Early vs. Late Cruise Dining

[corvettelovers]

We are taking our first WDW Cruise in October and the travel agent told us we have late dining seating assignments. Has anyone tried to change the late to early dining assignments successfully? We have a 6 year old and 8 year old.

Cora

 

[tkd lisa]

There are as many opinions about this topic as there are people who cruise It is possible to be switched to early seating. There is a location to request dining changes. Check your navigator when you check in to see when and where it is. The earlier you go there to request the change, the more likely you are to receive the change. The more flexible you are (i.e. willing to take any rotation, instead of saying I want early seating with the APLAPLA rotation, at a table for 4) the more likely you are to be accomodated. Pick the one thing that's most important to you and ask for that.

Since you are interested in early seating, you probably already know the pros for it. I'll give you some pros for late seating, just to keep in mind.

1) You will see the earlier show, when your kids are more awake, and able to appreciate the show.

2) While the early diners are getting ready for dinner, you can still be enjoying the pools, at the time they are least crowded. A second part of this is on port days, you don't have to rush back to the ship to get ready for dinner, giving you more time ashore.

3) Depending on your "home" timezone, late seating may be more in line with your normal eating time at home (i.e. if you're from the west coast, early seating would be at 3:00 according to your body clock)

4) If the kids really can't wait that long for dinner, you can get food from numerous placed including room service, plutos, pinnochios, etc. They can also eat their evening meal with the club/lab, which typically eat a bit earlier than the late seating (I remember them eating dinner at about 6:30 - 7:00 most nights up at Topsiders/Beach Blanket Buffet).

Good luck with your decision.

 

[thevolcanogod]

I noticed we had early seating for our cruise about 2 months from the sail date. I called DCL and requested late seating - they were able to do it for me over the phone, no problem. You can do as the poster above suggests and wait until you check in, but if you call or coerce your TA to call on your behalf, you might be able to get this switched before you get there and eliminate some time in lines.

 

[mmouse37]

Getting switched to early seating all depends on how full the sailing is....usually when DCL assigns you late seating it means that as of that point in time they had no more room for early seating. You can call DCL and be put on a waitlist but people have found calling very frequently to ask to be switched works better as they do not necessarily check waitlist.

We have always chosen late dining...we much prefer it.

MJ

 

[ksjayhawks]

Check out this thread for the same discussion on early/late seating.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=601084&highlight=+late++seating

 

[DebbieFuco]

We sailed with 23 people in our family reunion party which covered all continental US time zones. We had 11 children ranging in ages from 17 months to 21 years old...most of the kids were ages 17 months to 9 years old. We all agreed that the early seating was the best for us. The young children were still alert and not crabby.

After dinner the adults put the little ones in their various babysitting/camp options and the adults had time to hang out and relax.

We were all pooped from the days activities and would never have had the energy to relax and enjoy each others company after eating a big dinner at 8:30.

Our vote: Early seating!

 

[KYCruiseCrazy]

we like late seating due to it dont make you rush on a 7 day cruise. the daily shows on the magic are shown 3 times a day so if its a great show you can watch the 2 pm show. and it gives you time for shopping and what ever you are doing in port.