Main dining vs. Late Dining?

[princess22]

We are traveling with my MIL who wants to have Main Dining on our cruise. I'm leaning more towards Late Dining... What are the pros and cons of both? Traveling in our group is my MIL, My husband, daughter (9) and daughter (7)...

I cruised Disney years ago and can't remember what we did. Since then, I have cruised on lines that have anytime dining so we are used to going whenever we are ready. Any tips/pros/cons are appreciated!!!

 

[bumbershoot]

What time does the extended family tend to eat? Does that match up with main, or late?

With Late dining if the kids want to go to the kid's clubs and not sit for the whole meal, tell your server that, get the kids' food ordered quickly, and they'll be done in time to head to the front of the restaurant and meet the club counselors. They'll be taken up to the club where they can play while the adults finish. That isn't an option (other than taking them yourselves or letting the kids have self-sign-in abilities and have them go on their own (which isn't something I have yet done, but others have)) for Main dining.

Why does MIL want Main? Is she dealing with a time change?

 

[xlxo]

I prefer late dining....

• more time at port, you can even try out the local foods in the afternoon before reboarding the ship.
• photo's are taken before there's a chance of food stains
• some like it as kids are taken immediately to the evening program
• for some it's closer to their eating time at home
• great for night owl's. I sleep at midnight when elevators and corridors are quieter
• late dining also means late breakfast.... extra hour to sleep or pack.... important on Alaskan cruises because you lose an hour on debarkation day.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

I know this may sound boring, but your health is important!

Current views on eating, weight gain and avoiding high cholesterol, and high blood sugar, is to eat within a 12 hour window, and go by the old saying:- for breakfast eat like a king, for lunch eat like a prince for dinner eat like a pauper. We all eat too much on a cruise, and that does cause issues on acid reflux and weight gain. Whilst one " takeaway " at night may not upset you metabolism, eating late more than once a week causes weight gain. Eating late the Body can't process blood sugar or fat and it rises for hours, whereas in the morning, you go back to normal very fast.

Your Body kicks off its day on two things sunlight and breakfast/ first meal, includes coffee and tea or toast.

Your metabolism resets to local hours by sunlight, so do not eat to the time zones at home, but the cruise ship hours.

Now you need time for good to " go down" post any meal, minimum should be two hours, aim for three hours and try to fast over 12 hours overnight, people who do this loose up to 5% body weight. And cholesterol and blood sugar is lower.

So late dinner is very very bad for you.

Add that fizzy soda is bad for you, sugar and calorie free, as they take out healthy bugs " down below" so even calories free soda gets you to increase blood sugar, you will know why many visit the ships medical centre of acid reflux at night.

Try to avoid the free soda.

So " one" night at Palo late doesn't effect you, eating post 8 pm regularly will take a toll on your body, with added soda, and a few try to blame the ships water.

All evidence to support this is just a Google search away.

 

[tinkerone]

i'm not going to give you a lecture, promise. lol.
take into account the shows as well. if you have early dinning you will go to the 8:30 shows. is that okay for your kids? will that be to late for your youngest?
if you have late dining your show will be at 6:15. while that's earlier will you be able to get ready for dinner after the show, will you have enough time?
its just something to think about as the shows are very good and they correspond with your meals.
another thing you didn't mention is what time zone you are from. that could inpact your dining routine.
what ever you decide, have a great cruise.

 

[TestingH2O]

We did early seating last time and will again in May. While it is a bit earlier than we normally eat (even more so when you add in the time change), I know my DD3 would not make it though a long dinner during second seating as it would run over her normal bedtime.

I do find the schedule of second seating appealing though. We may give it a try in another year, but at this age, my child runs on a pretty tight internal clock. I feel lucky that she asks for nap and bed, but it does limit some of our choices.

 

[rwatson626]

We enjoy eating early (main dining) with DS 9 and DD 7. My kids really enjoy the oceaneer club but we have some rules and one of them is they eat with us and see the show with us. We enjoy eating earlier because it lets us digest at the show. After the kids go to the kids club and leaves my wife and I enjoy a drink at Sklyline.

 

[Skiton]

I know it's not Disney's fault, but both main and late seatings are pushing what I consider to be reasonable times. 8:15 is really late to sit down to a meal, and 5:45 is flat-out uncivilized. We opt for late. With the dine-and-play, it's very doable for our kids, and none of us want to eat dinner before 6:30. If we had gone when they were toddlers, though, we would have wanted the earlier seating.

 

[MickeyEarrings]

We find that we have to choose which discomfort we prefer: the discomfort of adjusting our schedules so we are actually hungry at 5:45 vs the physical discomfort of trying to sleep with a full tummy after an 8:15 dinner. And since we crash at about 10pm at home, DH swears it's early dining from here on... Truth be told, I would love a 7:00 dinner.

