Choosing dinner seating time

[Jbutler]

Any advice on choosing early or late seating? I'll have a 5 and 7 year old who are used to eating at about 7 central time.
Thanks!

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

Go for main, your home time doesn't matter.

On ship the main dinner is at 5.45 ( some 6.15)

Kids that age can't eat late, they will hit the snack places and spoil their proper dinner.

I have seen too many melt downs at late dinner which runs 8.15 ( opening) ordering and getting good is layer and ends at 10 pm.

Bodies cycles normally start shutting down food processing in the evening, the old saying, eat breakfast like a king, eat lunch like a prince, eat dinner like a pauper.

Sugar levels return to normal quickly in a 12 hour cycle from breakfast to dinner, but eating late the body can't process it, sugar goes up and up for up to four hours post late eating.

With soda and snacks it will cause upset tummy.

You need to let good go down, dinner then show or club works, show then dinner is for adults and teens only.

On ship you will be up with the sunlight, eat breakfast at 7.30 to 10 am, - earlier if in port, lunch 13 noon to 1.30 pm, or off ship local time, so your body is on ship time, local home time doesn't matter, you can't go 1.30 pm to 8.30 serving time with young children.

They will eat eat snacks fast food and not be hungry at 8.30 pm.

We live in London, so on a cruise in the Caribbean , eating local home time, means eating at 1am, 7 am lunch and 1pm dinner, ( Alaska would be 11pm breakfast 5 am lunch, 11 am dinner? Sounds silly, children adapt to local time very quickly, avoid late dinner unless as a family you all eat at 8.30 pm at home or later.

 

[adamki]

Time on vacation depends a lot on the schedule you choose to set. We tend to sleep in a bit on vacation. I would go for late dining, but I know my kid would be fine with it.

You don't say what cruise you are going on. If you are on the Eastern Caribbean during the winter, you will travel into Atlantic Standard time for five nights of the cruise (IIRC). That will bring time forward one more hour making late seating 6:15pm "home time" and Main Dining would be 3:45pm.

I also found it more relaxing on port days to know that dinner wasn't immediately after the all-aboard time. Also, my son (8) took advantage of the kids club pick-up during late dining so that he could get additional club time in the evening.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Time on vacation depends a lot on the schedule you choose to set.

Exactly. I think you should go with what you think will work for you. I grew up eating dinner any where from 4:00 to 8:00, based on when my mother got home from work/school. Didn't kill me, and my eating habits are fine. We knew better than to have snacks after school if it was an early dinner, and late dinner - a little snack didn't hurt.

Late or early - really no difference, just what works for you.

 

[anricat]

First, all this assumes you're doing caribbean or bahamas cruise and are moving ahead one time zone. That said, let me tell you why we choose second seating.

My DD was 5 on our first cruise and 7 on our second. We are also central time zone and did second seating and loved it. Disney Fantasy will always say "your home time doesn't matter" or that your kids will adjust to the time zone they're in. That's simply NOT TRUE for my kiddo. (Disney Fantasy, you have often given good advice, but please stop making blanket statements about other people's families. Everyone is different.)

We remain on central time on vacation (and have no problems doing so and prefer to do so) and thus, eating at 8:15 (7:15 here in central time) is absolutely perfect for us.

Things we like about second seating:

- Dine and play (not available during main dining)

- Having extra time before having to be somewhere in the evening (dinner is at 5:45, but the show isn't until later so you have a little extra time).

- Having more time between the show and dinner.

- Snacking in late afternoon (either room service or by the pool) without ruining dinner.

- Being able to go to the later breakfast on disembarkation day.

Either way, the second show goes until 9:30 (I think it is) so basically your kids are up anyway, especially with evenings like pirate night or if they want to go to Pluto's pajama party, etc. We like to sleep in until our "normal" time (which is around 7:30-8 AM central so on the ship we get up around 9ish), then we often have a late afternoon rest time (if excursions/activities allow).

If you find that your kiddos will stay on central time, I say go for second seating. It's very easy to snack in the afternoon if they need some fortifications. Plus it's easier switching back to central time at the end of the vacation. We experience almost no jet lag doing things that way and our circadian rhythms don't seem bothered in the slightest with slightly different position of the sun.

 

[TrySomethingNew]

When DD was 5 we did late seating. This is the child who handled less sleep better than sibling, but she could not stay awake through dinner, and would not be good to go to the kids club for any extended period that late either. We also found that it seemed to take a long time to get our meal but I do suspect that may have been our serving team that was not the quickest.
Next cruise we did main seating. Overall, this was better for all of us, but does also have its drawbacks: if port times/excursion times get you back close to main seating, you will be rushed to change for dinner (even if it is just to put on fresh clothes). Also, depending on when you ate lunch/snacks you may not be as hungry for dinner. However, it seemed we were served a bit quicker -maybe the team was better and may be due to the fact they have to get main seating out in time to prep for late seating.
Everyone who has cruised seems to have a distinct opinion on this topic!

 

[JW9DVC]

Late seating works well with my now 5-8 year olds. We are on Pacific time. It does matter because your body doesn't adjust to the hour changes right away. We all tend to be up at Midnight on the cruise and the adults later. It's vacation. You can sleep in and stay up late.

Eating a light snack by no means will ruin your dinner. Do be aware though, that if the kids are in the kids club. They do feed them around 6. You don't have to have them eat in the kids club, they can remain, but the activities are cut back to only a movie playing.

We like to book Palo at 6 and go to the second seating of dinner so we don't miss out on menu and family time for dinner as well.


Hope this helps with some ideas.

JW

 

[Saimaeve]

Second seating works well for us (we have a 9 year old) We love the Dine N Play option (This is not available with First Seating)

Did our daughter snack a lot during the day? Yes. She ate quite a few snacks. But this is also because we try to get her to eat often through out the day. Did she eat all of her dinner? Mostly. There were a few times she didn't. But for the most part she ate everything and skipped dessert at times.

She didn't have any meltdowns at dinner, and I didn't see any major meltdowns from other kids the entire week we were on the ship at 2nd Seating (Actually, I saw some from adults. But not kids)

We were rarely up with the sunlight. We slept in (The drapes blackout the sun)

We're west coast so yes, time difference does factor in for us so we can avoid a post vacation crash and easier readjustment back in to our normal routine.

 

[Jennifer Scicchitano]

we are picking the main seating- the kids will be 5,5 and 9 so hopefully it works with little to no melt downs- i would love to get a nap in there for them at some point

 

[anricat]

In terms of dining speed, we've done late dining twice and we had really speedy service once and the second time it was slower. I think it was more about servers perceptions. The first cruise, when we had faster service, we didn't really get on that well with the other family. It wasn't that we didn't get along, we just weren't chatty with them and we sort of all moved quickly through service.

The second cruise, on the other hand, when we had slower service, my daughter was perfectly happy to remain at the table as we were seated with another family of three that had a DD the exact same age and they had an awesome time goofing around together (in a quiet, not disturbing other people around us way). And we enjoyed chatting with and hanging out with the other couple at our table. We really enjoyed them and socialized with them.

TL;DR - If you have a preferred dining speed, let your serving team know, otherwise, they may either cue off their perceptions, which, in both cases with our family, were spot on.