Dining Seating time - Reasons you chose 1st or 2nd?

[bobbiwoz]

We eat dinner early at home, so main dining is my preference. As someone before said we also are " early to bed and early to rise" people. I hate to admit we have not ever made it to the 10:30 adult shows on DCL, plus we have been asleep and missed the fireworks more often than not!

 

[saintrob]

Our first cruise we did main and didn't like it as we like to spend time up on the pool deck during the day when it's quieter. We always do the later seating and love it. Our son is now 18 and it suits him - we can meander along to the show, there's no rush to get ready etc.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

The main reason we do early dinner is because it's rough on my tummy to eat that much and then go (pretty much) directly to bed. We eat dinner early at home, and it just works best for us.

We've never felt the need to rush back from onshore to have dinner. The few times (like maybe twice) that whatever we're doing during the day interfered with us making our set dinner time, we've eaten in the buffet.

 

[jkleinmom]

Thank you ALL!! This has been so helpful!! This is our first cruise and it is for my DD's Make A Wish trip so I want to make the most of all the time we have. She wants to be all dressed up for every night so we need a little time to get ready. We do tend to eat later at home 6:30-7:30 depending on the day, and with all the options to have an afternoon snacks and the kids clubs in the evenings, I think later seating might be a better choice. I greatly appreciate all of your replies, Thank you again!

 

[SacCruiser]

We did the late on our last cruise and loved it. We are doing it again on our upcoming one. We are West Coasters so the early dinning would be like eating at 3pm our time. I just dont think that would work out too well.

 

[PhillyCruiser]

We chose main seating for our 1st cruise in April. It's close to our dinner time at home.

 

[dawne98]

We have been on two DCL and we have done the 1st dinning! I could NOT do late....way to late for me and my kids lol we never found it to be hard to get to dinner....also my daughters loved ordering Mickey ice cream b4 bed and we would not have done that if we had late....

 

[havoc315]

On the Fantasy last year, the early time was booked up, but we got in off the wait list.
It really depends on your normal dining habits, but for us... while the early seating is a little bit too early, the late seating was much much too late. We had kids 7-9 at the time, so basically eating at 9pm with young kids seemed like a non-option to us. If the kids are a bit older, it might be more of an option. But personally, I don't want to be eating that late.

Depending on your cruise and port schedule, I suppose it could run into your port time a bit. Our next cruise is Alaska, and 2 of our ports are until 7:45 pm. So I suppose it will end up being a choice between getting back a couple hours early, or missing the formal dinner.

Though remember you have options.... First off, the restaurant will seat you even if you show up late for your "early" seating. Though our dining time was 5:45, they seated us with no complaint when we arrived at 6:30. Secondly, missing a formal dinner or 2 is not the end of the world. If you can't make the regular dinner time, it could be a good evening to try 1 of the adult-only restaurants (Remy or Palo).

So to me, the early dinner time gives you more flexibility. You can eat early, and still have "night life" afterwards. Kids won't get whiny and starving.

I do think the very late seating is best for couples, or adults with teens who might enjoy eating late.

 

[Claireywalsh]

We had the main seating for our first cruise on the dream, mainly because I thought it would suit my daughters schedule better but we have opted for second this time on the wonder. Mainly for most of the same points above, some nights we just weren't ready to eat that early and some days we skipped lunch to make sure we were ready for dinner. And for our alaska cruise were in port until a lot later and I definately didn't want to be rushing back to get ready. I must admit evenings on the dream did have the feel of urgency to be ready. If you eat late at home and your kids are used to staying up late at weekends and vacation id go with the second seating, you won't miss out on anything

 

[mhconley]

We choose main (early) dining. At home we eat each night at 5:30 PM and do the same while on vacation. We do not eat anything after 8:00 PM ever. DW and I both suffer from GERD if we eat that late.

