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

[Sunseeker17]

My son and husband are Aquaduck fans, so when on the Dream and Fantasy, we pick late seating so they can have the Aquaduck pretty much to themselves once the early diners head down to get ready. They can usually get 15 runs in with no line-ups!! Then they can go and eat to their hearts' content after all that exercise!

 

[christianweecare]

We have always had the late seating which has worked out well as we have been an adults-only group...until this last trip. We had a toddler with us and the late seating was too late for him. Mom & dad did not get to enjoy their meal because the little guy was too tired. We sail again in Sept. and have chosen the early seating this time as we will have 2 toddlers with us.

 

[reddog1473]

crazy question but what are the 1st and 2nd seating times. I am thinking about changing because i want more time on Castaway.

 

[nunnerygrl]

We do the second seating since we usually eat dinner later in the evening at home. Each of the shows has an early time, too, so we didn't miss out on anything.

 

[elphie101]

We chose late seating mostly because we eat dinner around 7:00-7:30pm at home and eating at 5:30pm just sounded too early to us. That, and the fact that we were traveling on our honeymoon and since we were given the choice we stuck with the option that would leave us with the probability of fewer kids around Finally, we really wanted a table to ourselves and I knew (from the boards!) this request had a higher chance of being granted in late seating vs early.

For the record, we did have our own table and were out of dinner in an hour and 15 minutes nearly every night, though we usually only ended up ordering 3 courses instead of 4.

 

[rentayenta]

We chose late and it was perfect! We never felt rushed to get back to the ship or had to hurry to get ready for dinner and we enjoyed that precious ship time while most people are at dinner or at the shows; we are not show people. Our favorite time of the day was during first seating. We'd grab a snack and drink, stroll around or watch Funnelvision, and watch the sunset. Late dining was amazing.

 

[ctnurse]

We like the second seating. We eat around 8pm at home, 545 is way to early for us. Our DC are 11 yrs old and 18 months, for the 1st and last night she came to dinner with us, but the other nights we ordered room service for her. She had dinner, DH and I had wine and the cheese plate. We took her to the nursery at 7pm, DH and I headed to the Skyline for a drink, and met DS at the dining room at 815. It was perfect for all of us.

 

[Uncleromulus]

Just the 2 of us on the Fantasy and we like late. No need to rush back from any shoreside events. Plenty of time for a nice lunch before dinner. And no rush from the staff to get you out of the dining room to prepare for the next seating--there isn't any!!

And we've caught each and every show.

Once the shows are over, we head to the bar in the Main Lobby for a drink, listen to Fine Whines a bit, then head to dinner!!!

 

[lisamarie12]

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.

Ironically, even though I am traveling with my 4 year old, that is one of the reasons we chose late seating as well. We plan to try the dine and play option or if my daughter is hungrier earlier, we might feed her dinner from room service or elsewhere and then let her go to the kids club to play. The last 2 cruises I do not think our daughter ate dinner with us once in the dining room for dinner. Usually she would eat at the kids dinner and then go to the kids club or we would take her to the buffet and get her dinner and then to the kids club. We always gave her the option (even though she was 3) and she preferred to go play. Even the one night she wanted to go with us to dinner, she changed her mind. I do want her to try to come to the dining room with us this time since the themed dining rooms are different than our last cruise. That is why I like the dine and play. And if my kid is not with me (or leaves early), I don't want to sit with a bunch of other kids.

 

[nearlyfallinstar]

We chose the main seating for our first cruise. We typically eat supper at 5pm when we are home, so I figured with three girls ages 3, 5, and 6, the main seating would be best for us. I also love different dining experiences so I know I'll be eating lite during the day to enjoy our evening meals. That also gives my girls the option to go to the shows with us or if they would rather go back to the youth club. I know I can convince them to leave the club to eat! lol

 

[bumbershoot]

If we are still on west coast time, late dining makes the most sense.

BUT...late dining feels like it breaks up our evening too much. We all get sleepy on cruises and having DS go off to the kid's club after late dining doesn't give us much time to have fun. We haven't yet taken part in the dine/play option because DS doesn't order straight-out kid's meals that make it easy on the staff to get out easy, and we enjoy having him with us, he's not a problem at dinner.

We don't do the shows anymore (except that DH and DS will go see Villains), so if we have early dining we get all ready for that, have food, then have the whole rest of the night to play. DS can go to the kid's club, we can do whatever we want, and it feels like it expands our time for fun after dinner. Late dining chops up that time too much for us.

