Main vs 2nd seating - please share your thoughts

[tryin]

We are Mountain time and eat dinner around 7pm most nights. Eating at main would just be way too early. It would feel more like lunch than dinner. I also feel as though that is a huge chunk of time in the middle of my day. I love the fact that my kids can go to the club after they eat and are picked up from the MDR. If we did Main, I could guarantee that my kids would need something to eat later. No upset tummies here. Last cruise my kids ranged from 10 months -20yrs and thus worked well for us.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

We are Mountain time and eat dinner around 7pm most nights. Eating at main would just be way too early. It would feel more like lunch than dinner. I also feel as though that is a huge chunk of time in the middle of my day. I love the fact that my kids can go to the club after they eat and are picked up from the MDR. If we did Main, I could guarantee that my kids would need something to eat later. No upset tummies here. Last cruise my kids ranged from 10 months -20yrs and thus worked well for us.

If you eat at 7 pm at home I understand and your I between both sittings. But on the ship the kids will swap to local time overnight and you will do everything to local ship time, ports of call breakfast lunch if at castaway you have to eat by 2 pm. So your on local time. Late eating has health effects adults may get acid reflux if going to bed quickly after a meal and kids upset tummy.

 

[mmouse37]

So not true that late eating leads to all kids getting upset tummies.

MJ

 

[lizzyb]

We had late dinner on our last cruise but this time are trying early. I liked not having to rush but did not like that we were going to bed with a full tummy.

 

[Kimosabe]

For children of that age it is essential that you have Main.

Agree to disagree. We have dinner at home regularly between 7:30 and 8:30, as a result of kids' activities but wanting to sit down together as a family for dinner. We did early dining on our first two cruises, but this last time, both of our girls were happy to do late dining (as we parents were, too). By coincidence, the good friends they both made on the ship also had late dining, so they were able to go to shows together and otherwise plan their evenings together (although, admittedly, that was sheer coincidence). Early dinner is 5:45...early show isn't until 6:15, so by definition, you've got an extra half hour to wrap up afternoon activities, and if you want to go to the show a little more casual than dinner, there is plenty of time between the two to "gussy up" for dinner.

Both dining times have their advantages. As for having many hours between one meal and another, that's easily remedied by planning your other meal times accordingly and utilizing a good snack at some point (with "good" defined however a family wants to define it).

 

[ZephyrHawk]

For children of that age it is essential that you have Main. They cannot wait 7 or 8 hours between lunch and dinner at 8.15 and they will hit the fast food at 6pm. It's not good for anyone to eat late then go to bed before the food has gone down, this on particular on young children with a lot more soda and candy in them than normal will lead to upset tummy. I have seen many young children fall asleep on the late dinner and taken out by parents carrying them. You will be working and playing to local time on the ship up with the sun at breakfast ( and the room needs to be made up) so eating breakfast around 8 or 9 local, get off the ship port time eat lunch local time so dinner needs to be local as well.

Please allow me to respectfully disagree. My 2.5 year old regularly eats that late. Then she often stays up until 9:30-10. She goes to sleep just fine. Kids will only fall asleep at the table like that if they're not used to being up late. It's really more a question of not interrupting your kids' normal schedules too much. I have friends whose son goes to bed at 7 every night, and I would tell them to get the early dining if they were on a cruise. But my child's normal schedule matches my own, and I like to eat later.

 

[ludari]

I choose second seating for several reasons.... first the second seating is too early for me to eat dinner; second as a solo adult traveler they are less children during second seating; and finally I don't feel rushed when eating dinner.

 

[elena_n2o]

We're cruising with our 4 year old in June and also have the second seating; she usually eats between 7:30 and 8:00, but can be quite flexible - last summer we were in Spain and she was quickly in the Spanish schedule, in the evenings dinner was not until 9:00 or even later! I'm a bit more worried about waking her up the next morning, but I think as long as she can have a little nap anytime during the day she should be OK. We'll have to wait and see how it goes!

 

[rachelm23]

I would say it depends on your ports and how intensive it is. For instance, we are going on a Western Caribbean at the end of April and are planning on main dining because there is only 2 ports of call, mexico and castaway. But we are also going on a 9 night Norway cruise in June and there are about 6 ports so we will be eating at second seating so we can spend all day in port and not have to rush back for dinner.
We don't really love 2nd dining all that much because you are super full and its not good to go to sleep on a full tummy so we do prefer main for that reason. If our kids were sailing we would do main. It's too much for them to eat at 9pm every night. Especially if its a longer cruise.

