Late seating?

[jjiillee]

Does anyone do late seating with small children and use dine and play? Just wondering how you liked it. My kids will be 7,6,4 when we cruise and we chose late seating because of dine and play.

 

[Disney 24/7]

My daughter loved dine and play. The kids are served their meals right away and around 9pm a CM from the kids club comes around to pick up the kids. I usually tell our server if my child is doing dine and play. I get to eat a peaceful meal while my daughter is enjoying herself at the kids club. I love late seating because I don't have to rush back after a long excursion day.

 

[braysmommy]

My DS was almost 5 when we used it and he loved it! He can be a bit on the nervous side and had no problem running off to meet the CM's when they came into the dining room.

 

[kcashner]

No, no one ever does Dine and Play.

Parents have been doing a version of this since the advent of DCL in 1998; the cruise line just added having the CMs come to the dining room. If you prefer to do main seating, just ask the servers to expedite the children's meals. Then, when they have finished (usually between your entree and dessert), a parent takes them to the OC. It takes maybe 5 minutes to run them over and return to the dining room. If you have late seating, you do exactly the same thing except that when the CMs come to the dining room to collect the kids, you hand them over--no need to interrupt your dinner for more than a minute.

 

[darkwing818]

When we did our 1st cruise, we did the early dinner seating. Our DDs were 7 & 9 and it was the 2 of them that actually did not like early seating (to many "little" kids running around). From then on ( 7 more cruises) we have always requested late dining.

 

[CoasterDadof2]

We have done late seating on all 3 of our family cruises, kids ranged from 6-11 depending on the cruise. We loved the dine and play option for our family. Our younger son would get his food quickly, and be ready when the counselors came in. Our daughter loves the slow paced meal, so she would stay with us. It was so nice that we could all stay together, and not have to leave the dining room to check in our son.

 

[lodge]

I thought it'd be too late for them to want to play... boy was I wrong!

 

[castawaycayfans]

We have been doing Dine and Play since DS9 was 5, we love it! We get dinner with him and some quiet dinner time alone. Best of both worlds!

 

[Disneyof3]

We did it last year for our 1st cruise with my DS10. Unfortunately if you aren't seated near the entrance to the restaurant(main entrance), you miss them. Each dinner last year, we ended up taking son between our courses because of this. This year he is 11 and has option of doing the ocean lab or the bigger group. If he chooses the ocean lab again, we are giving him the option to sign in and out himself(we will set up times, at night because last year he was there until 11:30-12pm and I don't want him roaming the ship that late by himself) This way when he is done dinner(we always have his food brought out early) he can go up and sign himself in.

 

[lodge]

We did it last year for our 1st cruise with my DS10. Unfortunately if you aren't seated near the entrance to the restaurant(main entrance), you miss them. Each dinner last year, we ended up taking son between our courses because of this. This year he is 11 and has option of doing the ocean lab or the bigger group. If he chooses the ocean lab again, we are giving him the option to sign in and out himself(we will set up times, at night because last year he was there until 11:30-12pm and I don't want him roaming the ship that late by himself) This way when he is done dinner(we always have his food brought out early) he can go up and sign himself in.

Just wondering if you told your server, so that you could be informed when they arrived?

 

[JKMJ441724]

We "used" dine and play on the Dream in June 2011. Mostly we just got play because our dining room service was so incredibly slow. Our kids had not been served by the time the D&P attendants showed up to get the kids. We were more than a little miffed. Kids didn't really seem to mind.

 

[suffieldhockeymom]

We have always done late seating. The pool is empty during first dinner so the kids swam between the show and dinner (except for formal and semi-formal night). You can relax more and not have to rush back from an excursion. Let your server know that you want to know when the CMs come to pick up for play time. You can ask for the next nights menu during desert and pre order the next night's dinner to be ready when you arrive or have it served when the adults are having their 1st course.

 

[Fjobe]

I hadn't read about dine and play, so I am excited to know about this! We chose late dining just because we tend to enjoy eating later on vacation. Thanks for brining this up!

 

[Summerl30]

we always like to eat late, but since the kids were coming, i chose early. DH isn't happy about this, so I'll probably change to late. my kids are about the same ages (8,6,5)

 

[4HppyCamprs]

I hadn't read about dine and play, so I am excited to know about this! We chose late dining just because we tend to enjoy eating later on vacation. Thanks for brining this up!

This is us too. It is our first cruise and I will definitely be looking into the dine and play. We chose late seating because with the time change it is still a reasonable dinner time and we would prefer not to have to rush to get to meals. Again this is a first cruise so we will see how it all shakes out.

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[Disneyof3]

Just wondering if you told your server, so that you could be informed when they arrived?

Yes and they kept there eyes open for them too. I eventually as I mentioned just went up after son was done dinner inbetween my main course and dessert. I also mentioned this to the CM at the lab (2x different ones) both said oh sorry. As I said I gave up after the 2nd night.

 

[jjiillee]

Glad to hear many of you like the late seating. I was worried at first because we eat dinner around 6 at home. I don't want to have to rush to get ready for dinner after excursion. Also thought we could hit up the aqua duck while early dinner is going on

 

[rosermama]

We do late seating we are east coast time zone and normally eat around 7:30 so its not too much of a stretch and we get a snack around 4:30

We rode the aqua duck one night from 5:30-6:30 over and over no wait maybe 1-2 riders ahead of us.

We also chose to eat at Cabanas a couple nights a cruise so we don't have to get all dressed up and do our hair. Just quick showers pull the hair back slap on some clothes totally cruise casual. Service is faster and the kids can get out quick only thing is you have to take them down stairs.. Its open seating from 6:30-8

 

[Wshop]

DS did when he was 5 and there were several younger ones at our table that did as well. Loved it! I would never do early seating.