 

[E ticket rider]

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!

As my wife an I both work, it's very rare that we eat dinner before 7:00 anyway, so we prefer late seating. The kids are accustomed to that as well. Also, main seating starts so early, that it made the afternoon feel rushed whether we stayed on or got off the ship on port days.

 

[Deb in IA]

We have always preferred second seating for a lot of the same reasons that others have already listed.

We are on central time, so eating at 5:45 would be like 4:45 for us, and it is just too early. Our kids are all young adults (19 and 23), and we eat later at home anyway.
We like to go to the show first, then eat. There is usually enough time between that we can change for dinner, if we need to.
Less running back after excursions.
The wait staff seems less harried/hurried at the later seating, because they don't have to turn around another full service, and we have been able to chat and visit with them more. And we can linger over dessert and coffee, if we want.
It seems to have less really little kids, maybe a bit calmer.

 

[alyspins]

I always did the early dinner with my parents every other time I've cruise. For our honeymoon, we choose later seating (on a different cruise line) to try it out. It's tough, because we did come back from port earlier, and we usually were feeling a snack around 4/5, and then weren't hungry for dinner even though it was at 8. This time we're eating in the earlier dining time, and I think it will be better. We'll see, though. I'm hesitant about the number of small children, but like other posters have said, there are lots of kids at both times. Also, we've never really had a problem on Disney or any other cruise line with hectic dining. Plus, it's Disney. You know what to expect.

 

[Drusilla99]

We have always done the main seating. We eat at home at 5 pm each night so we are hungry by that time. My teens enjoy spending the evening in their clubs, so they can still do that with an early dinner. I've never felt rushed to get to dinner from an excursion or pool day, even when we've been one of the last families on CC. we meet at 4 in the room each day, get dressed, order "all hands on deck," and make it down for the less crowded photo ops before dinner. My hubby & I can hang out at a club/bar after dinner & we usually get a snack on the way back to our room or from room service around 10-11.

 

[mom4fun]

We did late seating on our first cruise because after reading a lot of these same type comments, I was worried we wouldn't make it to dinner on time from excursions if we did main dining. I discovered it was a huge mistake for me. We would have had no issues getting back for main dining. I was starving by 6:00 so I would snack too much. By the time we could have dinner, I wasn't very hungry but would eat anyway, leaving me feeling stuffed at 10:00. Then on pirate night, no way could I eat the buffet. Every night I went to bed miserably full. We are on eastern time. If I had to do late dining again I wouldn't go on that cruise.

 

[tvguy]

Weekends and vacations we tend to eat later. Went out at 8 pm tonight as a matter of fact. So late seating is more in tune with our vacation/day off dining routine.

I always am amazed at how some working parents with active kids can get home from work and after school activities, and have a meal on the table by as early as 6 pm. My kids are grown now, but during baseball and soccer season, we were lucky to be HOME by 730 or 8 to START fixing dinner. And boy, don't go to the Burger King/McDonalds/Taco Bell drive thru at 8 pm during the week during little league and soccer season, the line of cars with kids in sports uniforms in staggering.

 

[HookdonWDW]

We do main seating. Like others, I don't like to eat heavy foods late in the evening. In addition, I have multiple allergies, so most of my dishes need to be prepared specially, so everything seems to take even longer. I also like seeing the shows/activities after we eat instead of before. There's always room service if we're hungry later in the night!

 

[kiford]

We've always done second seating. At home, we eat later since we tend to get home after work about 6:30-7:00 and then have to start making dinner. There's just the two of us so there are fewer children at the second seating. Dinner is less rushed because they don't need to get prepared for the next group to come in. I hate rushing dinner; I prefer to sit and savour my food and converse with my dinner companions. When doing port tours, I don't want to have to rush to get back and change for dinner. That's usually more of an issue on the Med cruises since we don't do much on the Caribbean or Bahamian cruises out at the ports. As someone else pointed out, the pools and hot tubs at the adult pool tends to clear out during early dining so you pretty much have it to yourself.

crazy question but what are the 1st and 2nd seating times. I am thinking about changing because i want more time on Castaway.

First seating usually starts 5:45-6:30 depending on cruise (it tends to be later on the Med cruises) and 8:00-8:30 for the second seating. It won't make a different for your time at Castaway Cay since the ship leaves well before the first dinner seating.

 

[GrumpyBelle]

We prefer early dining. We like to go the the shows after dinner instead of before. Also, with early dining, you have some time to digest before the pirate buffet opens.