Anyone with kids who LOVE late dining??

[ichoose2believe]

Had early dining last time and I wasn’t a fan. Felt like I was always rushing especially if we got off the ship. We usually eat late at home- picked late for the next cruise.

 

[5Texans]

Tip of the hat for you even being able to have your kids home from school and after school events by 5:30 pm let alone having dinner ready. My kids were in private school which got out at 3 pm.......where as the public schools got out at 2:15 pm. It always was a rush to get them to soccer and Little League because most of the coaches wanted the kids there by 3:30 pm. Our Suburban was the mobile dressing room, and a quick snack left wrappers and crumbs all over the interior! Soccer ran until 7 pm. Little League towards the end of the season ran sometimes until 8 or 8:30 pm. Then it was home to eat (often stopping for fast food on the way home), homework, showers and then bed time.
Public school holidays were more frequent than private school, so the other challenge was coaches wanting to do practice at 10 or 11 am on a public school holiday which were often regular school days for my kids.

We homeschool, and the freedom of schedule is one of the main reasons. However, as they get involved in more extracurriculars we’ve had to get flexible. No homework though! Reading your post made me realize that they have proven themselves adaptable this year.

 

[tvguy]

A lot of our stuff actually starts later, so we do a homework/dinner rush before heading to the activity. I'm sure they'd adjust if we had to reverse it, but early dinner it is with our current activity schedule.

Not sure how things are working this year for parents here. California passed a law that went into effect this school year pushing back the start time for Junior High School and High School. I guess the feeling is school was starting too early and the kids needed to sleep in later. That of course pushed back the dismissal time by 30 minutes to an hour. A lot of juggling in households where both parents work I'm sure.
I worked graveyard shift and slept during the day until our youngest was in High School. My wife worked 9am to 6pm and while I was always available during the day to get the kids places (just giving up sleep), it always was a rush for her to home to see some of our kids events.

 

[Ronneeaght]

We just got back today from our second cruise and one of my takeaways is that maybe we want late dining with our kids. DD7 and DS4 slept late each day so I felt like we were rushing to make the breakfast buffet before it closed at 10:45 and then rushing to make the lunch buffet before it closed at 2 or just getting quick service pizza or something at 2:30-3, which meant we really weren’t ready for main dining dinner at 5:45, and the kids mostly just picked at their food and then wanted something to eat later at night. I’ll seriously consider late dining in the future.

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

We've always done late dining with our daughter, who has been 5, 7, and 9 on my four Disney Cruises with her. We all really like this for several reasons:

• If we get hungry, we can have a light "first dinner" by the pool or via room service, which allows us to try more food options.
• Dining rooms are less full at second seating, leading to more personalized attention. (We have allergies so this is especially helpful).
• When our kiddo was little, this meant that she could be awake and attentive for the shows. She really likes stage performances, so this was important to us. If she was tired after, she could eat a quick kids entree in the dining room and then head to the Oceaneer's Club to play.
• When there is not a show we want to see, we like swimming during main dining. The pools are super quiet during this time. We have favorite family memories of sitting in the family hot tubs and watching Funnel Vision during first dinner!

That said, my kid is a natural night owl. We have always enforced bedtime at home (well, really more "quiet time in a darkened room to do quiet activities like read until you fall asleep") but on vacations, she can hang pretty late and then sleep in until 9 or 10 the next morning. This comes in handy for cruises, Disney World, late flights, going out to the theater, etc. If she was a kid who NEEDED to be asleep by 8 because she would get up at 6 no matter what, I would be singing a vastly different tune.

 

[Lilsia]

Honestly, it depends on your regular schedule at home. If you are from the West Coast and eat a bit later, then your body will be able to handle eating later on the cruise. I normally eat my main, big meal closer to 4pm and I just can not eat that late so the later dining time does not work at all for me. It upsets my stomach to eat that late, especially such a big meal. So I would go with what is closest to your regular meal time, especially with little kids.

 

[CamColt]

My now adult DSs have been sailing since they were 8 months and 3 1/2. We have always had late seating, by choice, and would not want early. As it was I felt rushed on the days when we were going to the show, and I believe early dinner is even earlier than the first show.

I should also add at home we always ate very early and went to bed early. On vacation, our daily schedule was very different so the evening time shift (eating later, staying up later) worked just fine.

