Alaska Dining - Early or Late?

[jmhaskell]

Hi friends! Any feedback on early or late dining for DCL Alaska 7 night (July 29, 2024 sailing)? I have heard you may miss some of your dining if you have early dining. But as east coasters, the late dining seems so late.

 

[soniam]

You would only miss dining if you choose to do late excursions or not return to the ship in time for dinner. We did do late, since the ship leaves a bit later in some ports. We could have done early just as easily and usually do early.

 

[PsylockeSmythe]

When we did Alaska in 2022 we had early dinning and didn't miss anything. The excursions that we booked all finished in plenty of time for us to be back on the ship before dinner started.

Psy

 

[sadiecatie]

We did early dining and never had a problem making it to dinner. The excursions we did always got us back in plenty of time - it helps that most port days started pretty early (I think Ketchikan was the only day where we got in to port a little later, and we didn’t do a formal excursion that day. Other days we were off the ship before 8am).

 

[FastPasser.]

I have heard you may miss some of your dining if you have early dining.

Like others, we did an Alaska cruise and arrived on time for early dining.

But as east coasters, the late dining seems so late.

As East Coasters we prefer late dining on cruises.

 

[justafigment27]

We did early dining and it was a scramble to get to dinner on time one night - we tossed our bags in our room and went to dinner in the clothes we wore for the excursion. Other than that, it wasn’t an issue and we did excursions in every port,

 

[soniam]

We did early dining and it was a scramble to get to dinner on time one night - we tossed our bags in our room and went to dinner in the clothes we wore for the excursion. Other than that, it wasn’t an issue and we did excursions in every port,

That's true in the Caribbean too. Early dining can be a scramble no matter the cruise. Luckily, DCL is pretty lax about MDR attire, so it's pretty easy to make it to dinner.

 

[Sakura1017]

I had early dining and didn't miss anything. I agree with what another person said that if you have a later excursion ie Skagway or in Icy Strait then you might miss main dining. But the other ports were all back on board time before main dining.

 

[auntlynne]

The late sunset can fool your body into thinking it’s still early enough to eat.

And check your itinerary and activities; there are cruises where you really aren’t in port to late hours. Or doing excursions then.

 

[Calantha]

We did early dining and my son will still falling asleep most nights.

 

[Kwami]

I just loaded the first couple of Alaska cruises in May to check time. Skagway and Icy Straight Point have an all aboard time of 8:00pm and Ketchikan has an all aboard time of 6:45pm. So, for 2/3 ports, you'd miss the first dinner seating if you stayed out late.

I've only been on one Alaska cruise, but there was so much to do that I got back to the ship about 5-10 minutes before all aboard every day.