early vs late dining

[mickeymom30]

We have always gone with the early seating for dinner and have liked it just fine. On our next cruise in Jan 2005 our dd's will be 5 and 7. I was thinking of trying late seating. Does anyone have any advice on this. Thanks for the opinions.

 

[jrabbit]

if your kids like the clubs, you should check Barb's and Dave's web sites for the childrens navigators to see if late dinner interferes with those activities. Actuallly with late dinner, your kids might want to eat in the club and then it's not an issue (unless its an issue with you)

 

[webray]

Keep in mind that it will be between 9 and 10 pm before your kids get to eat if you do the late seating..I wouldn't do it.

 

[westjones]

We like late seating when we plan to leave the boat to go on excursions (so we don't feel rushed to get back). We like early seating when we are on the shorter cruises and just plan to relax on the ship.

DJ

 

[appink]

We did the late seating in 2002 when our son was 9 and it worked out fine. He did not go to the club until after dinner and wanted to stay each night until it closed.

 

[TootyJane]

Originally posted by mickeymom30
We have always gone with the early seating for dinner and have liked it just fine. On our next cruise in Jan 2005 our dd's will be 5 and 7. I was thinking of trying late seating. Does anyone have any advice on this. Thanks for the opinions.

We always do late even when our kids were younger. We live on the West Coast and for us to eat at the early seating (6:00pm) it was more like eating at 3:00pm. If you do early there's the rush to get ready for dinner especially after you've been in port or on an excursion. With late you don't have to rush. Late seating does interfere with some of the clubs' activities. If you find your kids get hungry before late, you can always go to Pluto's or order room service. HTH

 

[staylor]

We like late as well. In January we'll be traveling w/ kids 8 & 5. On the last cruise we also had the late seating. We're from the Central time zone, so it's not as late to us as it appears. Depending on the dining rotation we get, the first three nights the kids will eat with us, to see each restuarant at least once. After that, it will be whatever they want to do, eat with the kids clubs or eat with us. Last time they wanted to eat with the clubs. Keep in mind, you can get food all of the time. So, if you need something to keep you or the kids until dinner, just grab a snack.

 

[jrydberg]

I did the late seating with my 5 year old dd in May and it worked out great. With the late seating, you go to the early show, so she wasn't tired for that (which was one of the highlights of the cruise for her). Sure, she was tired at dinner, but no big deal. Our servers were ready to bring her something to eat within minutes of arriving at our table.

 

[CruisingCA2005]

When we cruised the Wonder, we chose late seating because of the East-West coast time difference (like TootyJane mentioned). When we cruise the Mexican Riviera next summer I've also chosen late seating because we'll half of our sailing party is from Hawaii (they are 3 hours behind during the summer). My son (who'll be almost 9) will be fine and we'll just have my daughter (who'll be 3 1/2) take later naps in the afternoon so that she'll be okay for dinner. If she takes a nap at her usual time, I'll have her eat dinner with the kid's club or I'll get her a bite to eat from Deck 9 or room service.