Have you done both main/late dining with 5yr olds, which do you prefer

[Miggee]

Hi All,

have any of you done both main and later dining with a 5/6 year olds? and if so, which in your opinion worked better for your family and why?

I will be on the western Fantasy next spring and am considering which dining option would be better, both my kids eat early at home (around 5pm)

Thanks in advanced for any feedback/input!

 

[Woodmnky]

I can only answer half your question as we have never done late dining. My son normally eats at 5pm (or a bit before) and is in bed at 8:00 (late seating is at 8:15) and even if we fed him early he would be in no shape to sit happily in a dining room that late. If you are coming from a more Western time zone, the timing may not be such a big deal. And/or if your kids acclimate better to routine changes then it may work for you. Usually once or twice during a week cruise we have evenings where we just don't want to stop doing whatever it is that we are doing to go to early seating (for example the pools are often pretty empty when approaching dinner time), so on those nights we just go to the buffet or an alternate restaurant.

 

[AndreAggie]

We've done early seating with 5/6 year olds. This next cruise, we're doing the late seating. We found with the excitement on the cruise, bedtimes went by the wayside (I know some parents don't want to hear that). During late seating, the club counselors come and get the kids from dinner and take them to club/lab. We figure we can always hold over with a room service snack or counter service until the later seating. We have friends that went on a cruise before us and they had late seating and will always choose that option, even with kids. We just felt really rushed to get to the early seating and half the time, the kids weren't very hungry and got bored. I'm thinking with the late seating, we can expedite the kids dinner with the promise of the club/lab.

My son goes to bed between 8-8:30 and on the cruise, I was prying him out of the lab at 10:30!

 

[SingingMom]

We had early dining with a 7 year old our first DCL and late dining this past July with our now 22 year old.


My observation (remember MY observation!) was that the younger the child at late dining, the more miserable the table looked - children and adults alike. I think it's a lot to expect for the kids to behave after being hyped up during the day, then attend the show, THEN, to sit through dinner.

When we had a 7 year old with us, although getting ready to eat early was a bit too early, it was much better to eat, go to the show, then let DD have some play time at the Oceaneer Club and DH and I have a quiet nightcap. Now that DD is an adult, we enjoyed the later seating (with less children) and an evening together at the nightclubs.

 

[Miggee]

Thank you all for sharing your experiences, we are west coast folks, but as any parents know, kids tend to adapt real quick to new zones (wish I could do that). we are currently in second seating and wait listed for main, I think in the end we'll be happy with either one and make it work (sounds like there are pros/cons to each), we're on vacation after all! thank you all again!

 

[jahber]

We did late dining when my son was 5 and it was fine. But we are night owls and homeschool, so he typically went to bed at 10 at home, anyway. And many nights he'd close out the clubs at midnight after dinner. But kids who like to go to bed at 8 or 9 will have a tough time. We were regularly getting out of dinner at 10.

 

[jenpink]

We did late dining when my daughter was 5 (now 14). She fell asleep at every dinner. I don't even think she stayed awake for the food to arrive most nights. We have had early seating ever since

 

[party-of-five]

Last year we did late dining (youngest was just weeks away from turning 4). This year we did main dining (he was just weeks from turning 5). Luckily, he adapted to both just fine. But overall our family enjoyed the early dining better. Sometimes we felt a bit rushed to get to dinner on time, but we liked eating and then going to the shows. We felt like everyone had more energy for the evening/night activities. The kids were out til at least 11pm so we were usually calling room service or running up for a snack for them. But that added to the fun for them.

 

[nearlyfallinstar]

We live in the same time zone as Port Canaveral. Our kids typically eat between 5:30-6 and they go to bed around 9-9:30 in the summer. We had early dining and even though that schedule was close to our normal schedule, our youngest (3) fell asleep at the table twice. I don't think we could survive late dining! Lol.

 

[TestingH2O]

Now I'm getting worried. We are on late dining for SWDAS in March and we chose late for Alaska so we had time in ports.

Oh well. We can always get fast food and send her to the clubs if dinner is too hard.

 

[cheermom2four]

Honestly, we love late seating with our dd5. but honestly, she fell asleep 3 of the 7 nights and we are mountain standard time so dinner would feel lke 6:15 to us. The other three of us loved the late dining because we just didnt feel rushed after port days. Would we do it again? Sure would! Actually booked late dining on our Med cruise and 2nd dining starts at 8:45.

As for kids counselors coming to get younger ones, yea never saw them so never thought about it LOL so we didnt utilize it. Plus our server just made a bed out of two chairs and our daughter would crash there anyways.

