Sell me on Main or Late Dinner for four night Dream cruise

[mmbrad02]

We will be on the Dream October 7 for Halloween on the High Seas - our first Disney Cruise (one other cruise under our belts, four years ago). We signed up for main dining time because it seemed logical since we normally eat around 6:30 at home and have a younger child. We are routine people at home but not sticklers on vacation as far as her schedule. In my mind, I cannot imagine waiting till 8pm for dinner (and my DH HATES eating late at home, but I know, it's vacation), and she is not a big eater so if we eat snacks at 5-6pm, she will not entertain more food at 8pm. I'm not opposed to kids clubs during dinner for her, but I would like to spend some time together as a family also. We will definitely get off the boat at Castaway Cay but will be staying on the boat in Nassau, so excursions are not an issue.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, sell me on later dining if you are a fan! Why do I want to change to this, or why should I keep my regular time? Is there something I am missing? The one thing that does come to my mind is, we love to sleep in on vacation (think 8:30-9) if possible, and then shower and be ready for the day, so that could potentially push all meals down a little.

 

[iivye]

We are fans of late dining but I think in your instance you should probably stick with main dining. You already mentioned your husband doesn't like to eat late. Our daughter has complained that most of the kids she hangs out with in the club do early dinner so they weren't around when she was in the club and they were doing fun things while she was at dinner; you didn't mention the age of your child so I'm not sure if this would come into play for your family. It just sounds like main suits your family's schedule.

 

[mike314]

If you have kids stick with main dinning plain and simple. No kids, get late dinning

 

[mab2012]

You'll get all sorts of opinions on this, but IMO the only big advantage of late dining is that sometimes getting to main dining feels a bit rushed, especially on a port-intensive cruise. On our Norway cruise last summer, we missed sail-away most nights because we were at dinner. In some ports main dining started before all-aboard. But not everyone cares about being on deck for sail-away.

I'm a night person, but we've always done main with our kids. At 10 and 13, they're only just now getting to the point where I might consider late dining, but for now I think we'd stick with main. When they were younger, late dining would have been a complete non-starter for us. Even getting my son through main dining after a long day was difficult at times. YMMV.

 

[Gentry2004]

I can’t imagine doing late dining with my 8 yo. Even on vacation my kids are usually asleep by 9/9:30, which is 1.5-2 hours past their normal bedtime.

 

[88golf88]

If you have kids stick with main dinning plain and simple. No kids, get late dinning

Why do you say late dining for couples with no children? Is it that much quieter or does it work out better for show times and such?

 

[Jkpark]

When I've cruised out of the east coast we always do late dining because we are on Arizona time. We stay up late and we sleep in - well they do anyway. Even when my kids were 5 and 7 that worked better. Now that they are older - we stick to late dining even out of the west coast. I think you know what is best for your family - trust your instincts.

 

[Cruising Engineer]

Engineer thinking here: If you are from the eastern time zone, stay with main dining. If you are from mountain or pacific time zones, go with late. It's only 3 days and you probably won't totally adjust to the local time zone. So if you're eating dinner at home 6 pm mountain time, that equates to 8 pm ship time.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

If you have kids stick with main dinning plain and simple. No kids, get late dinning

I totally disagree. Since we have been cruising we have done late dinner with DD. She was 7 the first trip. None of us, including her, have any interest in dinner at 5:45 when we didn't get up until 8 or 9.

OP we LOVE later dining. We also eat later at home too. Because of DD's dance schedule we are often not all home before 7:30 or so. We enjoy the extra time to get ready in the afternoon and not feel rushed. DD goes to her club after dinner and pretty much closes it down. We go to the bar area and enjoy some adult time. It is honestly up to you though, and how much you are willing to disrupt your family schedule. We didn't want to disrupt ours for early dining.

 

[phins_jazy]

We are late dining. I think it will be perfect for us as we tend to eat later anyways.

 

[jdb in AZ]

Main dining gives you more time to digest before going to bed. I hate going to bed on a full(!) stomach after late dining.

 

[Joseph Andrew Hunt]

We chose early dining for our cruise because our 3yr old son gets a bit hangry. We decided we would much rather take a possible fussy or sleeping child out of a show late in the evening that out of the main dining room.

