Early vs. Late Dining Seating?

[MommytoaPrince]

If you are on the late seating around what time will you finish up dinner? I could totally be wrong in my thinking but if you have the 8:30 seating I would imagine you would not be finished with dinner until 9:30 or 10:00. Is my thinking correct or am I way off? We are cruising with friends and we currently have 1st seating and they have 2nd seating. We have been considering switching to the late seating to be together but I am concerned about our 3 yr old eating that late at night.

 

[tigger0215]

We have only been on 2 cruises, and we LOVE having Late Seating. It is so nice to be able to catch the show before (or even in your stateroom while getting ready for dinner) and then go and eat. We are from AZ so we are either always 2 or 3 hours behind East Coast so for us, if we had early seating, it would be like eating at 3 or 4 pm! We also order like room service or grab something at Pluto's if we are starving.. granted youre on a cruise and there is food EVERYWHERE It's really up to you if you want Early or Late. Have a fun cruise!!

 

[cbryteach]

If you do their dine and play, they eat their entire meal by the time you get your appetizer and the Kid's Club people pick them up at 9:15. Sometimes our 3 year old would eat early and to kids club during dinner. Also if they are at Kids Club early enough, they feed them there.

 

[PizzieDuster]

Love late seating...love to watch sunsets and sail aways instead of rushing to the dinning room!

It's also great to get room service snack while everyone is showering

 

[DMMarla07860]

I've done both early and late seating and I like early seating better, cruises I did late seating I was out like a light right after dinner, cruises with early dinner I've been up enjoying some fun around the ship, so I enjoy early dinner so I don't pass out too early

 

[AmandaRG]

We have late seating on our March trip, and I was worrying about eating a big meal that late. Then I started thinking about it and who says that I have to eat a big meal then? I can have a snack with my girls in the afternoon and nosh on lighter fare at dinner. I'm really looking forward to it!

 

[gomagic]

We have had both and late dinner wins for us. The time we had early, the dinner seemed rushed every night since they needed to get everyone out in good time to prepare for the late seating. We have found late to be a much more relaxed experience.

 

[scootch]

I think it depends on when you at home. My husband teaches and eats lunch at 11am, so we have dinner at home by 430pm daily. We could NEVER go with late dining, it is hard for us to wait till 6pm. Dinner takes a good hour to hour and a half, so with late, you aren't going to finish till 930ish. If you are from the west coast, late probably works fine or if you are used to eating late in the evening, but I would go more on what time you normally eat, especially with kids.

 

[palmtreegirl]

I just able to switch us over to Main seating for our cruise in September, I'd rather eat dinner early and snack at night. We now have Main Seating with the 9:00pm show.

 

[JenKatt]

We've always done late. Prior to DS, it was just DH and I and I couldn't eat at 5:30. I hate to rush to get ready after being in port all day. We thought about early when DS came along, but late dining worked great. He snacks all day as is (he's never been one to eat a big meal). Dinner for me in never, ever my biggest meal of the day. Whether I eat at 5, 6, 7,8, 9 or 10; I can't eat a big meal for dinner. So I get the lighter options (for the most part) or only eat a portion.
Neither DH or I care for shows. There are better things for us to do, so the shows are a moot point for us.
Now the DS is old enough for the Dine and Play, we're sticking with late (btw, we usually eat dinner at home at 6pm. and DS was in bed by 7:30. We've slowly moved everything back this year to accomate the later nights on board. DS now goes to bed at 9:30)

 

[Blueyed Girl]

In 2009 we had early seating on the Wonder. I believe our dining time was 5 or 5:30pm. Which means we would have to be back on the ship by at least 4pm to be cleaned up, dressed and ready to go to dinner on time.

This time on the Dream (June 2011) we have been given late seating. We have a 6 year old (he will be 7 on the cruise) and I was thinking that the late seating would be too late. We were assigned 7pm show time and 8:30 dining time. But after thinking about it a while I'm thinking this really may be better. We can rest after getting back on the ship. We can snack if hungry. We will make it work. I see us NOT having to run as much as we did last time. Last time I was exhausted!

 

[TinkerbelleMom]

late seating was all that was available when we booked, and they said I would be waitlisted...I'm not seeing that on my reservation anywhere, when this happened on another cruiseline, it did say waitlisted. Is this something I need to call on? Late just doesn't work for us, for many reasons. I'm hoping we can switch, and assume our best chances are right around final payment time. I haven't told DH yet, as far as he's concerned, it would be a deal breaker.

 

[narsibvl]

Hi Everyone!

