Dining!

[nutshell]

We reserves main dining, but now I’m wondering if we should have gone with the late dining. Please share pros and cons of each time and your own personal preference! Thanks!

 

[ACQUADUCK]

We reserves main dining, but now I’m wondering if we should have gone with the late dining. Please share pros and cons of each time and your own personal preference! Thanks!

Worth the search facility as this is debated regularly.

Main is most popular so if you go to Late it's harder to swap back.

Main is circa 5.45 on or 6 pm in Europe, Late is 8.15 or 8.30.
Both are circa two hours the same time.

Main has show after, Late has show first. preferences do you like a show before dinner or after?

Main typical has more younger children re their bed time, late more teenagers, and adults only.
Some cultures like in Spain like to eat later.

Most gastric doctors say let food go down, and have three hours before bed to digest, and sleep better, so on Late you should be a late sleeper ie 1 am.

Shore trips.

Most DCL shore trips are back before main starts, only exception is St Petersburg Russia and Reykjavik Iceland where the Magic overnights, then a dinner buffet is on in Cabanas.
If on Late and you have early shore trips the next day you may find your having breakfast at 6 am and off ship 7.30 am.

As said Main is most popular so typically sells out, late often has lots of availability, if you say want a private table or special request, late May gave more flexibility.

I found children if on late,
Fall asleep.
Also hit room service or fast food and then ruin the proper meal.

Time adjustment.

Ship is typically on local time, that's all meals so you will have breakfast and lunch on ship at local time or if in port each lunch at local time, you are up with the Sun, so eating dinner adjusted to your home time zone doesn't work. But if you eat at 8.30 pm at home, then Late is for you. So say if you are on ship lunch at Cabanas maybe 11.30 to 2pm, you then may have to go to 8.15 and be served food at 8.30/8.45, that's a very long time.

Some claim Main is rushed but both have the same time allocated.

Late may find it hard to go to pirate night as Main will be out of their show and snagg the best places, so Late will miss dessert.
Also Late having just eaten will have a pirate buffet right on top of them at 10.30 pm.

Children in children's clubs will eat at 5.30 pm, at dinner they can go to the clubs when they want and now it appears kids counsellors may pick up at both sittings.

If in doubt pick Main and it's easy to swap to Late, if you swap to Late and do not like it, you may find a long waitlist back to main.

I would personally say, if as we see the majority pick Main, and it sells out, then you can take that as a popularity poll on what cruisers really think.

 

[disneyfaninaz]

Personally, I have always had Main seating. We eat around 6 at home. I can't stand to go to bed on a full stomach. With our upcoming cruise and a lot of early port/tour times, we will definitely not be staying up late!

 

[YawningDodo]

Ship is typically on local time, that's all meals so you will have breakfast and lunch on ship at local time or if in port each lunch at local time, you are up with the Sun, so eating dinner adjusted to your home time zone doesn't work. But if you eat at 8.30 pm at home, then Late is for you. So say if you are on ship lunch at Cabanas maybe 11.30 to 2pm, you then may have to go to 8.15 and be served food at 8.30/8.45, that's a very long time.

I agree with all of your points except for this one. I had late dining on my cruise in January, and I had a two hour time difference from home, as I came from the mountain time zone. That meant that my 8:15 dinner felt like 6:15. While I would normally adjust to local time within a day or two on a more active type of trip, I found on my cruise that my inner clock did not change to match the time zone! Because I was in an inside stateroom, there was no sun to wake me up, and because the late night activities interested me more than the early morning activities, I never made an effort to go to bed earlier or get up earlier than I was naturally inclined to do. At home, I usually eat around 6:00, go to bed at 10:00, and wake up around 7:00. On the cruise, I ate dinner just after 8:00, went to bed at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and usually woke up around 9:00--which, of course, is exactly the same thing when relocated two time zones over. That did mean that I ate my breakfasts in Cabanas with the other late-wakers, as I would have had to rush to get to Lumiere's before they closed down their breakfast service, but the schedule was fine otherwise.

If you're coming from the western states and you're more interested in evening activities than morning ones, late dining can actually help you stick to your normal schedule for eating and sleeping. I found that not demanding that my body adjust to the time change helped make it a more relaxing trip.

