Second Seating for dinner? Really Bad?

[lulu0506]

TA priced a 7 night cruise for us in May '09 and says that the first seating for dinner has been sold out and that we could be put on a wait list. We haven't booked yet, but am wondering how we would even consider an 8:30 dinner with a 3 yr old and 7 yr old??? Anyone had similar experience? Is there a possibility of getting into the first dinner seating? Need expert advise... never cruised DCL... never cruised with kids

 

[webray]

You can stay on the wait list and when you board the ship go directly to the place listed in the navigator to change dinner times and change them.

Be persistant!

 

[Kphelps16]

Not to say that you should give up if you feel its what your family needs but my family eats at about 5:30 or 6 every evening. And our first cruise we got the 8:30 seating...we were nervous but we adjusted easily...my younger sister was young and seemed like she was starving CONSTANTLY.
we were worried she would be hungry too... but there is always the food on deck 9 and room service so if you can't get the early seating don't let it ruin your trip. You can tide them over with snacks, or let them make it their dinner and just let them play in the club during dinner! Disney is so flexible so it's very easy to roll with the punches when something pops up

 

[Bell30012]

My daughter is almost six... we plan to cruise next year when she is seven and I certainly can't see her waiting that late for dinner each night.

 

[hoop4321]

We love the late seating. You don't have to rush back from your shore excursions, the shows are fabulous that the kids are not falling asleep through. We would just get a small snack to tide us over and really enjoy dinner without all the tantrums. Wonderful.

 

[lulu0506]

I am not worried so much about them starving. Just worried that they will be tired and cranky at dinner (thus making my dinner an awful tension filled experience) Thanks for all of your input! Love these boards!!

 

[lar32]

we are in seattle so i'm thrilled about the late seating but on vacations we always eat much later because we are so busy during the day and always need to get cleaned and showered before dinner. I can't stand being in the sun all day and having my kids covered in sunscreen and not shower and get cleaned up. By the time we do all that it seems it's easily past 7 p.m. anyways.

 

[Aunt KatKat]

I wonder if anyone else has tried this.

We are coming from California with DD 6 and DS 5. We normally eat at 5:00 for 5:30pm, and I was thinking about just keeping them on west coast time for the entire cruise. They are used to going to sleep at 7:00 o'clock. I'm afraid they would miss out on pirate party, fireworks if I tried to put them on schedule on east coast time.

Has any one had success with this?

Katherine

 

[cats mom]

We were not thrilled about being assigned late seating on our first Disney cruise either. Our little ones were 6 and 9 at the time, so not quite as young as yours though... but as it turns out we loved the late seating and have requested it ever since.

Another thing to consider is that unless a matinee is offered, the dinners and the shows are flip flopped; so if your little ones are not night owls, they're likely to be cranky for one or the other. I've seen plenty of little ones being carried out of the late shows asleep on mom or dads shoulder, and I always feel so bad that they crashed and missed the show. But my kids LOVE the shows on DCL.

 

[memouselily]

When we cruised last October, we had a 3 yo, a 1.5 yo and a 2 yo with us. Sure they were tired, but our servers were awesome with them! They helped keep them happy...they would walk them around the restaurant with them, play games at the table with them. Needless to say it didn't take long for them to fall asleep once we got back to the cabin. It can be done and be fun too!

 

[rhondamccollough@hot]

Booked a month before our cruise and of course got late seating...would never ask for early seating now!!

As someone mentioned you don't have to rush back from excursions, the kids actually SEE the shows AND there is always something to eat for kids (8,7 & 5) who need a snack before the shows or after. Room Service doesn't take long at all and we usually ordered the ALL HANDS ON DECK cheese platter for me and NANA and pizza or fruit bowls for the kids! We ordered when we started dressing for the shows and it was always there just a few minutes later!

 

[lulu0506]

Thanks~ Great suggestions!! Feeling like the second seating may be okay!

