Dinner Time with Kids

[closetmickey]

We have done both and much prefer late dining!! Our girls have ranged in age from 3-15 on various cruises when we have dined late. Dine and Play is awesome for the littles, also love that the littles are alert for the shows (more fun for them to be alert and enjoy the show than dinner!) when you dine late. In addition, being from the West coast, late dining is a no brainer for us due to the time change. We tried early dining on a west coast cruise and we hated it!

 

[Matlockbel]

We have done both and much prefer late dining!! Our girls have ranged in age from 3-15 on various cruises when we have dined late. Dine and Play is awesome for the littles, also love that the littles are alert for the shows (more fun for them to be alert and enjoy the show than dinner!) when you dine late. In addition, being from the West coast, late dining is a no brainer for us due to the time change. We tried early dining on a west coast cruise and we hated it!

There are positives and negatives for both times. We have been on 5 cruises with kids of various ages over the last 6 years and this past February we did early dining for the first time and kids were 16, 12 and 7 for that cruise. For our next cruise everyone has voted to go back to late dining. The restaurant is nosier for early dining for sure. More kids i guess. The kids felt like they missed things in the kids clubs and with the friends they had made. it interfered with the ports for sure and we missed dinner in the mdr one night because we were not back on the ship in time to get ready. And yes the servers wanted us to come anyway but we did not want to arrive late. didn't matter whether late or main dining the kids often did not stay for the duration anyway. The servers knew to get their food first and they do and off they go for more interesting things. I felt like I ate less having main dining though which is a good thing. so like a previous poster said it will depend on your family which works better for you.

 

[bbel]

I thought I read somewhere that a 10 year old could check himself in and out of the clubs, is that true? We have the early seating for our upcoming trip, and wondering if our DS10 gets done eating and wants to go to the club he can excuse himself and check himself in while we finish dinner?

Any child with a oceaneer band can check themselves into the club/lab. (If a three year old rocks up we're not going to turn them away to go and find a parent, but with younger children you can probably expect a phone call/message letting you know they are with us) But, to check out they have to be 8+ AND have parental consent in the computer system.

 

[michellekcm]

I thought I read somewhere that a 10 year old could check himself in and out of the clubs, is that true? We have the early seating for our upcoming trip, and wondering if our DS10 gets done eating and wants to go to the club he can excuse himself and check himself in while we finish dinner?

My daughter often checks herself in from dinner - she was 7 on our last cruise, and does not have check out privileges. I just go up about 5 minutes later and make sure she's arrived. .

 

[willijen]

Any child with a oceaneer band can check themselves into the club/lab. (If a three year old rocks up we're not going to turn them away to go and find a parent, but with younger children you can probably expect a phone call/message letting you know they are with us) But, to check out they have to be 8+ AND have parental consent in the computer system.

This is great news, so theoretically, my DS10 can take his little brother (DS5) down to the kids club and check in together when they're done eating?

 

[bbel]

This is great news, so theoretically, my DS10 can take his little brother (DS5) down to the kids club and check in together when they're done eating?

Yes! If you're happy with that. And you can always get them to ask for a message to be sent to the WP to let you know that they've made it and checked in...

 

[anricat]

We gave our daughter an old iPhone with the Navigator app on it that she carries in a little pouch around her waist. When she arrives in the club, she can send us a message. Works for pickup, too. Last year on the Magic, she would just send us a message to have us pick her up. We never even used the Wave phones.

This year, she'll be eight and we plan to grant her check out permissions, but she'll have to send us a message with her phone to let us know she's coming to us or straight back to the room.

 

[willijen]

That's exactly what we'll be doing, DS10 has my old iPhone with the Navigator app installed so he can message us that way. It will also work if he gets lost. ;-)

 

[bbel]

Don't rely on those apps though. If the kids club needs to contact you for any reason they're going to use the WP. If anything happens to your kid so that they are unable to contact you, they're gonna be calling your WP. If your kids phone gets lost or stolen or broken (which unfortunately does happen) they're gonna want to contact you with the WP. If counsellors have any questions or concerns or if your kid just needs a band aid or an ice pack, they're gonna call your WP so PLEASE keep them with you! Just saying...

 

[Skiton]

Because we're switching from mountain time to eastern time, late is best for our kids. Last cruise they were 7 and 8, but even our first cruise when they were 5 and 6, late seating was best. They loved that they could finish up and head to the kids club while the grown-ups yammered over dessert, and we were still able to have them in bed by ten most nights. Ideally (for us), they would have late seating at 7:30 but we'd way rather eat at 8:15 than 5:45.