Martin

 

[lmhall2000]

Sunsets....so we choose late

 

[SaraSpringsIsHome]

I've always done the second seating (5 previous cruises)- we were assigned it and went with it. We enjoyed it, but I always was with my mom and we are night owls together!

Our upcoming cruise is next January, and it will just be DH and me (his first cruise, woohoo!). I checked if main dining was available, and it was, so we are going to try that. Our port days are both relatively short- all aboard at 3:30 in Grand Cayman and 4:45 at Castaway Cay, so we won't feel rushed to get ready. We tend to eat dinner around 6:00 at home, so It should work out well for us. I definitely see us ordering late night chicken tenders, though... ;-)

 

[Saamh]

We prefer late seating. Being from the west coast early seating feels really early and I would feel rushed.The ships tends to clear out early afternoon when all the early seating people leave to their cabins to shower and prepare for dinner. We find this a great time to enjoy the pools, grab a light snack and hang out without crowds.

 

[littlemamma]

On our first cruise in April '13 aboard the Fantasy, we were assigned the later seating. Having never cruised before, I just went with the flow despite my kids being just shy of their 6th + 7th birthdays. It ended up being perfect for us & our travel party, as we felt that we could relax on sea days & not rush to the ship for dinner on our port days. It also was nice because we'd get our kids ready, take them to the early show + then get ready for dinner. Plus, we could enjoy ourselves whether it was at the pool, doing trivia, doing the games, or at the spa. There was no rush.

And with the late seating, DCL offers the "Dine and Play" option, meaning they come get kids at the entrance to the restaurant and take them to the kids club at 915. Their food was brought out as soon as it was ready, and they loved the freedom of eating and going to play - we loved having the 3 kids for a while, and getting some meal time as just the adults - there were 8 adults on the cruise. Because there were 11 of us total, we weren't always all together during the day, so this gave the adults a chance to have a drink and chat.

So for our upcoming cruise in December, we chose the late seating as well. It worked out very well for us when our kids were younger, so I don't see it being an issue now. Plus our kids will be 8 + 9, and some nights we end up eating late as it is, now that they are both very involved in demanding sports (baseball & gymnastics) and get home late at times.

 

[jetskigrl]

We are late dining people. On our first cruise, we had main dining and as soon as we got on the ship, we realized that we would miss most of the sail away and the sunset (we like to watch the ship pull out of port) if we had to run to get ready for dinner. So we went straight to dining changes and moved to second seating. My DS (7 at that time) discovered that he loved Dine and Play so all cruises since then have been with Second Seating.

I did do one 2-night cruise to nowhere with friends that needed first seating for their kids and it was fine. I just stayed out on Deck 4 as long as possible to see us pull out of port before going into the dining room

 

[KBinCO]

we had main dining because my brother selected it and between us, our kids were 3, 4, and 5... mine were 4 and 5 and are night owls and I think we personally would have preferred second because we hated feeling like we needed to drop everything and rush to dinner so early. If we couldn't make it that long without getting hungry, it's not like there is a shortage of food around to snack on.

 

[tnx97]

We chose the main sitting, which worked perfect for our family which consists of twin 4 year olds and a 6 year old. We didn't do excursions so we weren't ever rushing to get back for our seating. Sometimes the twins made it thru dinner other times they slept thru it which was nice for us cause we got to enjoy a quiet dinner. We hit the late show, explored the ship and had a late call to room service .

 

[momof2n2]

I very much prefer second seating, that is even with six small children! My friend and I cruised princess in the fall, and she insisted on first dinin. It was horrible! We had to rush to clean up for dinner.

I'm so glad most prefer first - it'll make getting second easier.

 

[ludari]

I prefer second seating because for me the first seating is too early to eat dinner. In addition, I don't feel rushed and have on a few occasions been the last table to leave.

 

[phinz]

I do late seating because there tend to be less kids and less meltdowns. The ones who do bring kids tend to have the club counselors pick them up during the meal so the adults can have some time alone.