How long does dinner take?

[luv2sleep]

Your kids will not have to wait for you to finish and get bored and restless nor do you have to let your meal get cold while you take them to the clubs.

There is a program where you let your servers know when you arrive that your children would like to take part in the kids club meal program.

Your family is seated as always and your children have their orders taken immediately, they are served quickly while the adults are served at a slower pace. At about 30 minutes or so into the dining time Kids Club cast members come to the tables and collect the kids who wish to go to the club and escort them there. You the parents never have to leave the table or feel rushed and you still get to spend some dinner time with your child(ren) and ensure they eat a good meal.

Dine and Play is for the eary seating too? My son has certain sensory issues and he might not even go to the clubs. We are also traveling alone (just the 2 of us) and I'd actually prefer to eat with him vs sending him off. I hope Dine and Play isn't going to be the only way to enjoy a meal in the dining rooms. Hopefully our servers can be quick and we are only in there an hour or so if he doesn't do too well in them.

 

[mmouse37]

I believe the dine and play is only for late seating but anyone on early seating can go and bring their kids to the club anytime they are done eating and then come back and finish up dinner in the dining room.

MJ

 

[cyclenut]

Did you talk to the head server?

There are teams that just can't seem to get their act together--we has a slow one on one cruise. Until we had those jokers, we really thought people were kidding as we'd always been blessed with great servers. If your team is slow on the first night, talk to the head server--from that point on, he should either move you to another team or keep his eye on things and help out if they are running slow.

As more head servers have come up through the ranks (rather than hiring in as head servers), we have noticed a lot more "hands on" from the heads. We once had our group of 6 and our team had a table of 16 as well. The 16 were just obnoxious. They would change places multiple times during the meal (so the team couldn't keep track of them by seats), sent back multiple items as unsuitable (come on...once or twice maybe, but EVERY night???) and had large alcohol orders. Our head server brought our food to us a couple of times. When I thanked her, the comment was something about her not wanting us to be ignored when our server was so busy with the other table. Note--this was NOT the fault of the server. We had this server on another cruise and had specifically requested her for that cruise.

It is the job of the head server to make sure you have the service you want/need. Let them know if it isn't working for you.

We talked to the head server. Twice. Didn't help. They said they didn't want to rush us ... but we were the ones that asked to be rushed.

 

[kcashner]

We talked to the head server. Twice. Didn't help. They said they didn't want to rush us ... but we were the ones that asked to be rushed.

Well, that stinks. Not a response I've ever gotten to a concern raised.

Dine and play as a formal program is available at late seating only; however parents have been doing a version of this for years. When the kids are done eating, one parent can excuse themselves and take the kids to the programming. Parent checks in the kid and returns to the dining room. It will only take 5 minutes to do this. The dining staff will expedite your kid food service if you ask them to do so.

 

[woody73]

. . . The dining staff will expedite your kid food service if you ask them to do so.

The servers are usually very good about doing this.

Woody