 

[nearlyfallinstar]

Honestly, we love late seating with our dd5. but honestly, she fell asleep 3 of the 7 nights and we are mountain standard time so dinner would feel lke 6:15 to us. The other three of us loved the late dining because we just didnt feel rushed after port days. Would we do it again? Sure would! Actually booked late dining on our Med cruise and 2nd dining starts at 8:45.

As for kids counselors coming to get younger ones, yea never saw them so never thought about it LOL so we didnt utilize it. Plus our server just made a bed out of two chairs and our daughter would crash there anyways.

Our server did the two chair bed as well! Although the one night she just fell asleep upright. lol

 

[HappilyEverAfter80]

At home we eat dinner around 5:30-6:30. On vacation anything goes, but our DS has always easily adapted to the changes that come with travelling. Even though at home he thrives on routine. Go figure. We felt too rushed with the first sitting, not with the dinner itself but getting there. 4:30-5:30 is our fav time to spend by the pools, almost nobody there and short waits for slides. DS liked to watch the shows most nights, and I think if he had to watch them after dinner he would fall asleep then just because it's dark etc. With the early dinner the kids seem to be more alert to watch the show.
With the 2nd dinner, the kids' plates come out pretty fast and by 9ish the youth staff would come and pick them up at the front of the restaurant to take them to children's programming. It was great. All the adults were able to finish their dinner in peace while the kids were off having fun. When DS was closer to 5 we would pick him up around 10:30 and he did ok, couple of years later we've allowed him to stay in the kids clubs until midnight. As long as he doesn't do that every night he is ok. He tends to sleep really well on the ship
Also, our friends with a baby preferred late dinner too. Either they would feed their baby (1.5) using room service or Cabanas and take him to the nursery before our dinner, or the baby slept (sometimes) in the stroller tucked in the corner of the restaurant.
If your family is flexible with easy going kids, you will probably love late dining on the cruise. It's not for everyone and yes sometimes we saw kids there that were having a meltdown, probably because it was too late for them.

 

[Sir William]

Not my personal experience, but on our Med cruise we had a family with two young boys, the oldest about 5, next to us in the MDR. The parents said the two were enrolled in the clubs and having a ball, but by 8pm were pretty tired. The first night the kids fell asleep almost before the appetizers arrived so the parents took them back to their cabin and the servers had their orders delivered to them. The parents fed them early the next couple of nights and the servers made up chair beds for them when they fell asleep (the mom wanted to enjoy a meal actually being served to her). My two kids, the youngest just graduated from college, helped entertain the boys and by the end of the cruise they were able to stay awake throughout dinner (and the oldest had learned he could return to the club).

 

[lorimay]

We have done late seating on all 3 cruises with our grandkids, they do get sleepy if they don't nap.
But my grandson perks right back up when the counselors come to get them at 9:15 or so.

 

[Yokelridesagain]

Now I'm getting worried. We are on late dining for SWDAS in March and we chose late for Alaska so we had time in ports.

Oh well. We can always get fast food and send her to the clubs if dinner is too hard.

Opinions are always going to vary on this topic, but IMO this is the right answer (particularly for Alaska).

Our first cruise, with a 3 yo and 18 mo was Alaska, from the Central Time Zone, with late dining. This meant that we were sitting down to dinner at 11:30 "our time". And you know what? It was fine. Well, my 3 year old son did literally fall asleep while eating the first night, but they adapted to the time zone change readily after that.

We did go on another cruise with relatives with a 4 year old who just could not stay awake past nine or so, and fell asleep at dinner every night, so things can vary from person to person depending on how "set" your kid when it comes to schedules.

End of the day, though, I would rather have them awake and attentive for the show than for eating Disney's mediocre food. Trust me, they won't starve on the ship regardless of whether or not they eat dinner.

 

[RoseSanti]

Our family has done both. The first seating went fine when my son was 4 years old. He got a little restless because dinner was a little long for him. The following year we tried second seating (he was 5 years old). That was great. Yeah it was kind of late but being at 8:15 but we all would have a snack to hold us off until dinner. They would bring out my son's meal first, then sometime during the meal the cast members from the oceaneer's club will come around the room to let you know that they are there to gather the kids. You take them to front of the restaurant check them in with the staff and the kids will go have fun. My son looked forward to that every night at dinner. Once he was gone to play at the oceaneer's club. The rest of dinner was like a real legit date for me and my husband. We are going on another cruise soon and will be doing second seating again.

 

[AU Dre]

We always enjoy second seating when we cruise. Our ds was about 6 on our first cruise and he did fine with the second seating. We would just get food throughout the day as needed to keep him from being hungry. The servers always got his food out first so he could go ahead and eat. We requested to be seated at a table by ourselves this past cruise and this let us sort of move through the dinner at a little quicker pace since we did not have to wait for others at the table to move through their meals. There were some nights he was a little tired at dinner, but made it fine since we would sleep in a little in the mornings. We enjoyed seeing the shows prior to dinner and then heading to dinner. After dinner we could just head back to the cabin or whatever events we wanted.
We thought we could take advantage of the counselors coming to get him and take him to the kids club to hang out, but ds ended up not liking to go to the kids club by himself, so he just ended up staying with us each night. I can't really remember a night he had a problem making it through dinner.

