3 pm for us, and 8:30 is like 5:30.
My DD is into soccer, and DS into baseball, DW works until 5:30, home at 6, so we rarely eat at home before 7 pm, and usually closer to 7:30......so they're ALL too early for us!!!

Even on our West Coast Alaska cruise we basically were on a 3 hour "feeding schedule". Breakfast at 10 am, lunch at 2 pm, snack at 5 pm, dinner at 8:30 pm, and then the midnight buffet (on lines other than DCL).
DCL does have 1 midnight buffet, but I can see where they don't need it. Out of 7 cruises I've been on, on DCL, RCCL, NCL, HAL and Paquet, DCL is definately an "early to bed, early to rise" cruise line. Everyone is in bed by midnight. That may also why they have the shows BEFORE late seating dinner. We missed Hercules, the first show because we didn't check our Navigator and just assumed the shows are after dinner.
Did feel a bit hurried getting ready for the shows so early.

 

[Gupsmom]

We were stuck with late seating on our first cruise. I thought it would be a nightmare because my kids go to bed fairly early. We loved it so much that we have booked late ever since. Our kids are only 7, 6 and 4 and we're East Coasters.

The kids did great for the show and for dinner. One day we fed them on deck and then let them play in the club while we ate. Another day they napped durring the day so they could stay in the club (after our 8:30 dinner) extra late...their request. Even when they didn't nap, they did great at the late dinner. The dining staff did a very good job keeping the kids entertained.

Jess

 

[mamalle]

thanks for the advice. Im was thinking the early would be better for us. we all are early risers and go to be early also.

 

[*Fantasia*]

Thanks for sharing your experience guys! I have been thinking about what would be better for us. I thought, we are on vacation, we don't want to get up early for breakfast and we're not morning people. Then I also thought, we are night owls too. So, I decided that late seating would be better for us.

 

[OurDogCisco]

Originally posted by *Fantasia*
Thanks for sharing your experience guys! I have been thinking about what would be better for us. I thought, we are on vacation, we don't want to get up early for breakfast and we're not morning people. Then I also thought, we are night owls too. So, I decided that late seating would be better for us.

A couple of times during our cruise we used the mickey pool & slikde around 5:30, 6 pm and it was empty even around 5 pm it starts clearing out. Very nice benefit.... and we still had time to see the shows after a swim. Shhhh.... don't tell anyone it is a secret....

 

[ericamanda01]

DH and don't have kids yet but our neice and nefew were on our first family cruise. We had late seating and it was great. However we are from Oregon and the time change was an adjustment. I think that if you are from the west coast, or an area that has a time difference, that late seating is great for kids but otherwise it seems to really through them off.

 

[mkbowlkw]

We had the last seating on the 7/29 Wonder with myself and DW (both 37) and DS-4 and DS7. We had the opportunity to change to the early seating and didn't because we didn't want to rush in and try to get dressed for an early dinner. We also figured that we would be snacking throughout the day so we probably would be very hungry for the early seating. We were right about all of the above. The late seating turn out perfect for us. We thought the boys would be tired, but they weren't. Every evening they were ready to go to the club so we only had dinner together once. What we did was instead of leaving them at the club for dinner, we picked them up and had dinner with them (we didn't eat). We figured no matter where they ate, they would usually get the same thing anyway (chicken, pizza, french fries and ice cream). Once they had dinner, we took them to the shows 2 nights and then checked them back into the club. In most cases we still had time to get dressed for our late dinner. We weren't really tring to make them go to sleep early. We weren't on any schedule so since they were on vacation we figured we would let them pace themselves. In most cases they were too excited to sleep until about 11:00 or so. We always went by and checked on them every hour or so to make sure they were ok and see if they wanted to be checked out.
Bottomline, we would probably always get the late seating. We are on central time.

 

[cristit14]

We had early seating on our 4 day in July. It was okay, but we never ate breakfast very early so we weren't ready for lunch until late and I never wanted to eat much so that I could have room for dinner. For our next cruise I requested late seating. My kids will be 10 and 7 and we are from Mountain time zone so it will be like eating at 630 to us anyway. I hope that works out better for us.