 

[MouseMomx2]

For children of that age it is essential that you have Main. They cannot wait 7 or 8 hours between lunch and dinner at 8.15 and they will hit the fast food at 6pm. It's not good for anyone to eat late then go to bed before the food has gone down, this on particular on young children with a lot more soda and candy in them than normal will lead to upset tummy. I have seen many young children fall asleep on the late dinner and taken out by parents carrying them. You will be working and playing to local time on the ship up with the sun at breakfast ( and the room needs to be made up) so eating breakfast around 8 or 9 local, get off the ship port time eat lunch local time so dinner needs to be local as well.

It is not essential to have Main and it really depends on the children. Some are used to eating at that time in everyday life. Some are very adaptable and will have no problem with a later dinner time on vacation. Some will be fine with a late-afternoon snack and a later dinner. There are a lot of different possibilities and one does not fit everyone. The choice is a personal one and each cruiser should go with what works best for their own family.

Also, eating later in the evening does not necessarily lead to upset stomachs or digestive issues. While it may be true for some , it is not true for all.

As for us, we usually eat around 6:00 at home so we always chose early seating on our cruises. DH and I took a last-minute cruise on our own a few years ago and were "stuck" with late dining. We loved it (for most of the reasons listed above) and haven't gone back to Main. Although we preferred Main at that time, had we gotten "stuck" with the late seating on a cruise when our kids were younger we would have definitely been able to make it work.

 

[saraheli]

We did main seating for our first cruise when kids were 3 and 6 and hated it. It was much much too early, we always felt rushed to get to dinner and were never even hungry when we sat down to eat. We are cruising again in June and we chose late seating (kids will be almost 5 and 8). My kids are good travelers, and generally tend to stay up later and sleep later when we're on vacation so I know this will be a better option for us.

 

[Pens Fan]

For our family, there is no question that 2nd seating works the best. We tried main seating once and hated it. We have greatly preferred the two cruises we have taken with second seating. As others have noted, it just seemed too rushed for us to get showered and ready for early dining. Our mealtime at home is very flexible. We prioritize being able to eat as a family vs a set "meal time". It just depends on our schedule, so it's no big deal for us to eat a little later.

As you see, a lot of people have very strong opinions about this which baffles me, to be honest. Just because late seating works for us, I wouldn't expect it to work for everyone. If I had really young children, or even older kids that were used to a more set dining routine, I can see that first might be better. You just have to figure out what works best for you. Personally I love that so many people think main is great. As a late dining fan, we never have to worry about getting a spot!

I'll add one more thing, then shut up. I do understand the argument of going to bed on a full stomach being difficult for some. But if you're going to base your argument mainly on this, I'll offer another way to look at it. My son is 17 (though this would have applied for the last four or five years with him). He rarely goes to bed in the summer or when we are vacation before midnight, often later than that. So late seating actually works perfectly for him. He has plenty of time to digest his dinner prior to bedtime. If he were to eat at the early dining time, I can assure you he would still be awake and searching out food 5 or 6 hours later, and then he actually would be going to bed on a full stomach.

 

[ctnurse]

We love second seating. We eat between 730-8pm at home, and sometimes even later when DH and I go out for dinner. We have two children almost 2 and 11, and for the first and last night of the cruise we brought our 2 year old to dinner and the other nights we brought her to the nursery, not because she couldn't eat late, but because she lasts about 15 minutes at the dinner table, and DH and I want to enjoy our meal without worrying about what she is doing. We fed her around 6 or so then we would drop her off at the nursery, and then DH and I will go and grab a drink or two before dinner, and then hit the MDR. Our 11 year old would meet us at the MDR, to eat and then he would usually go and meet up with the friends he has made on the ship. The next two cruises we have planned we also choose the 2nd seating. We find that this works for us, and there is no way that we could be in port, make it back to the room, shower, get ready for dinner, have time to grab a drink, relax and talk about what we had done during the day if we had main seating.