 

[anricat]

My daughter was 5 (almost 6) on our first cruise (Bahamas) and we did second seating, she was 7 for our second cruise (Caribbean) and again, we had second seating and then for our most recent cruise (age 8) in Alaska we did early dining and I will say on the main dining - never again!

As you can see, opinions vary and you'll figure out what works well for your family, but for our family, early dining didn't work for a number of reasons. First, my DD and DH sleep in most mornings and so falling asleep early wasn't ever a problem. We are usually sleeping in and staying up late anyway. Our main issues with early dining were as follows:

1. We had to be somewhere at 5:45 (as opposed to 6:15).

2. Our time between dinner and the show was cut short because the we were always headed to the theatre way way early to get a good seat. With late dining, we never had issues with seats. We waltzed in 10 minutes prior to showtime and had the pick of seats. We found out the first time we needed to get there 30 minutes early to get a seat together. Thus, we had less time.

3. With main dining, we were done with the show at 9:30. With second seating dinner, we were generally done with dinner around 9:30-9:45 so we're talking about maybe a 15 minute difference in what time DD went to bed. That's relatively a small amount of time, especially considering we lost 30 minutes in the afternoon and another 20 minutes or so between dinner and the show. So to get to bed 15 minutes earlier, we "lost" upwards of 45 minutes in other parts of our day.

4. We had to get up early on disembarkation day. Then after breakfast we had to wait around over 30 minutes for our character to get called to disembark. With late dining, by the time we were done with our breakfast (after sleeping later) we could just walk right off the ship because all the baggage tags had already been called.

5. We always seemed to want a late afternoon snack and on several occasions, we totally ruined our dinner. There's always something to eat on board and when we didn't snack late afternoon, it felt like a bummer! But we didn't want to ruin dinner. We also like popcorn during the evening show and we're too full to have some after dinner.

Add to all this that DH has restless legs and they seem to hit him every night we were in the theatre. They never bothered him during our dinners though around the same time when we had second seating. Maybe it's because he feels more comfortable to shift around? I dunno, but he had to leave the theatre every night to walk around the ship instead. He missed all the shows.

The funny thing was that somewhere along the way, I got a bee in my bonnet that I HAD to have main dining for our most recent cruise to Alaska and then we all ended up not liking it! We're from central time zone and my daughter doesn't adjust very well across time zones so I thought that eating at the equivalent of 11:15 PM would be awful, but as it happened, it would have been much better to stick with second seating.

So, we're officially a second seating family from now on, no matter the cruise or time zone!

 

[deanimal]

I've done early with a four and six year old last year and late with a six and seven year old just this summer. It was our first time trying late seating and I felt it had pros and cons. I LOVED the extra time it gave to every day. Early seating pretty much eats up your whole early evening from 5:30-7:30 while the early show is a lot quicker. There were a lot of great activities going on in the kids clubs that they would have missed otherwise. The dining room was also a bit quieter and less frantic during second seating.

On the other hand, one huge disadvantage of Disney is that there are so few options for eating between 2 and 6 pm. There's crappy pizza, greasy burgers, hot dogs and fries, a few boring ice cream flavours and maybe a couple of wrap and sandwich options. Having cruised on other lines with better dining options I was really disappointed. There's just no way my kids can go from lunch until 8pm without food and those options just leave us feeling bloated and gross. We did room service a couple of days, although one day we had to wait over an hour because I guess everyone else wants some real food at that time too. Another day or two I made a run up to the buffet just before it closed to get some cheese, breads, fruits and veggies and kept in the fridge until 4 or 5 so I'd have something to offer when they came back from the kids clubs starving. It's never been an issue for us before since we've only done early dining, but I was really disappointed with their options for those of us waiting for late dinner with hungry kids.

Like some others here, my kids found late dining to be just too late for them. They weren't falling asleep at the table or anything, but they were more bored and restless than they usually at early dining which is usually a sure sign that they're over tired. They also didn't eat well that late. I usually gave them a large snack/small meal at about 4-5 pm and they seemed hungry again by 8 but they would just pick at their food most days. It just felt eating that late threw everything off for them. But of course, every child is different.

One suggestion if you're still on the fence is take a long weekend or something when you can stay up late and sleep in and try serving your family supper at 9pm every night and see how it goes. Maybe it will be a fun change. Maybe your family will wonder why you're torturing them. And that might be your answer.