1st or 2nd seating?

[msnmom]

Which do you prefer? 1st or 2nd seating and why?
Cruising with DH, DS(11) & DD(8)...

 

[bratray]

hi

from previous carnival cruises we always chose 2nd seating

i like the feeling of not being rushed to get ready for dinner- especially if you are just coming from one of the ports

many with kids prefer the first seating but i rather have DS5 take a cat nap and be awake for the kid club evening offerings; its his vacation too

the way i figure it, i want my DS5 to enjoy the shows and he will more likely be wide awake for the 6pm show then he would the 8pm show- plus i noticed that there was a lot going on in the evening for kids- this way he won't have to choose between going to the show at 8pm or doing stuff in the kids club- i will just feed him before he goes to the kids club or he can just come to dinner with us at 8:30

either way you will have a great time

 

[dclwdwlover]

Cruising with no kids = late seating because there are typically fewer children.

Cruising with kids (very young to early teens) = main seating because we hopefully will get seated with like families & make it more interesting for the kids.

I, myself, actually prefer to eat at the main seating & go to the show & relax afterwards, but we will switch that around this time because we have no younger children with us this time. Our son will be 14 & wishes to try out the later dinner hour. It seems that he spends a lot of time at Scoops in the late afternoon & doesn't have an appetite at 6:00pm!

 

[Bmwdsny]

I did both seating....There are pro and cons...but i am sticking with early seating...

While i love the fact there is no rush to the late seating, but eating such a heavy delicious dinner at 8:30 and beyond, by the time you eat the appetizer, desserts and such which is about 9:30 or so, i am just stuffed and tired. Plus, the kids clubs are pretty quiet during the early seating and have neat schedule going on during late seatings and kids' don't want to miss it. I go the early seating on every cruise now and i have the rest of the night free and walk off my calories too!!!

 

[DisneyWill]

My vote is for early seating. We were never rushed at any meal. You have 2 hours. We has lots of time to talk and take in the sights of each dining room. There were never any times that the children around us were noisy or loud. All were very well behaved. We found that the children needed a break from the clubs and the early seating provided that. After diner they changed cloths and when back to the clubs.

 

[jrabbit]

Dinner Seating: Early vs. Late
Early Pros:
>Ready for the late night desserts
>Won’t go to bed stuffed
>Kids club schedules better timed with early seating
>“You’ve got the whole evening before you”

Early Cons:
>On port days, gotta get back on board to clean up and be at dinner by 6
>Need to make a choice: go to the family cabaret shows and then sit farther back for the main show in the Walt Disney Theater or skip the family cabaret shows
>Stuffed from dinner – hard to stay awake in the nice and cozy darkened theater for the main shows
>Disembarkation Day: breakfast at 6:45am vs. 8am for Late seating

Late Pros:
>Have an extra 1/2 hour to get cleaned up after a busy day onshore (or onboard)
>Don’t have to be at the main show until 6:30 and you don’t even have to be “dressed up”
>If you do get dressed up for the 6:30 show, you can go to the family cabaret without feeling rushed (you’ve got a reserved seat for dinner)
>Won’t feel like snacking (as much) late at night on the desserts (maybe this is a con)
>Overall, you’re not as rushed (getting ready for dinner and at dinner)
>Less children (if that’s important to you)
>Time to snack at scoops/plutos/Pinocchio's in the afternoon w/o spoiling dinner
>More time to "sleep in" on last day - Breakfast at 8am vs 6:45am

Late Cons:
>If your dinner runs long, you’ll miss the “adult” cabaret shows and the sail away parties
>If you’re tired, I’m too stuffed from dinner to go to bed for quite a while
>Interferes with evening kids and teen activities

 

[castlegazer]

I have actually never been hte early or main seating for a cruise and am now sooo looking forward to it for our next cruise for the exact same reasons given by Bmwdsny.

I am always wiped out and not able to go out later in the evening due to late seating and being stuffed. I am really looking forward to having a life after dinner.

What we will be doing about Kid's club and the early dinner is having my son, who will be 4, come with us to dinner, and then at about 7:00 - an hour into dinner and when he will be getting ready to get done - bring him up to the kid's club and then we can come back and finish dinner. At about 7:15 every evening, if you look at past Navigators, they start some of the great parties and then they end by around 8:15 allowing you to go get your child and bring them to the late show. We also plan on doing the matinees they have for the bigger shows. Allowing my son to stay for many of the parties and not miss the shows.

 

[marie2004]

We have done both, my son likes to go to the club around 4pm-5pm, and will eat with them 4-5 nights of the cruise. We have our family time for breakfast, lunch and swimming, he loves it in the club so I let him choose, he is on vacation too! Late seating is nice, relaxed, and we walk around the ship after ward (to get ready for the great dancing in the clubs!)

 

[Otimon]

As Cast Members, we are always scheduled for the late seating and will be again next week for the Nov. 6 Western.