 

[TiggerzFan]

Have been cruising since DD6 was 18mos old and have mostly had late seatings. I find we all get on a later schedule while cruising and it works out just fine. We've had early seating too, and that was fine as well. As a PP mentioned, with the shows and dinners flip flopped it almost doesn't matter. The only major challenge we've had with the late seating is on Pirate Night... just tell your server you want to get to the party on time and you'll be fine.

Oh, one other challenge with late seating.... we've not been very hungry when the late night buffets are out...and boy do they look good!!!

Happy Sails!

 

[scriv2]

Last month we had second seating and at first thought it would be too late, but we loved it! Booked on board for another cruise and requested second seating... No rushing!

 

[inkkognito]

Granted we don't have kids, but we LOVE LOVE LOVE late dining. We've probably had it on 60 of our 63 cruises. We tried early twice in the early days but discovered we preferred late. I had forgotten why till the EB repo, when we chose early because of the time difference between CA and FL. It just feels like you have so much more time when you go to the show before dinner vs. after...with early dining, we always felt a little rushed. Late dining is just so much more relaxing because you're not hustling to get ready to eat early...you're seeing the show or just bumming around or whatever. Eating on early on the EB really reminded us that late is truly much better for us.

 

[dweitzel0]

I'll echo what everyone else has said. Had late seating with a 5 and 3 year old, coming from the west coast and LOVED IT. THere are so many snacks that the kids weren't hungry (my two eat like birds most of the time anyway) and they were actually awake for the shows. After dinner we would head back to the room and the kids would be in bed by 8:30 or so.

We have main seating this time and I am actually a little nervous about that. I don't want to feel rushed, so who knows maybe when we get a little closer I'll switch to the later seating?

 

[jkinak]

We chose late seating for our first cruise last year because we are late eaters at home. The kids loved going to the shows before dinner, always got a snack on the 9th floor around 5:00 and the best part??? Empty Mickey Pool from 4-6!!! My 5 yo was in HEAVEN!!!

 

[adnil530]

Thanks~ Great suggestions!! Feeling like the second seating may be okay!

Thanks for asking the question. I was a little "put off" at first that we would have second seating dining. I really thought we would "miss out on something". But like others have commented, I found the positive things that others have pointed out such as, we are from the west coast so dinner will actually be on time for us; we won't be rushing back from excursions and I have looked at the navigators, we won't be missing anything. I am thinking 2nd seating dining may well be a benefit for us.

 

[drag n' fly]

I wonder if anyone else has tried this.

We are coming from California with DD 6 and DS 5. We normally eat at 5:00 for 5:30pm, and I was thinking about just keeping them on west coast time for the entire cruise. They are used to going to sleep at 7:00 o'clock. I'm afraid they would miss out on pirate party, fireworks if I tried to put them on schedule on east coast time.

Has any one had success with this?

Katherine

We actually requested second seating due to the time difference. Second seating is our normal dinner time at home. With that being said mornings are killer for us (especially rope drop lol) so we don't mind staying up quite late and we always try to stay on our time as it completely cuts down on the jet lag.

 

[DisneyDoc1895]

We had the late seating on the EB Repo.

Initially we didn't think it would be a big deal, and it really wasn't too bad.

The kids have their dinner around 530-6 in the club/lab, but they didn't like it because they would usually go to topsiders buffet and the counselors would bring them food. Understandable, turning 50 5-8 year olds loose on the buffet would be disasterous.

Our show was the early one, at 615. We would pull the kids for the show and go to it, then get dressed to go to dinner at 815. If the kids (we have a 6 y/o and 8 y/o) wanted to have the nice dinner with us we would get them a snack at 530. If the parents are having 'special' drinks at the show, then you can hit deck 9 and get them free special drinks too - our favorite was a coke float. If they wanted to skip dinner and go back to camp after the show then we would give them a full dinner on deck 9 (burgers/hot dogs/etc) before the show.

The biggest problem we had with the late dinner was this - you weren't hungry for the deck parties! You get out of dinner at 930 or so and many deck parties had food and started right away. The early seaters were hungry and hit the party buffet line hard.

So, the next cruise we will try the early seating.