 

[KashasMom]

We were assigned late seating one cruise (when our daughter was 6) and since then we've always requested late. If main seating was 6:30 we'd be okay with that but 5:45 is just way too early for us. We enjoy relaxing at the show before dinner and then having a peaceful dinner. If we skip the show we have extra time to swim or catch a movie and then go to dinner. The only downside is that we don't find a lot to do after dinner so we walk around, check out the shops, watch a movie in our room. Sometimes there is a party going on - Very Merrytime cruises/Pirate night - and sometimes we'll have some photos taken with characters - but more often than not we kind of wander around. I'd still not go back to main seating though.

 

[cedricandsophie]

We too only do late dining. At home we eat between 630 and 730. I just won’t do 530ish. We don’t have little kids any more but when we did the late seating was not a problem. We are from Chicago so the time change is never awful.

We come back to room around 530. Take showrrs. My kids and husband won’t miss the shows so once they are out the door I take my shower and get dressed. I will either go to show late to meet up with them or go have a drink somewhere and meet them as they are Coming out. We go to either a game show or dance party before dinner. Or sometimes kids get in line for characters and my husband go somewhere for a drink like the piano bar. After dinner we might go to dance party or an adult show. Typically go to room about 11 to 11 30 and unless we have an eArly excursion we sleep in. Works for us.

 

[Minnie368]

We also like late dining. Especially on port days when we got back to the ship at 4/4:30 and everyone has to shower and we’re all a little tired, we would order a couple cheese plates and some wings from room service to hold us over till dinner time and it was just much more relaxed and enjoyable for us that way.

 

[2013Frozen]

If you are assigned late and waitlisted for main, what is the likelihood you will be bumped up?

 

[PrincessShmoo]

If you are assigned late and waitlisted for main, what is the likelihood you will be bumped up?

Fairly good. A lot depends on how far out you are from your cruise when you make the request. And how full the ship is.

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

I don't THINK anyone on this thread mentioned the service where, if you have late seating, your kids can eat more quickly and then be taken by CMs down to the kids clubs. That can work well for some kids as they can eat a little later, but not TOO late, and get a quicker dinner. Plus that gives the parents time with their children AND time alone.

As for "matching up to the time you eat at home" for me, this was not needed. Life on the ship is so much different than life at home, many of your routines may well be shifted, so too, will your preferred eating times.

At home, I am up early, quick breakfast, early lunch, early dinner.
On a cruise, I get up a bit later, have a bigger breakfast, and thus a later lunch, and thus a later dinner is fine. Plus their are lots of options to get something to tide you over (like the free room service).

So my own experiences would suggest that you look at the activities and base your choice on that. Do you want the show first or dinner first? Do you plan to do a lot of activities after dinner or go straight to bed? (Look at old navigators to help you decide by seeing what is offered). Do you want to do a lot of activities during the day, or mostly relax?

One last thing, some people say that late dinner gives you more time to prepare before dinner. If you have been on DCL before and seen all the shows and don't want to do them again, then that is probably accurate. But if you are new to DCL and plan to see the show every night, then the show starts only like 30 minutes later than Main dining, so when you add 15 minutes to get a good seat in the theatre, Late dining doesn't really give you more than about 15 minutes more time than main dining.

 

[ACQUADUCK]

I agree with all of your points except for this one. I had late dining on my cruise in January, and I had a two hour time difference from home, as I came from the mountain time zone. That meant that my 8:15 dinner felt like 6:15. While I would normally adjust to local time within a day or two on a more active type of trip, I found on my cruise that my inner clock did not change to match the time zone! Because I was in an inside stateroom, there was no sun to wake me up, and because the late night activities interested me more than the early morning activities, I never made an effort to go to bed earlier or get up earlier than I was naturally inclined to do. At home, I usually eat around 6:00, go to bed at 10:00, and wake up around 7:00. On the cruise, I ate dinner just after 8:00, went to bed at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and usually woke up around 9:00--which, of course, is exactly the same thing when relocated two time zones over. That did mean that I ate my breakfasts in Cabanas with the other late-wakers, as I would have had to rush to get to Lumiere's before they closed down their breakfast service, but the schedule was fine otherwise.

If you're coming from the western states and you're more interested in evening activities than morning ones, late dining can actually help you stick to your normal schedule for eating and sleeping. I found that not demanding that my body adjust to the time change helped make it a more relaxing trip.