If 3 of you for the early seating would like to trade times with the 3 of us, we'd be glad to do so. We could meet and talk with the head server, or whomever is in charge of dining arrangements, once on board. Don't know if it is something they would actually do but is worth a try if you would like a late seating and one isn't available when you get on board.

PM me if we can help.

 

[Luckymommyx2]

We always choose the main seating because it's closest our normal dining times. We try to stay as close to our normal routines as possible, especially with the kids. There are pros and cons to each time.

 

[disneygatorfan]

Otimon,

Fellow CM as well, I prefer the late seating myself, but my friend is the opposite. Like all cast, she was automatically assigned late seating. Once she boarded, she went to the head server, explained she was traveling with her elderly mother, and they were able to get her into 1st seating, since the ship was not full.

When we (CMs) get on the ship, it's a good bet it's not full, so might not hurt to ask once you get there to see if you can switch. Even if Guest Services says no, I would still reccommend asking the head server, or the dining manager, cause when it comes down to it, they are the ones really in charge of everything that happens in the dining room.

 

[poohssmum]

Checking in to say that we LOVE late seating. We have 2 boys (8 and 5 now, 3 and 6 during our last cruise), but got assigned late seating due to booking our cruise a bit late. We found that it worked out really well for us. We wanted the kids to be with us for dinner on Formal and Semi-Formal night, but let them dictate when they wanted to leave for the clubs. All other nights we gave them the option, eat with us or not, and they LOVED that. We also found that the pools (especially the Mickey pool) cleared out quite a bit around 5:00, when families with early seating dinner had to head in to get ready. We could take the boys from the club and let them swim.

HTH!

 

[pvangordon]

Personally, I always choose late. I don't have kids and there are typically fewer kids at the late seating. I'm also a night person. By the time I get started in my day, it's usually lunchtime. I then eat a snack around 4-5 pm and I'm hungry again by the time 8:30-9 pm rolls around.

Seems like it's also a lot easier to get late seating. No wait lists, lol.

 

[SuzPasq]

many with kids prefer the first seating but i rather have DS5 take a cat nap and be awake for the kid club evening offerings; its his vacation too >

This worked well for us the year before last when our son was 5. We would all take a nap around 3:30 and have enough time for a snack (AHOD from stateroom service most nights) before we showered and changed for the show and dinner. Then he'd spend an hour or two at the Oceaneer's Club while dh and I did something else.

 

[luckeylasvegas]

You should check out the advise on Mousesavers.com . We chose late seating because certain things at the club would conflict with the show after main seating, and DD would have to choose which one she wanted to attend. I think it depends on your kids and how old they are. If they are younger than 5 main seating would probably be better.

Luckey

 

[Footnotegirl]

Don't forget the other big "con" that you can have with early seating (for some people I guess it can be a Pro if they're early morning risers), Late dinner seating means a later character breakfast and a later debarkation day breakfast. Since I'm a grad student who normally doesn't roll out of bed until 11 a.m. most days (and burns the midnight oil every night), it just is not 'vacation' for me if I have to get up for a 6:45 a.m. breakfast.
*shudder*

 

[firsttimemom]

We had late seating on our may cruise- by default bcs early was full. I wasn't happy at first but it did end up working out for the best! We would order room service dinner for the kids (4 and 6) and maybe the cheese plate for us to snack on while we got dressed. We saw the shows as a family and then took the kids to the club. They preferred that to being stuck in a restaurant. Our DD did come to AP for a bit but asked to go back to the clubs midway through. We can wander the ship after dinner or see one of the adult caberet shows while they're watching videos.

I saw plenty of kids in the late seating including several very young ones so I'm always surprised to see people post that there are fewer children at that time.

Liz

 

[cristit14]

For our first cruise we had early, but I have requested late seating for our next one. We are from Mountain time zone so late seating will be pretty close to normal time for us. The thing I didn't like about early seating is since we didn't eat breakfast until around 930 or so I never felt hungry for lunch until around 2 and then I didn't want to eat too much to spoil my dinner. That also meant that I didn't get to do much ice cream either. This time I want later so that I can enjoy lunch too. Of course this means that I will probably gain weight this time.

 

[minmom]

We had early and hated it. We are from the west coast and always felt rushed to get ready for dinner. On all our other cruises we've had late seating and loved it. It gives you more time to enjoy the afternoon and then get ready.

 

[crisi]

We did early and booked it again for next cruise.

Our kids were four and five. We only did a four night.

The one event the kids would have missed in the kids clubs was their own sail away party. That party was one of the highlights of their cruise.

We were always hungry by six - so late dining would have meant TWO additional dinners - something around six from the pizza window, followed by dinner two hours later. I gained five pounds in four days as it was!

We are early risers (my husband and daughter aren't, but they travel with my son and I - when we are all in the same room, we all get my schedule), so our pool time was in the morning. We were out of the pool when it started getting crowded - back in mid afternoon on port days.

We did find the caberet shows to be very crowded by the time we got there. But I have learned a lesson - tell your servers you want to be out quickly if you want to make it to a show, and I'm willing to bet we wouldn't have been among the last tables leaving - we certainly weren't rushed!