Early Seating Surprise

[Tink&SquirtsMom]

Had just read a thread referring to the various dinner seatings on the Wonder, and wanted to confirm that I had 8:15 late seating, which it had said before. Now it says 6pm main seating! Is this common? I thought it was hard to switch from late to early. I'm not even sure how I feel about this. I've done all my reading on late seating. What do you think? We have two kids (3 and 4), we are coming from the West Coast with the time change (in which case I can see wanting late), but we will have been in East Coast time (WDW!) for ten days prior to cruising, so we probably will have adjusted to East Coast time by then and be fine with early. So I don't know. I guess there is benefits either way. Any thoughts or benefits to one or the other that I may not be thinking of?

 

[CruisingCA2005]

I also thought that we had late seating, it always said late seating on all our documents & on the website but when we checked in, I was shocked to discover we had EARLY seating. After embarkation, I went to Rockin Bar D to change our seating. It's usually fairly easy to change to late seating but the dining manager (Maclain) had to juggle a few things around because we were a party of 12 people. He left a message on our stateroom phone later in the afternoon to tell us that we were able to get late seating.

We had 2 three year olds in our group but they did fine. I let DD take a late nap (usually around 3 or 4 oclock in the afternoon) and we had a lot of time to get ready for dinner and have time for activities, show, or picture taking before going to dinner.

 

[Grandma Debby]

We had late seating but were waitlisted for early and got it and I lOVED it. We ate then did a few things before the wonderful shows and by then our dinner was digested and we were ready for bed. Our neighbors had late and they always had to take a walk after dinner to let their food settle; they also had to miss dessert on the pirate night so they wouldn't miss the party. We only missed dinner twice as we did a late excursion in Puerto Vallarta and then chased characters around the boat one night for pictures and autographs but we ate in Topsiders those nights and really enjoyed it there also.

 

[lbgraves]

With kids that age I would keep the early seating. We have loved it! We are hoping to get it this next cruise too. I am not looking forward to eating so late.

 

[lotsofboys]

We have always had late seating coming from the West Coast and it worked out perfectly for our group (youngest DS was 5 on our first cruise), but we flew directly to Orlando and boarded the ship. Since you will be on the East Coast for 10 days before the cruise, unless you plan to NOT let your kids adjust to the time change, I would think you might be happier with early dining.

Have a great time whatever you decide.

 

[Tink&SquirtsMom]

Thanks for the replies.

Grandma Debby, I appreciate the firsthand experience. I don't think we'll be hitting bed anytime soon after the shows. We are night people (the kids too) and dh and I are so looking forward to our nights on the ship (since we never want to leave the kids at the grandparents too late, so our date nights are always cut way to short). But dinner being digested before we hit the bars (even though neither of us are big drinkers) sounds like a good thing too!

CruisingCA2005, My ds (if he naps at all) is a very late napper. So I thought late seating would be good. I especially think he'll nap after Naussau and the dolphin excursion and after Castaway Cay. But now that I think about it we will have our umbrella strollers, so if he naps through early seating dinner thats probably better then napping through the shows, which I'm thinking he will love and not want to miss (based on his response to the Snow White and Aladdin shows at DL and CA Adventure). And if he sleeps through it we can just get him dinner somewhere else (I'm assuming, is that correct?).

lbgraves, Thanks. i think I have told you before but that pic of your kids silhoutte (sp) in the porthole with the Mickey ears is one of the images that pops in my mind whenever I think of the cruise. It is too cute!

Lotsofboys, originally we thought we would try and keep them on our time. But with wanting to be at WDW early for summer crowds that just won't work. There schedule will probably be way off, because we'll probably be getting up early hitting the parks, resting for hours and then going back to the parks at nights. But looking at our itnerary I did make most of our WDW PS for around 6ish so I guess they'll be used to eating around then.

Anyways (sorry this is so long, I'm thinking "out loud" as I type), I guess I should just take it as a blessing since so many people try for early seating and end up getting late. Also I'm thinking there will be more kids in early which could be a good thing. I bet if we got to the cruise and I was feeling like the kids were still on West Coast time we could do what CruisingCA did and change then, so for now we'll leave it.

 

[Skallywag]

We are from England and chose early diner as we normally eat about 5 p.m. We get over the problem of time differences by just adjusting ourselves from the time we land in your lovely Country and it always works fine. That is apart from waking up far too early about 4.a.m. for the first few days.
Personally would not entertain late seating as it is way too close to bedtime before you finish cannot be good for the waist line.

 

[Tink&SquirtsMom]

Hehe, I don't think much about this trip will be good for my waistline. Maybe all that WDW walking will help? One can hope anyways....

 

[CM_Mom]

We did 4 days at WDW after the cruise and I actually got home and had LOST a couple of pounds. No worries, they found me rather quickly.

We had late seating since we booked jsut a few weeks before the cruise. Since we're all grown ups and DD and I are late birds...it's 1:30 as I'm typing this, the late seating worked best for us. We liked not having to rush to get back to the ship for 6:00 dinner.

 

[lbgraves]

Our son did nap thru dinner in the stroller a couple times. One day we wheeled both kids in. Our server wrapped up chicken strips for my son to eat when he woke up. Most nights he woke up with time remaining & just ate them at the table with us. Once he ate them after the show up on deck.

 

[BABYJOSIE98]

We had late the first cruise and my DD and my Uncle's DS were both 4 at the time and by late seating they were tired and cranky....The next trip was early and they were much happier!

I don't like eating that late anyway....I am happy with 6:00pm and it seemed like we were always ready to get back on the ship and get cleaned up for dinner. If we decided to miss dinner then we did, One night all of us were sitting by the Goofy pool will the kids played and just decided to skip it and got pizza and then went to Golden Mickeys!! So fuN! I know on our 7 day in October we won't make dinner each night and I am scheduling Palo for 7:00 pm on evening.

Have fun and be happy with early seating. You can always get it changed to late if you decide too.

 

[JDSski]

DH and DD are used to eating late. We always ask for late seating.

Ultimately, it all depends what time your family is used to eating.
Disney has dispersed the activities in such a way early seating and late seating are capable of enjoying the different activities available such as "Disney Mania" or see the performers at Rock n Bar D.