I have seen many young children fall asleep on the late dinner and taken out by parents carrying them.
This doesn't mean late dining didn't work for them, though. The kids saw the shows, ate, and are now asleep. They've had a full evening. Probably better than dining and falling asleep during the show, especially if now the parent has to climb stairs to get out of the theater. Kids fall asleep.
But on the ship the kids will swap to local time overnight and you will do everything to local ship time
My kid doesn't go to a new time overnight, not even a little bit. Not all kids do!
We've had early, we've had late, we like AND dislike both. Even in my family there's no perfect time.
But as much as our stomachs are more ready for dinner later (b/c we are generally still feeling like we're on the west coast, with sleepy mornings and up-late evenings, a week or more into our trips), we feel like we DO more if we have early dining. We're getting prettied-up for shows (if we go to them) anyway, so we're taking showers immediately after boarding anyway.
With early dining, we just feel like we get more evening-time. We reboard, we get cleaned up, we go have dinner. Then we go to a show or we don't; DS goes off to the kid's club for hours and hours, we roam or hit Rainforest Room or go to a bar...then we all meet up, happy and exhausted, and pass out.
With late it feels split up. Shows or wandering or bars with, what, an hour of kid's club if he doesn't go to a show, then dinner, then back to the nightlife. It's too "chunky" for us, if that makes sense outside my head.
But we can switch as needed; whatever works on that cruise, or with whatever we're given if we can't switch. No biggie. There's enough food on the ship, after all.
As for breakfasts, I still remember only ONE breakfast we have EVER gotten to, LOL. Oh wait, no, I remember two more from a Royal cruise, and one more from a
Disney cruise. We just aren't early risers onboard. We sleep too well!