 

[dcassetta]

We will be on the Dream October 7 for Halloween on the High Seas - our first Disney Cruise (one other cruise under our belts, four years ago). We signed up for main dining time because it seemed logical since we normally eat around 6:30 at home and have a younger child. We are routine people at home but not sticklers on vacation as far as her schedule. In my mind, I cannot imagine waiting till 8pm for dinner (and my DH HATES eating late at home, but I know, it's vacation), and she is not a big eater so if we eat snacks at 5-6pm, she will not entertain more food at 8pm. I'm not opposed to kids clubs during dinner for her, but I would like to spend some time together as a family also. We will definitely get off the boat at Castaway Cay but will be staying on the boat in Nassau, so excursions are not an issue.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, sell me on later dining if you are a fan! Why do I want to change to this, or why should I keep my regular time? Is there something I am missing? The one thing that does come to my mind is, we love to sleep in on vacation (think 8:30-9) if possible, and then shower and be ready for the day, so that could potentially push all meals down a little.

The other things you might consider are the main stage shows. With early dining, the show is after dinner starting about 8:30. If your family is interested in the shows, would your little one be too sleepy to enjoy it?

 

[Davistigers]

Main dining gives you more time to digest before going to bed. I hate going to bed on a full(!) stomach after late dining.

We also prefer main/early dining for this reason. We like the time after dinner to see the nightly show and wander around the ship and do any evening activities while our food digests and not going to bed on a full stomach. If we want a snack before bed we can get one somewhere or order room service. We're not super late night owls and get up pretty early. I'm pretty sure we've done main dining on all 5 of our DCL cruises with kids starting at ages 7 and 4 up through teens.

 

[remlap]

If you have a young kid, on behalf of all of the other late diners, I'm going to also highly recommend early dining.
Some kids just go to sleep. Others make their displeasure of late dining known every night.

 

[mmbrad02]

Thanks everyone for your replies, I can see pros and cons to both times.

Main dining gives you more time to digest before going to bed. I hate going to bed on a full(!) stomach after late dining.

This is DH's issue. If we are too late eating sometimes at home, he would rather just go to bed without dinner as to eat too late. (Me? Well I can eat anytime, good or bad )

DD is 8, and will be just two weeks shy of 9 by the time we take our cruise. She is a good kid, I think she could probably handle either time, but she does get tired and is ready for bed at home around 9 or 9:30 (on school nights she is in bed by 9), so I think we will stick to the main dinner seating. Thanks for your help!

 

[GPaLarry]

No matter what you folks do, this can be your trial cruise...you'll sign up for more (the Mouse is magical that way). Try one of the seating this time then adjust or stay the same for the next. After eight cruises, all main seating, we have our evening routine down and make excursions and other activities work around it. Cruise on...

 

[Dug720]

Know that if you do late dining, you can request that the kids' meals be brought out quickly and then they can go to the club after eating. Just the past 4 days I saw kids getting their food virtually at the start of late dining and then disappearing - or going to sleep in their chairs.

 

[Keyser]

We are fans of late dining but I think in your instance you should probably stick with main dining. You already mentioned your husband doesn't like to eat late. Our daughter has complained that most of the kids she hangs out with in the club do early dinner so they weren't around when she was in the club and they were doing fun things while she was at dinner; you didn't mention the age of your child so I'm not sure if this would come into play for your family. It just sounds like main suits your family's schedule.

I second this - it sounds like Main is the right choice for your family.

Since you've asked, here's something about the difference for why you might prefer late: We've done 4 cruises as a family, and had late for one, and main for 3 (when schedule was more of a concern for us, like it is for you). This time, kids are a little older and not as rigid on schedules, and we're doing late, and are looking forward to it. From our previous 4 cruises, the late dining was the best experience of all of them. The main reason for us was that the dining felt much less rushed at late dining. Although my wife and kids insist that I just eat too fast, I would say they eat on the slow side. And, as a result, our dinners seem to take a bit longer than others'. We are often one of the later families to finish, and in main dining, there's definitely a rushed feeling as the servers are preparing for the next round of dining; though they always were very polite about letting us finish, even if we were later than others, the feeling was certainly one of feeling we needed to hurry up to finish. Plus, we would sometimes be worried about what we were doing next (the show or whatever) and kids were wanting to run to the kids clubs and it all just felt more hectic. During late, everything just seemed a little more relaxed. We'll see if we still feel that way after trying on the next cruise.

 

[lindsay0526]

Our kids are 7, 9, & 12, and we would do a late dinner, but our upcoming trip is with my entire family and there are plenty of little cousins in the mix. We eat really late anyways- between 7:30-8 anyways because we have a lot of evening activities.

I agree with everyone else- if your family is used to eating dinner and your husband doesn't like late dinners, then choose the main dining.