Dining Times

[SpoonfulofSugar]

Hi everyone! I just booked our first Disney cruise (woohoo ) for Feb 2006 and requested early dining because I will have a 4yo and 1yo. When I got my paperwork it stated that we have the late seating and are waitlisted for the early. Do these waitlists ever come thur??? I was really hoping to get the early because I don't think the kids can wait till 8:30 to eat.
thanks

 

[DrCavin]

Even if you don't get switched to early before your cruise, you can check once you board to see if anything is open as well.

 

[jel0511]

To be honest, it depends. We've always had early seating and on our next cruise we booked too early (Dec for a July cruise) and have late seating. We waitlisted for early and so far, are still listed as late. Will I be disappointed if I get late, yes, but I'll make it work and my kids will never make it to the dining room. We'll either feed them from room service or the pool before dropping them off in the clubs, or we'll eat in the buffet when available. My kids are older than yours (4 and 7) and they won't make it through late seating, so I'm still hopeful. You can of course try to change it upon boarding, but then if it doesn't work, you'll still have late. I might try that, but we'll see. If having late seating could ruin the cruise for you, then I wouldn't pay that kind of money in hopes it would come through.

 

[lbgraves]

We are also waitlisted this time because we had to switch our cruise date by a week. I am really hoping that we will be switched but if not we will have our friends in the same boat with us since we are sitting together. The way I look at it our then 5 & 7 yos will do ok...I just don't like eating so late since we are usually in bed by 11 on the cruise. We go to the shows after early seating & they are still going by then so they should be fine for dinner at that time as far as being awake. Also, having early seating doesn't guarantee that your kids will be awake. We had early seating twice before & DS fell asleep at the table on the second night on our first cruise & on 2 nights he was still sleeping when we got him dressed, put him in the stroller & wheeled him down to the dining room on the last cruise. DS is the oldest kid BTW. We didn't let it ruin our cruise and ate in the dining room every night. The servers brought us chicken strips wrapped in foil like a swan so that he would have something to eat when he got hungry and he was fine for the shows after dinner. In fact, the formal picture under my ID was taken after he woke up that second night.

 

[JanetMB]

We just got changed! We're on the June 11-18th West Coast cruise. We just booked on March 6th so of course there was nothing but late seating left. I put us on the wait-list and was told we probably wouldn't get it. I checked our reservation online last week and they moved us to early seating. We also got a slight cabin upgrade a few weeks ago (Cat 12 to 10).

My guess, and I might be totally wrong here, is that because we have young kids (4 and 2) we got bumped up. It seems like it would make the whole late-dining experience better for everyone if the young kids weren't there all tired and cranky.

That said, when I thought we weren't going to have to keep the late dining I kept reading about all the positives. For us a biggie is that the Mickey and Goofy pools apparently clear out about 4:30 or 5:00 so that everyone with early dining can get ready for dinner. We planned on having the kids take late naps and grab some snacks around 5:00 to make it work.

Good luck!

 

[JanetMB]

Sorry - double post

 

[kcashner]

Yes, waitlists do come thru. The other key is that if you are not notified ahead that your waitlist request was granted, after you board, go to "Dining Changes." The location will be on the info sheet you get when you check in--usually, it is in Sessions, but we've seen it other places too. Go there and make your request. They really try hard to give you what you want. Of course, it can't always happen, but.......we've had good success.

 

[SpoonfulofSugar]

Thanks for the responses-- We didn't have kids when we last cruised and in the past we always wanted to get the late seating, now with the kids I was worried but I will make either time work.
We're just soooo excited to be doing a disney cruise!!!!!

Just curious-- Do the late and early times only relate to dinner or the breakfast and lunch too????

JanetMB-I never thought about the pools getting less crowded, that's a real plus.

 

[DrCavin]

Thanks for the responses-- We didn't have kids when we last cruised and in the past we always wanted to get the late seating, now with the kids I was worried but I will make either time work.
We're just soooo excited to be doing a disney cruise!!!!!

Just curious-- Do the late and early times only relate to dinner or the breakfast and lunch too????

JanetMB-I never thought about the pools getting less crowded, that's a real plus.

The times only relate to dinner and the character breakfast on the day your scheduled for that.

 

[lbgraves]

It also gives you your breakfast time on the morning you leave the ship. Early is 6:30 & late is 7:45??? Maybe?

 

[tvguy]

Late seating breakfast on the last day is at 8 am.

Best advice is to plan on having late, but requested early.

My kids are older now, but we have always had late....which because we are west coasters, is actually about 2 hours earlier than we eat at home (body clock wise)