4 day wonder - dining questions

[Dana_Buckley]

We have the first dining time, where do you eat the first night? I'm not sure I understand how we can be ready for 5:30 dining if we do not board until 4pm and we have the safety thing? And we may not have our luggage yet? I'm confused?

Thanks! - sail date March 6

 

[emtowle]

We have the first dining time, where do you eat the first night? I'm not sure I understand how we can be ready for 5:30 dining if we do not board until 4pm and we have the safety thing? And we may not have our luggage yet? I'm confused?

Thanks! - sail date March 6

Haven't done DCL yet (soon! 2/27) but I believe boarding starts as early as 11am. The 4pm time is the 'must be boarded' time if I recall my docs.

Where you eat night one may be indicated on your key card or with tickets in your stateroom. There will be 3 dining rooms open, so no way for us to predict where you'll be on night 1.

Dining room attire, some people carry a nice outfit in their carry-on so that they'll have something in the event that the luggage hasn't arrived yet. Other's don't. It depends on what else you're doing on your vacation and what outfits you wore to board the ship. From what I've gathered Disney formal is much less so than some of the other cruise lines so providing that your boarding outfit did not include jeans you may be fine.

Good luck!

 

[tvguy]

Actually, first dining is at 6. As mentioned, 4 pm is last call for boarding, you can get on board as early as noon or 12:30. Your luggage should be at cabin before the lifeboat drill at 4:30, or right after at 5 at the latest.

But to answer your question, in the broadest terms, I don't know how folks get ready for 6 pm seating on any day on a cruise either, that's why we always get late seating.
But be warned with Disney, late seating means EARLY show times, 6:30, at least for most shows. Some shows they do a 10:30 pm third performance, 10:30pm being "normal" show time on other cruise lines for late seating diners. One show, on a sea day on the Eastern had an early 2 pm showing.
While we found the early shows to be a pain, the days they had three shows we took advantage of the alternate show both times, fit our schedule better.

 

[Dana_Buckley]

If we are on the four night cruise and there are three restaurants, I guess you have dinner in one of them twice? Just wondering how it all works. Thank you!

 

[jlowejd5]

We've eaten early and late, and there are pros and cons to both. I think the next time we're going to try to get early seating.

1. Dinner and then a show seems more natural than a show and then dinner.
2. If you eat dinner early, there's more of an opportunity to get some digesting done so you can get a snack later and not asplode.
3. There may be slighly more kids at early seating, but, in my observation, they're slightly better behaved. They're not as exhausted, and they're not all geeked up from the stage show.

I don't think we had a problem being ready for the early seating. In fact, we have always gotten our luggage even before time for the lifeboat drill.

 

[crisi]

We had early seating a no problems at all getting ready....even enjoyed the entire sail away party.

You'll want to be on board long before 4:00 pm. We were onboard by 12ish, unpacked by 3ish, had the kids play in the Mickey Pool, went to the lifeboat drill, went to the sailaway party, had plenty of time to get two preschoolers and ourselves ready for dinner. We aren't big "hair makeup" type people and it doesn't take but a few minutes to change clothes.

First night is relatively casual, and if you are boarding late, you might want to board in a sundress or capri's (men in Dockers and golf shirts) to be ready. Besides, they take your photo when you board.