Mediterranean cruise-dining time?

[Winniethepooh4u]

Looking at 5:30 or 8:00pm dining for Mediterranean cruise ..usually would book early but know for sure will want to take advantage of time at port. What do you recommend or what have you done?

 

[anricat]

Looking at 5:30 or 8:00pm dining for Mediterranean cruise ..usually would book early but know for sure will want to take advantage of time at port. What do you recommend or what have you done?

Did they change the times? It used to be slightly later, like 6 and 8:30 or something like that.

 

[Winniethepooh4u]

Did they change the times? It used to be slightly later, like 6 and 8:30 or something like that.

Sorry for confusion this is not DCL but I trust fellow Disney lovers the most !!

 

[Marc D]

Looking at 5:30 or 8:00pm dining for Mediterranean cruise ..usually would book early but know for sure will want to take advantage of time at port. What do you recommend or what have you done?

Unless you have very young kids, I would recommend late dining on any European cruise. On most itineraries, ships depart from port later than in the Caribbean and close to or during first seating. Attractions often being far from port, excursions tend to be long and sometimes end close to all aboard time. That leaves very little time to get ready for dinner. We’ve arrived late to dinner a few times when we had early seating because we had just gotten back from a tour.

 

[lilsonicfan]

I agree with Marc, though it may depend on what ports and what times you'll be there. For our Med cruise, also not DCL, we had long days in port and I would not have wanted to rush back just to eat a 5:30pm dinner. If there are shorter port days I suppose 5:30 might work. But also, it's the Mediterranean way to eat a late dinner

 

[brentm77]

Looking at 5:30 or 8:00pm dining for Mediterranean cruise ..usually would book early but know for sure will want to take advantage of time at port. What do you recommend or what have you done?

On the Italy/Greece Med, we did early as usual and never once thought we needed more time. Nearly all of the Disney excursions get back in time, and when we did our private excursions, we were back with time to spare. But it's personal preference, because some ports will likely be scheduled for you to be out later. For us, Santorini was the only one that would have gone past first dinner (by more than 15 minutes, at least), with an all abord time of 8. Are you go from sun up until late evening at the port type of people? Or, is 8 hours or so enough for excursions? We personally wouldn't want to go longer than that most of the time. I was worried we would regret taking the earlier time, but it was perfect.

 

[auntlynne]

 

[holula]

Did they change the times? It used to be slightly later, like 6 and 8:30 or something like that.

Last year it was 6 & 8.30 on the Norway cruise. I think those are normally the times in Europe.

I did late and I normally do late, but on my cruise there would have been two days where if you had a full day excursion you would have missed early dining.

 

[DCLCruiseFan09]

Last year it was 6 & 8.30 on the Norway cruise. I think those are normally the times in Europe.

I did late and I normally do late, but on my cruise there would have been two days where if you had a full day excursion you would have missed early dining.

We usually do Late dining but on our Norway Sailing Last August we wished we had done early dining because 8:30 was just too late. We didn't get out of dinner till after 10/10:15.

 

[Louise97]

Last year it was 6 & 8.30 on the Norway cruise. I think those are normally the times in Europe.

I did late and I normally do late, but on my cruise there would have been two days where if you had a full day excursion you would have missed early dining.

I'm on a Med cruise this year and the app shows 6 & 8:30 as the dinner options.

We've chosen later because we usually eat late on holiday. On our cruise the only days with all aboard times after the early seating are Livorno and Civitavecchia (both 7pm), other ports are all aboard earlier than 6pm. So for our sailing, anyone planning to visit Florence/Rome might miss the early dining time depending on when they get back, but on other days everyone needs to be back on the ship before main dining anyway.

 

[Pens Fan]

We always book late anyway, but yes, for a Med cruise I definitely would recommend late dining if you're going to be in port until later in the afternoon / evening. I wouldn't want to be rushed. Though in all honestly on our Med cruise we ate quite a few of our dinners at the buffet (we were on NCL) because we were so tired and just wanted to grab something quick. We also had a lot of tours that included lunch or food tastings in the various ports, so we weren't even that hungry.

 

[msmama]

We did early dinner because we can't handle eating that late (even with the time changes). A few times we walked from our excursion right into the dining room. We had told our serving team the night before that we'd probably just grab burgers & chicken fingers on deck, but they were very insistent that we come in any time and they'd make sure we were fed. I'm kind of glad we did it that way because literally, I was in bed by 8:30 that night.

 

[kiford]

It largely depends on the types of excursions you do. We did long ones because we wanted to get the most of our time ashore. We rarely got back before about 7 pm so we would not have wanted to have early dining. If you focus only on shorter tours, you might be able to do early dining. It's just that so many of the ports are quite far from what you actually want to see that early dining/shorter tours can seriously cut into the time you have to see what you came for.

 

[kalel29]

Great thread. This was my concern, and I had to bring it up with the family. The consensus is we don't want to be rushing from an excursion to get ready for dinner. The other concern is that we eat so much at the port that we are not hungry at 6 pm when we return to the ship. That said, we are not late diners, and I cannot see myself still at dinner at 10 pm after a long day at port.

We are on the 9-Night Mediterranean with Greek Isles Cruise. After booking our excursions, only one is scheduled to push our early dining, which is the Florence/Pisa excursion (as mentioned above). The early dining may still work out.

 

[Sykes]

Late dining is our preference for a Mediterranean cruise. But also, I highly recommend considering eating dinner while in the port at least once on a day that the ship leaves late (if your schedule allows). A lot of the Med ports have really great restaurants close to the docks and a €25 per person dinner there is usually a whole lot better than anything on board.

 

[Winniethepooh4u]

Good points, I’m thinking would be nice to get back and shower or rest a bit before dinner after a long day..can always grab a snack if hungry.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Not Med experience but until this last cruise we had early dining for our first 3 cruises.

Now that we’ve experienced Kate dining we’ll never go back if it’s an option! Our entire cruise was more relaxed and we didn’t need to risk anywhere. We’re happily late dining converts!!

 

[Budzooka]

Not Med experience but until this last cruise we had early dining for our first 3 cruises.

Now that we’ve experienced Kate dining we’ll never go back if it’s an option! Our entire cruise was more relaxed and we didn’t need to risk anywhere. We’re happily late dining converts!!

Our experience exactly. Had always done early dining but lovers late once we tried it last year.