How long is dinner?

[candyht]

We are going on the 12/19 Wonder cruise. The early seating was booked, but we are waitlisted for it. But now that I think about it, 6pm is too early for my 5 year old twins to eat dinner. We usually eat at 7-7:30pm. I think that my twins will be fine with the later seating, but was wondering how long the dinner is? They can usually last until 10:30pm with no problem.

 

[PiperG]

You might want to still consider the early seating. Our 5-yr old DS gobbled up the MAC and Cheese and then asked to go to the club. All the kid food was yummy (so he says) and they fed him while we ate appetizers.

My DH or I would take him over to the club between courses and then enjoyed the rest of the dinner together. We picked him up later, got him settled into bed watching one of the movies, and then went out to the verandah with a special bottle of wine.

 

[kcand sunshine]

We did the late seating and it was great. You can feed your child by the pool around 5 and then go to the show etc. Dinner lasts about an hour. We walked out every night about 9:15. Service is excellent!!!

 

[SC Minnie]

We had late dinner also and loved it. We requested it again for the cruise in Oct. DD7 had no problem waiting until 8:30 to eat. She usually had pizza or ice cream in the late afternoon. Our dinner was usually over arount 9:30 - 10:00 because we sat around talking for awhile some evenings. The servers are good about getting the food quickly.

 

[Michelle]

I would definitely keep early seating with young kids. The early seating dinner is over in about 60-90 minutes, dinner at the LATE seating can go on for much longer. Even if the waiters rush your children's dinner at late seating it's still 9:00 pm or so before they eat.

My daughter MUCH preferred to have an early dinner and then be in the clubs at night for all the evening activities, that typically start around 8:30 -- right when second seating dinner starts. I'd keep first seating.

 

[Dodie]

We had late seating - admittedly all adults at our table - on the 4/20 cruise and we NEVER finished with dinner until 9:30-9:45, sometimes 10:00.

 

[din]

Originally posted by kcand sunshine
We did the late seating and it was great. You can feed your child by the pool around 5 and then go to the show etc. Dinner lasts about an hour. We walked out every night about 9:15. Service is excellent!!!

We did the same on our trip. It worked well. We were there by 8:30-8:35 and had dinner beofre nine. What we like was that we were not rushed. Once the kids finished dinner they were entertained by the dinning room like AP or they had game boys just in case. BTW the waiters also entertained them talking about game boys. We would do a second seating again on our next trip.

 

[candyht]

Thanks for everyones replies. I'm going to keep the late dinner seating. I'll try to get my kids to take a short nap in the afternoon so they will be able to stay up a little later than usual. Whenever my kids eat an early dinner (like 6pm), they usually don't end up eating a lot.

 

[scottie]

I would like to thank everyone too! We are booked for the late seating on our Sept 22nd cruise and began to worry that we were crazy for thinking about taking our kids to the late dinner (they will be 1.5 yrs and 5.5 yrs at sailing). But this thread has helped remind us why we picked the late seating. And there is always food we can grab somewhere earlier in the day if someone is hungry for a burger etc.

 

[disneylover4ever]

We had late seating on our 1st cruise and I really worried about how late it was for the kids. Our 2nd cruise we had main seating and on the 1st night (the sail away party) we looked at our watches and it was 5:45. We were not even close to making our scheduled dinner. It was still "daytime" fun time, not dress up and eat time. We switched our dinner to late on the 1st day and have booked 2nd seating for our next 2 cruises. I can't imagine having to be ready to eat by 6:00 (and at home we do eat early at 6:00 or before) There is so much kid food available at all times, our kids were never hungry and unless your kids will eat the adult meals from the menu (by the way they can order from the adult menu) Our kids were only eating chicken fingers, hamburgers etc... at dinner anyway. A couple of nights they didn't want to eat with us, they had too much fun in the clubs but did like going to the early show with us. My point being that no one should stress too much over their dinner seating, its vacation and somehow we adjust to "vacation time" !!!!