 

[Aby]

We like late dining. We don't want to have to rush back to eat in the MDR on a port day, and we like to enjoy a big breakfast so we'd be too full for early dining. Although we normally eat dinner early at home, early dining is just too early when we're on vacation! Everyone will have their own preference though!

Aby

 

[hanscarlet]

if it was just us we'd do late but with the kids we always go early and do the show after... our kids are 4 and 7 yo, 8:15 wouldn't work for them, they are used to eating around 5

 

[princess22]

Thanks everyone for your advice! It is such a hard choice!! We live in Florida, so no time change to deal with. My main concern was missing out on stuff around 5:00 because we would be getting ready for dinner. I think I'll just go with the flow and we can do the Main Dining time...

BTW DISNEY FANTASY, I loved your post!!! I'm in the middle of a huge weight loss journey (down 45 pounds so far!) and I don't want to ruin my progress!!

 

[bumbershoot]

I know it's not Disney's fault, but both main and late seatings are pushing what I consider to be reasonable times. 8:15 is really late to sit down to a meal, and 5:45 is flat-out uncivilized. We opt for late. With the dine-and-play, it's very doable for our kids, and none of us want to eat dinner before 6:30. If we had gone when they were toddlers, though, we would have wanted the earlier seating.

I am always astonished how many people actuall do eat right around 6. I can't imagine doing that. But we are night owls so that means hours and hours before bedtime which doesn't sound like fun at home.

That's said, on cruises we have ultimately come to the conclusion that earlier dining works because we don't go to the shows (the ones on Disney make me ill with the schmaltz and I'm not interested in other shows on other lines...we will see a comedian or a magician and that's it) so if we eat then at it gives us all hours of playtime. Doing late means play then eat then shortened play. Not as much fun.

BTW DISNEY FANTASY, I loved your post!!! I'm in the middle of a huge weight loss journey (down 45 pounds so far!) and I don't want to ruin my progress!!

I managed to lose 85 following none of those things. Not all bodies work the same. DF believes that everyone shifts to a new time zone in no time and that just isn't true for all bodies. Glad it is for DF but it isn't for me and DS.

 

[Nanaree]

We originally had late dining but TA changed it to main dining for some reason. I'm so glad they did. We just got home last night off the Fantasy and loved our trip! About our second night I realized there was no way we could've made it through late dining! And we live in CO so this surprised me! LOL. We were in the dining rooms for at least an hour and a half each night and more like 2 hrs most nights. Having main seating allowed for us to do what we wanted and felt like doing after eating for as long as we wanted. And we were stuffed! The food was wonderful!

 

[bobbiwoz]

At home we generally eat between 5 & 5:30. We like main dining.

 

[canyoncam]

Ok I just cannot get over the amount of people who "factor in the time change"!!!!!!! I think your body functions more around the daylight than the actual "time" it came from. If you eat at 5:30 or 8:00 at home try to eat at 5:30 or 8:00 ship time if there is availability.

And for the one person who ranted over the effects of eating too late (I agree) and then said "one" late Palo dinner would be ok but disses just one week of late eating...well just one week won't hurt either. Shorter cruise less harm longer cruise plenty of options to not "ruin" your health by occasionally skipping late dinner if that's what you have and eating the alternative dining options.

Ok my rant is over and I prefer main because I retire early mostly.

 

[cedricandsophie]

Tried main dining once. Never again. And I'm 66. We eat around 630 or 7 at home. But I just won't eat before 6 on a cruise ship. My family goes to 615 or 630 show...I take a shower, tske my time getting ready, go have a drink somewhere and then meet them after show. We go to family predinner dance or game show and then dinner.. After dinner We listen to music, go to adult show, etc. if I had to eat at 6 or earlier! I would be way too rushed and not hungry at all. Once we get to room, we read for a while before going to sleep. Never had indigestion problems. But this is all a personal choice. In Europe the second seating is 845 and THST is late...but we just tell our server that we want to be out before 10 and it works great.

 

[Castillo Mom]

It's been late dining for us so far and will be on our next cruise. My sister and I will be without the kids this time so we're skipping the shows. We'll spend the extra time on a spa treatment or a cocktail before dinner. 8:15 is ok for us since we tend to go to bed late anyway, we either go to the clubs or see a late movie followed another cocktail or two.

 

[DISGRL13]

We like the main dining as we like to do things after dinner. We enjoy eating early then seeing the shows and other activities they offer. It is rushed though trying to get down to dinner by 6:00PM. But we would rather do that than eat late.

 

[disneyairforceguy]

Me and my wife have settled on main dining but have debated this. If the first night you don't like it can you switch?