Dealing with a late seating and young children

[flashy09]

I have the second seating dinner with my 3 and 6 yr old on the Disney Fantasy and that is not going to work, at least not every night! I am trying to figure out my options and just wanted to confirm a few things and had some questions....

I can drop them off at the Oceaneer's Club and they will get fed while we do an adult dinner at Remy or Palo?

What time is the second show and can I do that instead? Basically can I feed kids early either at quick service, room service, or Oceaneers and do the later show even if assigned the early show? What time is the second show?

Are the assigned rotating restaurants still worth going to if I drop kids off for those nights and feed them earlier? Or is it mediocre food and very kid themed and I would be better off just eating a pizza on the ship with the kids?

Is it true that someone from Oceaneers can come and take the kids 45 minutes into the meal as an option? I swear I read that, but can't find it.

Thank you!

 

[bumbershoot]

What time is the second show and can I do that instead?

Second show is basically during second dining seating. So if the kids are seeing the show they are up that late anyway.

Having the club people get the kids is specifically for second seating. You have to tell your server that's what you want and you need to know what the child is going to have quickly (and in our experience this doesn't work is the child is ordering partially or fully off the adult menu), and then keep track of time. In our experience the CMs do NOT come into ththe restaurant. You take them outside of the restaurant to meet the CMs.

Thee is no restaurant, on the dream at least, that is child themed. Animators palate is animation themed (again I've only been on Dream) but that's not "kid" themed.

 

[gotomu212]

Every kid is different, but we've always been really surprised at how well our son (starting at 2.5) has done with late dinner. The major p,us is that he actually gets to see and enjoy the show. When it was dinner followed by the late show he would pass out. With later dining he sees the show first, then eats.

We always use dine and play and it works great. Tell your server you'll be using it, then keep an eye on your watch, at around 35 minutes in (check the navigator because it does change slightly sometimes based on your sailing) you walk your kids to the entrance where counselors will be waiting. Another option is to run the kids to the club yourself (a 3 min run up a couple of decks)-that avoids them waiting about 15 minutes for all the dine and play kids to gather.

We do a late snack around 4 and then the kids watch the shows and eat, then off to the clubs.

I would still go to the restaurants. Dinner will be better than a slice of pizza.

You can also go to dining when you board (your navigator will tell you when and where) and try to get moved to early.

 

[Quellman]

I have the second seating dinner with my 3 and 6 yr old on the Disney Fantasy and that is not going to work, at least not every night! I am trying to figure out my options and just wanted to confirm a few things and had some questions....

I can drop them off at the Oceaneer's Club and they will get fed while we do an adult dinner at Remy or Palo?

What time is the second show and can I do that instead? Basically can I feed kids early either at quick service, room service, or Oceaneers and do the later show even if assigned the early show? What time is the second show?

Are the assigned rotating restaurants still worth going to if I drop kids off for those nights and feed them earlier? Or is it mediocre food and very kid themed and I would be better off just eating a pizza on the ship with the kids?

Is it true that someone from Oceaneers can come and take the kids 45 minutes into the meal as an option? I swear I read that, but can't find it.

Thank you!

Cruises tend to lend themselves to alternate times for activities. I have successfully done second seating with my 14 month old, again when he was 2.5 and then again when he was nearly 4. Granted we aren't as strict with routine and bed time while on a cruise. Normally at home 8pm is bed time but an 830 start of dinner worked fine.

But on to your concerns. If you haven't already asked to be put on the first seating waitlist, you can do that now by calling Disney or your travel agent. You can see if they can change your dining time on the first day when you board. Check your navigator as to the location and time the serving team is making dining changes.

Yes, the Oceaneer's Club or Lab will have a dinner available for the kids. It is their responsibility to eat however. It is the only pizza in the world my son will eat.
The second show is the same time as the second dinner, usually around 8-830pm depending on the itinerary.
You can do quick service, room service, or almost all nights the Cabanas will be open and serving a 'taste of the main dining rooms'. You aren't assigned a show, people just pick one when they aren't doing anything else (like eating).