At the end it's personal preferences but say if your on a early Port adventure what do you do then? As you say you get up at 9 am? Does that mean all port adventures pre 9 am you wouldn't do?

And if up at 9 am and cabanas closes at 2 pm, when and where do you eat lunch?

In the theory of time zones, for thoose from Europe if we go to say Alaska the theory is then we eat dinner at 10am?

 

[ACQUADUCK]

I don't THINK anyone on this thread mentioned the service where, if you have late seating, your kids can eat more quickly and then be taken by CMs down to the kids clubs. That can work well for some kids as they can eat a little later, but not TOO late, and get a quicker dinner. Plus that gives the parents time with their children AND time alone.

As for "matching up to the time you eat at home" for me, this was not needed. Life on the ship is so much different than life at home, many of your routines may well be shifted, so too, will your preferred eating times.

At home, I am up early, quick breakfast, early lunch, early dinner.
On a cruise, I get up a bit later, have a bigger breakfast, and thus a later lunch, and thus a later dinner is fine. Plus their are lots of options to get something to tide you over (like the free room service).

So my own experiences would suggest that you look at the activities and base your choice on that. Do you want the show first or dinner first? Do you plan to do a lot of activities after dinner or go straight to bed? (Look at old navigators to help you decide by seeing what is offered). Do you want to do a lot of activities during the day, or mostly relax?

One last thing, some people say that late dinner gives you more time to prepare before dinner. If you have been on DCL before and seen all the shows and don't want to do them again, then that is probably accurate. But if you are new to DCL and plan to see the show every night, then the show starts only like 30 minutes later than Main dining, so when you add 15 minutes to get a good seat in the theatre, Late dining doesn't really give you more than about 15 minutes more time than main dining.

Yes covered - the Fantasy is now doing it on Early / Main as well.

 

[gotomu212]

And if up at 9 am and cabanas closes at 2 pm, when and where do you eat lunch?

You weren’t asking me but we typically use the counter service for lunch around 3-3:30 since late dining doesn’t actually get us food until 8:45 we like a late lunch (linner or lupper as my son calls it). Salads, chicken sandwiches, fruit etc.

I didn’t want anyone without experience to think that you couldn’t get food after Cabanas lunch closes.

 

[TestingH2O]

We did main seating every time we cruised in the Caribbean. In Alaska, we tried late and loved it. We are booked for late again in Europe.

When we booked our next Caribbean cruises, we chose main seating, but we might change once we figure out excursions, etc. We do like doing the show then dinner though. DD is able to really enjoy the show that way.

 

[YawningDodo]

At the end it's personal preferences but say if your on a early Port adventure what do you do then? As you say you get up at 9 am? Does that mean all port adventures pre 9 am you wouldn't do?

And if up at 9 am and cabanas closes at 2 pm, when and where do you eat lunch?

In the theory of time zones, for thoose from Europe if we go to say Alaska the theory is then we eat dinner at 10am?

I didn't do any port adventures on my trip because they didn't particularly interest me--as I said, it's advice for people who aren't terribly interested in morning activities, which would include earlier port adventures. I usually ate two small lunches/large snacks, one in Cabanas and one from the counter service areas on deck 9, though once I did take a single earlier lunch in Lumiere's.

I'm not sure how a time change from Europe to Alaska relates to this conversation? That would be a very different situation to what I was talking about. To clarify, I was referring to traveling to the Caribbean or the Bahamas from one of the western time zones of the continental United States.

 

[ACQUADUCK]

I didn't do any port adventures on my trip because they didn't particularly interest me--as I said, it's advice for people who aren't terribly interested in morning activities, which would include earlier port adventures. I usually ate two small lunches/large snacks, one in Cabanas and one from the counter service areas on deck 9, though once I did take a single earlier lunch in Lumiere's.

I'm not sure how a time change from Europe to Alaska relates to this conversation? That would be a very different situation to what I was talking about.

Thanks for the response! Interesting! Both are time zone changes, from home to cruise, so exactly same topic.

 

[YawningDodo]

Thanks for the response! Interesting! Both are time zone changes, from home to cruise, so exactly same topic.

Okay. I leave it for the OP and others with questions about dining to judge the relevance of my advice for their individual situations and their own time zone changes.

 

[nutshell]

Thanks for the responses! I think I’ll stick with main as it is my first time and try late next time.