 

[anricat]

Don't rely on those apps though. If the kids club needs to contact you for any reason they're going to use the WP. If anything happens to your kid so that they are unable to contact you, they're gonna be calling your WP. If your kids phone gets lost or stolen or broken (which unfortunately does happen) they're gonna want to contact you with the WP. If counsellors have any questions or concerns or if your kid just needs a band aid or an ice pack, they're gonna call your WP so PLEASE keep them with you! Just saying...

We always kept one with either my DH or I. I do wish there was some other way - those things are so bulky and cumbersome. It seems like Disney is far ahead in some areas, but those dinosaurs are an exception.

 

[Chemist]

We are west coasters, and I ALMOST got late seating, thinking that with the time difference it would work out better for us.
What actually happened was that the kids immediately adjusted to east coast time!
I'm really thankful we had early dining.

We still had the kids meals accelerated. Their main dish came quite quickly after we were seated. I'd order them an appetizer off the adult menu, which they'd eat with dinner. Then they would dawdle over dessert.

Twice they ate quickly and I ran them up to the kids club. Took a few minutes, but it was okay.

 

[bbel]

We always kept one with either my DH or I. I do wish there was some other way - those things are so bulky and cumbersome. It seems like Disney is far ahead in some areas, but those dinosaurs are an exception.

Try working/living with them

 

[willijen]

Don't rely on those apps though. If the kids club needs to contact you for any reason they're going to use the WP. If anything happens to your kid so that they are unable to contact you, they're gonna be calling your WP. If your kids phone gets lost or stolen or broken (which unfortunately does happen) they're gonna want to contact you with the WP. If counsellors have any questions or concerns or if your kid just needs a band aid or an ice pack, they're gonna call your WP so PLEASE keep them with you! Just saying...

Though I don't like to have to schlep it around, I'm taking you at your word since you know what you're talking about! We'll make sure we have one with us. Thanks for the advice. And Big Thanks for keeping my kids so happy! Seriously best CM ever. (I mean, not you specifically, just all the kids' club CMs)

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

We are west coasters, and I ALMOST got late seating, thinking that with the time difference it would work out better for us.
What actually happened was that the kids immediately adjusted to east coast time!
I'm really thankful we had early dining.

We still had the kids meals accelerated. Their main dish came quite quickly after we were seated. I'd order them an appetizer off the adult menu, which they'd eat with dinner. Then they would dawdle over dessert.

Twice they ate quickly and I ran them up to the kids club. Took a few minutes, but it was okay.

Yes, this is what typically occurs, children adjust fast.

 

[bbel]

Though I don't like to have to schlep it around, I'm taking you at your word since you know what you're talking about! We'll make sure we have one with us. Thanks for the advice. And Big Thanks for keeping my kids so happy! Seriously best CM ever. (I mean, not you specifically, just all the kids' club CMs)

We try

 

[Yokelridesagain]

First cruise we went on, my kids were 3 and 16 months. We live in the Central time zone and got late seating...for Alaska. So that meant dinner started at 10:15 "our" time.

And you know what? It was fine. The first night my three year old literally fell asleep while eating, but after that, they adapted fine. Most children are more resilient than you think they are.

And at the end of the day, I cared more about them being awake for the shows than dinner.

We've never looked back, have never done early dining on our five (going on 6) cruises and doubt we ever will.

It's not for everyone, though. One time we travelled with my wife's brother and their four year old fell asleep at almost every meal.

 

[Sytrace]

For our first six cruises, we had early dining and really enjoyed that. I never cared for the early breakfast time on debarkation morning though. lol

But on our seventh cruise we ended up changing our reservation from a 4 night on the Dream to a 7 night on the Fantasy and by then early dining was not remotely possible except to be waitlisted...which we did. Checked on the status upon boarding and still had late dining...but that was fine we figured we would give it a whirl.

So glad we did...now late dining works for us AND we can still sleep in a bit on debarkation morning ...win- win. We just changed our eating habits a bit and have lunch a bit later than we would if we were early dining. And we find with late dining that we don't eat nearly as much as we did on early dining rotation.

 

[tcufrog]

We live in Central Time so the late seating fell pretty close to when we normally eat at home (Dream 4 day). We made the choice not to get our kids acclimated to EST since we doing such a short cruise. It worked out really well. I don't think the kids would have been hungry during main seating.

 

[VFG]

Dinner isn't always two hours. On our last 7 night it was just over an hour to an hour and a half.