We find the main dining rooms not generally 'kid themed'. You can look at pictures online of the restaurants ahead of time. I would venture to say that Enchanted Garden and the Royal Court are not kid themed at all. At animators palate you will find a show with Crush the turtle (similar to turtle talk with crush at the parks) and a drawn to animation show. Both of which can be entertaining for parents and adults. My wife and I had a solo trip and we were seated right next to the 'tank' and had a delightful conversation with Crush. As for the food, that is always a personal preference. We find the meals to be enjoyable and much better than I am going to find on the pool deck.

And yes, you can meet the kids club folks during the second seating for them to whisk your kids away. Or you can excuse yourself for a minute and take them yourselves.

 

[flashy09]

Thanks so much! I know the second show is at same time as second dinner, but my kids can power through tiredness when it's something exciting, but sitting around at a dinner table (not their strong point anyway...) when tired can be a disaster. I think the dine and play is a great idea and will help a lot! Am I allowed an earlier show if I want though?

What time are you back on the ship on the port days?

Thanks again.

 

[Dug720]

Thanks so much! I know the second show is at same time as second dinner, but my kids can power through tiredness when it's something exciting, but sitting around at a dinner table (not their strong point anyway...) when tired can be a disaster. I think the dine and play is a great idea and will help a lot! Am I allowed an earlier show if I want though?

What time are you back on the ship on the port days?

Thanks again.

If you have second seating, you will go to the first show while early dining is going on.

If you change to early seating, you will go to the second show as you will be eating during the first show time.

Basically, if you want to go to the early show you either need to stay with late dining or figure out somewhere else to eat as you would miss your dinner to see the early show.

 

[flashy09]

So I book Remy or Palo at 6, will I be done in time for the late show?

I am ok on other nights eating somewhere else with the kids and seeing the later show if I am allowed - just curious if it's ok to show up at the later show or if they are strict about assignments.

 

[AndreAggie]

So I book Remy or Palo at 6, will I be done in time for the late show?

I am ok on other nights eating somewhere else with the kids and seeing the later show if I am allowed - just curious if it's ok to show up at the later show or if they are strict about assignments.

You probably won't be done in time. I think Remy is 2.5-3 hour experience. They also run the shows on TV in your stateroom.

 

[flashy09]

Can i figure out what shows are on what day or is that something you learn on the ship?

 

[abuck75]

I'm in a similar situation (kids 9 and 5, normal bedtime 8:00 PM), and after a lot of thought we're going to stick with it instead of trying to switch for several reasons.

- We are taking DCL as an alternative vacation to our normal WDW or DL vacations. On those, we are diligent about getting up early for RD quite a bit, and while we may wake up early on the cruise, we really don't have to, so slightly later nights doesn't bother me as much.

- My kids aren't really "sit-down" eaters as is. They will do it for us on occasion if we have a nice dinner, but they're really normally trying to occupy themselves with ipad or something. Maybe this is an indictment of our parenting, but it's a reality we live with. As a result, the thought of feeding our kids either with room service after the early show, or by grabbing something from cabanas or the deck seem to make a lot of sense. Hopefully they'll enjoy the kids club enough to want to do that at night. Maybe for one or two nights they'll join us, or we may skip a night and do room-service one night.

- As much as 8:15 is a little late, 5:45 is also fairly early for a nicer diner. This would mean we'd have to start getting ready very early and I'm not sure we'd feel like sitting down for a show after a big dinner very often (especially if mom and dad enjoy a glass of wine).

- I've heard the pool deck is least crowded around 4:30 - 6:00, so it might be a good time to take the kids there as mom starts to get ready for show/etc.