 

[auntlynne]

I am amazed at all the positive messages regarding late dining. It usually gets a bad rap. Nice to know not everyone is suffering through second seating.

 

[Doberge]

When they were younger they really liked that the kids club staff would pick them up from the dining room and bring them straight to Oceanears in the middle of dinner. It was great the kids finished early got to go play and the adults got to enjoy the rest of the dinner. Not sure if they do that anymore my kids have grown out of that need plus with covid I don't remember seeing it recently

I hope this is still happening because it's what we've planned. It won't be a problem if they stick with us through the meal. With kids as young as 2 we've had many "late" meals at WDW after 8:30 and enjoyed the crowd break and less crowded, slower paced restaurant when it doesn't feel like you're being pushed to clear the table for the next reservation.

Our kids are now 7 and 4 and we think it's pretty likely they'll want to eat something earlier so grabbing food around the pool and snacking during shows is very likely, and they'll eat whatever at dinner, or not, and then hopefully off to oceaneers.

We also think we'll enjoy some extra pool time and empyting pills when families are leaving to get ready for dinner. On other nights our kids are also likely to be more into the shows than dinner and they'll enjoy the earlier show times more. If **** hits the fan at dinner and we need to get through it quickly, so be it because everything else would have gone well to that point.

 

[Cupcakesmum]

We did late dining both of our cruises with kids who were 4, 6, 8 and 10 and then again one year later. There are so many snacks available that no one needs to go hungry anytime of the day. The early dining would just have been too early for us. It worked well for our family.

 

[Lillebelle]

We've done both dining times and we opted into late dining on our upcoming cruise (kids are 2 and 5). On the cruises where we did early, I hated feeling like the afternoon got cut short, and then after dinner it was too late to really go do anything so we were just stuck with our day over at 8pm. With late dining we can get in more pool time (and higher quality pool time since others are at dinner), and yes the kids are up later than usual, but that tends to happen for us anyway on vacation.

 

[ScooterScott44]

Our son has been on DCL at least once each year from ages 1-12 and most of those have been late dining. There are Pro's and Con's to each seating but we are in the late dining bucket. The big reason is that it is vacation and we get into cruise mode.

Pro's-
- There is so much to snack/eat, no need to rush to dinner
- Getting up later while on vacation can impact the timing for the rest of the day
- Afternoon naps (adults too!) are easier to work in with late dining
- Many port days may run into the early dining time, even if it is after sail away you still have to be back at the ship to change and get ready in many cases
- Kid club pickup at second seating is helpful for adults and the kids sometimes like it (our son watched for the consolers to show up after he had his entrée)
- Early shows accommodate the late dining
- Pools and slides start to empty out during early seating
- Wait staff do not seem as rushed during late seating

Con's-
- Early risers may not adjust as easy, but the afternoon naps help (remember vacation mode)
- Some of the special evening events (captain's signing) are not quite as easy to make
- Too much food, especially if you head to bed shortly after dinner
- Can almost be too leisurely, and it is quite late before you even leave the MDR
- Dine and Play - when the kids want to stay longer and you come to get them to leave because you have things to do the next day

 

[tvguy]

I am amazed at all the positive messages regarding late dining. It usually gets a bad rap. Nice to know not everyone is suffering through second seating.

Just depends on:
Your home time zone
The time zone of your cruise
Your normal diner time at home.

As West Coasters on Caribbean cruises we just never change our body time zone. Rarely in bed on the ship before 1 am and the only day we were up before 9 am was the day we were at Castaway Cay.....and.....ugh....disembarkation morning*. Our excursions were all at noon or 1 pm.

*That was my only real bone to pick on our Disney cruise.....castmember knocking on our door at 7 am to "make sure we were awake". We had 8 am breakfast, had everything laid out, alarm set for 7:45 am, brush our teeth, out of the cabin and in the MDR at 8 am. Losing 45 minutes sleep for no reason did not make me happy.

 

[dobball23]

Late dining works better if you are trying to get in your 5 meals a day on the cruise.

That's why I like it! It extends the eating day.

 

[Tasmen]

All but one time we've done late dining and I prefer it. You don't feel rushed when you come back from port to shower and get ready for dinner. We also are usually traveling from the west coast to the east, so late dining matches what our dinner time on the west coast would be without taking into account timezones.

