Late Dining w/ Kids?

[amtmommy]

Just booked our trip and were told the early dinning seating is already full.

Has anyone done the late dining with a child? My daughter is six.

Also when do you find out your dining roatation?
Thanks

 

[musicgirl]

We like late seating, but we have a ds-12. We did a 3-night in June and my nephew-7 fell alseep the last night. If you have the late seating try an afternoon rest/nap. Even just resting in the room will probably give her some extra energy.

Have fun

 

[Stewy]

We have done both seatings with our DS 5. We really prefer late dining. We were not as rushed to get ready and we are used to eating around 7 at home. We usually went back to the room early afternoon for a little break. We ordered room service - cheese tray and a couple of sandwiches to hold everyone over until dinner. A couple of times, there were things he wanted to do in the club that started right before dinner or during it. When that happened, we let him eat at Topsiders or we took him to dinner and ordered his food right away. As soon as he finished we would sign him into the club. We would then go to dinner (or finish it) without him. HTH

You find out your dining rotation when you check in.

 

[nedleycan]

We had late seating with an almost 4 year old and a 5.5 year old. It worked out great. We fed the kids early (at the buffet or bbq), then put them in the club (there was usually good activities around 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.) Then, we would go for a drink and then dined alone every night. It was such a treat, and the kids didn't mind at all.
This year we are going with early seating, and I am afraid we won't like it as much... we will have to see.

 

[Gina]

We always do late seating. (DS is 7 now) Early seating is just way too early for us, and we're night owls by nature anyway. Plus, one of the best times to go swimming is before late seating when many of the kids are headed off to dinner!

-gina-

 

[Favorite Auntie]

If you really want the early seating you can go to Sessions, I think, once you board and try to change to early seating. We have never had a problem doing this, even with a full ship. I have early seating in November, I will have a 5 year old with me. He is use to going to bed by 8 and I am going to try to keep him on that schedule (or close to it). Otherwise he will end up sick by day three!

 

[Gupsmom]

Our kids were almost 6, 4 1/2 and 3 at cruise time. We were stuck with late seating and we ended up loving it.

#1) tHe kids were awake and alert for the 6:30 show. They would have fallen asleep at an 8pm show.

#2) it gave us more time to enjoy the afternoon. We only had to be ready in time for the show..even then we didn't need to be as cleaned/dressed up (as we would have for dinner).

#3) aside from the animator's palate night, we fed the kids up on deck (thus giving them much more pool time) and then we put them in the clubs while we enjoyed a relaxing dinner. This gave us time to reflect on how much we enjoyed our day with them. Also, a lot of the fun activities are at that time of night. We would put them in for an activity and then just let them stay for movie time (unless there was something specific we wanted to do with them).

We liked the late seating so much that we purposely booked it for our next cruise.

Jess

 

[CindyAnn]

My DS and DD (9 & 6 on our cruise earlier this year) are used to going to bed early and no matter when he goes to bed, DS always wakes up early. We tried to switch to the early seating once we got on board, but it just didn't work out. Naps were also out, though we did try to get in a quiet hour or so with a book.

All things considered, the late seating wasn't as bad as we had expected it to be. We would go to our room around 5:30 or so, order a PB&J or mac & cheese for the children plus an appetizer for the adults from room service, and shower and get changed for the early show and dinner.

On at least 3 nights (possibly 4) DS fell fast asleep on my shoulder in the dining room during the meal and didn't really eat anything. However, he didn't go hungry since he'd at least had a light meal earlier.

I'll admit that we've signed up for the early seating on our next cruise, and hopefully we've booked early enough to get it. But, I was really glad to find out that we could manage to make the late seating work out, too.

Have a great time!

 

[goodstarr]

We did late seating in June with our 6 year old. I've always done late seating but this was the first time with a child.She fell asleep at the table twice after eating, but that was o.k. because she woke up to go to the club afterwards while we went out by ourselves. The other times at the table, she was too interested in what was going on in the dining room to fall asleep. My daughter usually goes to bed around 8:30 normally.