 

[AndreAggie]

That's exactly what we did. We had a 6-year old and the family we sat with had 14, 11 and 5 year olds. We took advantage of the pools during first dinner seating. All the kids loved the clubs and we took advantage of the counselors coming to the dining rooms to get kids. We'll never switch back to early dining. Even after dinner, we'd still go have a drink and let our son play in the clubs. He's normally an 8:15 bedtime...on a cruise it's out the window!

 

[wanderlust7]

I am ok on other nights eating somewhere else with the kids and seeing the later show if I am allowed - just curious if it's ok to show up at the later show or if they are strict about assignments.

I don't believe there's any rule about which show you need to go to, it's just a timing issue with early or late dining. You just walk into the theater and sit down, no one asks or checks anything.

Can i figure out what shows are on what day or is that something you learn on the ship?

You can check old Personal Navigators here:
http://disneycruiselineblog.com/personal-navigators/

It'll give you a good idea which show is on which night, but no guarantees of course. I ended up deciding that we didn't want to miss any shows since DD likes the musicals and characters, but DS likes the magicians and comedians. I would have been okay with missing the first or last shows, but I didn't really want to do Remy those nights. So I decided on a 7:30 Remy reservation since the early show end at 7. A big con was we would be missing the views from Remy since it'll probably be dark by then. But oh well, can't have it all. Hope it works out well.

We had late seating on our last cruise when DD was 3. She fell asleep at all the shows even though she really liked them. Something about sitting in a dark space....

 

[flashy09]

What time does the first show end? I have booked Remy all wrong - 6 pm for day 2, which is the Aladdin show. If I book it for 8, will the first showing be done? Would I miss the sunset anyway at 6 pm in between Canaveral and Cozumel?

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

The shows are about an hour long.

 

[wanderlust7]

What time does the first show end? I have booked Remy all wrong - 6 pm for day 2, which is the Aladdin show. If I book it for 8, will the first showing be done? Would I miss the sunset anyway at 6 pm in between Canaveral and Cozumel?

First show ends at 7 pm. You can see PDF scans of the actual Navigators with times if you click on the red links "Personal Navigators - Day 1" (or Day 2, etc).

I think if you do Remy at 6 pm, you'll be able to see the sunset. That was always my assumption anyways and why I originally wanted 6. But I'm not sure, it'll be our first time at Remy.

 

[abuck75]

On the Navigators from disneycruiselineblog, I notice all the early shows have 45 minutes allotted but the late shows have an hour. Is this reality?

 

[FigmentSpark]

There are no tickets to get into the shows. You just go... or don't. Go to whichever show you want. If you want a dinner at a different time than you are allocated on any given day, there's room service, fast food service and there's Cabana's sit down service, which can include the kids.

Are you missing something if you don't go? On formal night and pirate night, we had the photographers come around the restaurants for photos. The ambiance is very nice, not kid-ish at all. The food is adult food, but also a kid's menu. You can look at some menus online to get an idea.

As someone said, if you want to change to first serving, call DCL (or have your TA do it) and you might get it right away or you might get waitlisted. You won't go hungry, for sure.

 

[jlemieu1]

Not having kids myself, I have thought it would be good to take the kids to the early show/ late dining so they can take in more of the show. You cans always grab a snack on deck to tide them over. Also I have seen plenty of kids sleep during second dining. they will two chairs together to make a mini bed.

 

[kiford]

Am I allowed an earlier show if I want though?

There's no real "assignment" to a show seating. It's just that it's assumed if you're at the late dinner seating you'll see the early show and vice versa. You can go to whichever one you like.

 

[oakleycat]

I'm in a similar situation (kids 9 and 5, normal bedtime 8:00 PM), and after a lot of thought we're going to stick with it instead of trying to switch for several reasons.

This is what we do. On our kids first cruise they were 8 and 6. We do late seating and usually swim during early seating as we're not big show people. The pools really clear out and it's so nice. My boys are also not big on long sit-down dinners and like to eat and head out to the clubs. We used to use dine and play, which is so convenient, and now they can just head up to the clubs themselves.