 

[Rabiman]

November is our first DCL and we have late dining. I assume one advantage is that other activities on the ship are more accessible during early dining times? For example, I know my son is going to want to hit Aqua Duck and I assume the lines would be short during early dining?

 

[MomOTwins]

November is our first DCL and we have late dining. I assume one advantage is that other activities on the ship are more accessible during early dining times? For example, I know my son is going to want to hit Aqua Duck and I assume the lines would be short during early dining?

Depends how full the ship is. Our sailing this past weekend on the Wish was completely sold out and every seat in the restaurant was full at both early and late dining. We were first in line at Luna when they opened for dining requests but they had no spots in main that day, only waitlist. We were able to switch from late to early the second day when a table opened up mid-cruise (they didn’t say why but given the number of hazmat suits in the hallways throughout out cruise I suspect some folks had to go into quarantine and we got their table). The ship was not noticeably any less crowded from 5-7pm than it was from 8-10 pm—pools, kids clubs, shows, trivia etc. were always pretty crowded. And MDRs at both early and late were packed.

Personally, I will never book a last minute cruise until my kids ate a lot older, because the one night we spent in late dining was a disaster. We fed our kids snacks so hunger was not the issue, but after a day of sun and swimming they were sooooo tired. The meal was very slow, not sure if it wad because of the crowds or due to being timed to the “show” aspect on the Wish—but we did not get drinks until around 9 and our main courses were not yet served as of 9:30 when I left early. I tried to encourage my 7 year old to stick it out because he loves frozen and we were in Arrendale, but he was miserable and eventually burst out in hysterical sobbing and howled, “I want to go to bed NOW” so I left with him mid dinner and had my husband bring me food in the room. We passed several sleeping kids on the way out.

 

[Lilsia]

Depends how full the ship is. Our sailing this past weekend on the Wish was completely sold out and every seat in the restaurant was full at both early and late dining. We were first in line at Luna when they opened for dining requests but they had no spots in main that day, only waitlist. We were able to switch from late to early the second day when a table opened up mid-cruise (they didn’t say why but given the number of hazmat suits in the hallways throughout out cruise I suspect some folks had to go into quarantine and we got their table). The ship was not noticeably any less crowded from 5-7pm than it was from 8-10 pm—pools, kids clubs, shows, trivia etc. were always pretty crowded. And MDRs at both early and late were packed.

Personally, I will never book a last minute cruise until my kids ate a lot older, because the one night we spent in late dining was a disaster. We fed our kids snacks so hunger was not the issue, but after a day of sun and swimming they were sooooo tired. The meal was very slow, not sure if it wad because of the crowds or due to being timed to the “show” aspect on the Wish—but we did not get drinks until around 9 and our main courses were not yet served as of 9:30 when I left early. I tried to encourage my 7 year old to stick it out because he loves frozen and we were in Arrendale, but he was miserable and eventually burst out in hysterical sobbing and howled, “I want to go to bed NOW” so I left with him mid dinner and had my husband bring me food in the room. We passed several sleeping kids on the way out.

You bring up a good point about how exhausting a day in the sun and pool can be. Or even kids playing in the clubs. Little kids especially should keep to as regular of a feeding schedule as possible. Their bodies need it more then adults do.

 

[rere101399]

We’ve only done late dining and would never book early. My kids are 10 and 12 now but were 5 and 7 on their first sailings. Cruise eating for us is more about small meals every couple of hours anyway, so a couple chicken tenders, some fruit and a handful of fries on the pool deck between 4 and 5pm sets them up perfectly for late dining. Food is plentiful around the ship so if they seem like they need something to eat, we just feed them, and don’t stress over dinner. If they only eat half the meal at dinner, no big deal.

At home we eat dinner anywhere between 6 and 7pm, although in our earlier cruises they were probably more used to a 5:30-6ish dinner. It wasn’t a problem then and isn’t a problem now to switch gears for the cruise and eat more of a first dinner and second dinner style, they adapt easily. I’d never choose early dining because then we’d have to do the late show and that sounds like a true nightmare…trying to keep my kids awake in a dark theatre with full bellies after a long, full day.

 

[Carohs]

We love late dining! But we also pair that with afternoon naps so everyone is much happier overall. Afternoon naps also help keep the kids up for the late night activities like fireworks.