We currently have the late seating assigned to us for our 7-night Eastern Carribean cruise in May. My wife and I are wondering what the advantages/disadvantages are to having the late seating as we have two boys ages 6 and 5. Is this too late for them?

Thanks!

My thinking on this before our cruise was that since we are on mountain time a late dinning would work perfectly...boy was I wrong. Our son slept through all the 4 dinners.

 

[atinkerbellmom]

We have for all but one cruise done late and we it. This up-coming cruise w booked early because we have friends that asked for us to book early, but late usually works for us. As many hav said, the shows before late dinner really do not start until about an hour after early dinner has started and this in itself gives us a little more time and we do not feel rushed. Our first cruise we were early as we did not know the difference and it was what the system defaulted to since we had booked early and we actually felt rushed at dinner. We like to eat and socialize. We have long conversation over dinner and wonderful conversation over dessert. I do not drink coffee but with most of our friends it is a perfect way to end the evening. W like to catch up on everyone's day. With early dinner, we felt as we sat back and started to talk, the staff needed to clear us out to get the room ready for the next service. We are also from Central time and to eat at 8:00 is really 7:00 for us. We normally have dinner at 6:30 so this is just perfect for us. Once cruise we traveled with a lot of my West Coast Family and for them to eat at 5:00 would really be 2:00 for them. So those are our pros to late dinner. Now this cruise (told you we have early booked); I tolf my DH & his reply was early dinner means I get a chance to partake in the late night buffets that I am usually to full to enjoy.... So pack the stretchy pants. So I guess that is a pro for early dinner. You enjoy the food at the clubs, at Pirate Night & at the dessert buffet!

 

[believe79]

We had late dinning booked but I just switched it to main dinning, now Im thinking i may want to switch back...we are on the wonder in march to MR... we do have a few little ones with us ages 4,7,9 and too older kids 13, 16..has anyone felt rushed getting from the early show to dinner and also is it a problem to have early dinning on days that you are at a port?

 

[Princess Sleepy]

No big whoop. It's vacation--we go with the flow.

This is the most helpful thing I've read. (No offense to the rest of you.) I sometimes forget to put it all in perspective and worry too much about the details, especially with Disney. I will try to relax and take it as it comes.

 

[atinkerbellmom]

We had late dinning booked but I just switched it to main dinning, now Im thinking i may want to switch back...we are on the wonder in march to MR... we do have a few little ones with us ages 4,7,9 and too older kids 13, 16..has anyone felt rushed getting from the early show to dinner and also is it a problem to have early dinning on days that you are at a port?

Now when we had booked the MR Wonder (We cancelled it) we were trying very much so to get early. We have a lot of family in California and when we are there, we tend to eat early. See 5PM there is 7PM for us and my kids tend to be out by 9:30 even though we are late night people. It takes them an entire week before they are not begging for dinner at 5:00 when we are on West Coast Time. Now out of the East Coast, they are ahead of us in time.

 

[Spokavegas]

We're cruising on the Magic January 22nd, and a few weeks ago, I had us waitlisted for Early Seating, b/c I'm so nervous for the Late Seating- but I'm on the phone right now having them remove the request- MAINLY b/c of rushing back from port to get ready.....everything was so rushed that we were always pushing, pushing, pushing our two DS out the door, that by the time we got to dinner everyone was crabby! Plus, our stop in KW is on DS9's birthday, and we don't disembark until 12:30---and we'd have to get back on before 4:30 to get ready for a 5:15-5:30 dinner time, so we'd feel rushed all afternoon AND miss the sunset festival in Mallory Square!

One question though......I am nervous about Deck 9 being packed for the Pirate Night by the time we get up there....but I do love the atmosphere in the dining rooms on Pirate Night. Will DCL allow you to just come into the dining room and have an appetizer and soup, but leave before the main course?!? I never see anyone mentioning this. Will everyone else glare at us?

 

[Basil of Baker St]

Does anyone know where you have to go to change dining on the Magic? (Switching from early to late, so doing it on the ship shouldn't be a big deal) There are a lot of references to Wavebands, but that is on the Wonder, right?

 

[jkrislc]

One question though......I am nervous about Deck 9 being packed for the Pirate Night by the time we get up there....but I do love the atmosphere in the dining rooms on Pirate Night. Will DCL allow you to just come into the dining room and have an appetizer and soup, but leave before the main course?!? I never see anyone mentioning this. Will everyone else glare at us?

They will let you do anything you want. And given that you want the first courses, that makes it even easier for them. If you wanted dessert at the start of dinner, that would be harder, but I'm sure they'd accommodate you. It also never hurts to give your wait staff a heads up the night before.