 

[Chrisck1]

We just got off the Magic yesterday and had late dining. Our kids are 5 and 3 and it worked well for us. We went to the 6:15 shows and still had an hour to walk around, visit characters, take photos, etc before heading to dinner at 8:15. After dinner our kids went to the kids club and we caught a few adult shows. The evenings were our favorite part of the day. We never felt rushed and kids seemed to do well at the late seating. It was nice on port days to take our time showering before the show and dinner.

We live in Mountain time zone so 8:15 didn't seem so late for us.

 

[Four Swampers]

For us it depends on the cruise. We find that main (first) seating runs a little faster, as the servers need to turn the dining room around for second seating. We like a little faster service. Also, second seating will occasionally run into some of the later activities. It can be hard to go directly from dinner to pirate night.

On the other hand, we don't want to rush back from port excursions for dinner, nor feel rushed to get ready for dinner.

Usually we choose first seating in the Bahamas and Caribbean, or anyplace with early port departures. In itineraries with a lot of later port departures, especially Europe, we will choose second seating.

 

[lisamarie12]

Please allow me to respectfully disagree. My 2.5 year old regularly eats that late. Then she often stays up until 9:30-10. She goes to sleep just fine. Kids will only fall asleep at the table like that if they're not used to being up late. It's really more a question of not interrupting your kids' normal schedules too much. I have friends whose son goes to bed at 7 every night, and I would tell them to get the early dining if they were on a cruise. But my child's normal schedule matches my own, and I like to eat later.

Agreed. My DD eats whenever we feed her, which is whenever it works out. We tend to eat earlier during the week, but sometimes we get home later and dinner takes a while and it could be 7:30 or 8. On the weekends anything goes. We are on the go a lot. If she is hungry, we feed her a snack. She tends to stay up later most of the time anyway, and the only time she has ever fallen asleep at dinner was when she was overly exhausted from not napping. And on those few occasions that it happened, she fell asleep even before dinner. My DD is a night owl and does not sleep well. Usually the only way she will go to bed before 9:30 is if we give her melatonin or we were very very active during the day (meaning beyond normal 4 year old active which is extremely active!).

As far as eating late, I have acid reflux anyway. I get it whether I eat early or late, if I eat too much food or too much spicy food. I take meds for it and usually am okay. But for me atleast, it has nothing to do with the time I eat, unless I eat and then immediately go to bed, its more so OVER eating too close to bed time. I find that if I eat dinner early then I fall asleep during the show. If I eat later, I am more willing to stay up a little later and enjoy a drink or so before bed, which gives more time to digest.

 

[Crystal O_o]

My first cruise we did main and it worked out pretty well. Second Disney cruise we were with 16 people and chose second seating which left me way too full before bed time. Next one we are doing main. We normally eat around 5:30-6pm anyways.

 

[Kenny1113]

We do 2nd dining. Our first cruise the boys were 5 and 3, main dining was full by the time we booked so we had no choice but 2nd. We thought it would be a problem because we usually eat around 6 and the kids went to bed fairly early. It worked out fine, my sleeper stayed up through dinner, and we liked not being rushed to get ready. So with our kids being older we stick with 2nd dining because it works for us.

 

[Dug720]

For us it depends on the cruise. We find that main (first) seating runs a little faster, as the servers need to turn the dining room around for second seating. We like a little faster service. Also, second seating will occasionally run into some of the later activities. It can be hard to go directly from dinner to pirate night.

On the other hand, we don't want to rush back from port excursions for dinner, nor feel rushed to get ready for dinner.

Usually we choose first seating in the Bahamas and Caribbean, or anyplace with early port departures. In itineraries with a lot of later port departures, especially Europe, we will choose second seating.

You CAN get out earlier from second seating. Once I changed to my own table in February, I was in and out as quickly as I wanted to be. Some days I lingered and chatted with my servers. Other days I was just ready to finish. It was completely up to me. (Other than the Animation Show in AP...I was honestly fine with leaving before the show, but my servers insisted I stay. LOL. Yes, it was cute to see in the end.)

 

[Four Swampers]

You CAN get out earlier from second seating. Once I changed to my own table in February, I was in and out as quickly as I wanted to be. Some days I lingered and chatted with my servers. Other days I was just ready to finish. It was completely up to me. (Other than the Animation Show in AP...I was honestly fine with leaving before the show, but my servers insisted I stay. LOL. Yes, it was cute to see in the end.)

Agreed. I think it depends on your servers. We have had times where we were alone, but just could not get our servers to get us out faster.