Night Time Dining

[capttigger]

Ok first off I love DCL and have had a great time on my cruises. I do have one thing to ask of everyone.

Do you go every night to your sit down dining room?

I just don’t like to go and sit down every night for 2 to 2 ½ hours to eat. We have done this every cruise 4 so far and I just have to see what yall think about it. I am not a fancy food kind of guy. I don’t care for sauces and such so I get me food without the sauces and have been known to order off the kids menu when they don’t have something I like. I asked my wife not go to the sit down every night but somehow that has not seemed to work as of yet. I even told her she could go without me still a no go. Cant wait to see what yall have to say thanks.

 

[redheadtove]

For me personally, I enjoy sitting down for the sit down dinners. I'm a single mother of 2 DD's and enjoy sitting down, visiting with the wait staff and the other family sitting with us. I feel that on a cruise it is one of the few times I get to enjoy "fine" dining with my daughters. They are 12 and 7 so they are able to sit for the time period and also enjoy the night. But if you don't enjoy the dining then why not spend 2 evenings having room service or have the buffet dinner on the top deck. There is nothing wrong with that.

I hope this helps!!

 

[DisneyOHFan]

On the 7 day cruises, we usually do not go 1 night and just take it easy. Otherwise, on the shorter cruises, we do go to our rotation dining.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Ok first off I love DCL and have had a great time on my cruises. I do have one thing to ask of everyone.

Do you go every night to your sit down dining room?

I just don’t like to go and sit down every night for 2 to 2 ½ hours to eat. We have done this every cruise 4 so far and I just have to see what yall think about it. I am not a fancy food kind of guy. I don’t care for sauces and such so I get me food without the sauces and have been known to order off the kids menu when they don’t have something I like. I asked my wife not go to the sit down every night but somehow that has not seemed to work as of yet. I even told her she could go without me still a no go. Cant wait to see what yall have to say thanks.

So far, 4 cruises (39 nights total), we've only missed our scheduled dining 3 times. 2 times for the extra pay restaurant, and once we did the buffet (because our dining actually confilicted with something else we wanted to do).

I love the dining experience.

 

[BethC1952]

In 10 cruises, only once have we missed our regular rotation dining (other than Palo). I had a migraine and couldn't leave the bed, and DH didn't want to go to dinner alone, even though we were seated with some very pleasant DIS'ers!

For us, the two +/- hours in the dining room is a part of the cruise experience that we really enjoy.

Beth

 

[Bingo14]

We went on the Dream in May and went to all our assigned dinners. However, we didn't really enjoy the Enchanted Garden very much. We were too cold, thought the tables were too crowded, and the meal was just ok (of course that may have had more to do with us freezing). We are cruising again in Feb and plan to do something else on our assigned EG night. DCL wouldn't give us all the choices if they didn't want us to take advantage of them, right? Enjoy!

 

[clten]

I hate to miss a meal in the MDR -- not for the food, which I think is bland a lot of the time -- but for the social aspect. When we have great servers and/or great tablemates, the evening meal becomes one of the highlights of our trip. We love having late dining so we can linger over coffee and dessert and that is when the servers have some time to talk and not rush off (we've been told by a couple of our servers that they love to have 2nd dining guests "hang out" for awhile as they are preparing the dining room for the next meal.)

 

[jjgarv]

Over our 9 DCL cruises, we have never missed a meal in the main dining room, except to go to Palo once in a while. A big reason for this was that we had the same fabulous server for 4 or 5 of these cruises, who gave us spot-on suggestions, extra meal-time 'magic', thoughtful service, and great company. Truly, we wished he could have sat with us instead of serving us.

That being said, one of the things that we are looking forward to on our up-coming B2B in October is ditching the main dining room several times to do our own thing...enjoy emptier pools or the AquaDuck or a movie or activities or Palo or whatever. Personally, I will be quite happy to not have to get all 'gussied up' every single evening and just chill out. All of the food venues on the Dream will be new to us, including all the counter service offerings, so we want to sample it all!

 

[Deb in IA]

We were just on the Dream, and we never had a 2 or 2 1/2 hour dinner. And we were in the later seating, when things were not so rushed.

We went to dinner at 8:15 and were usually done by 9:30.
So 1 hour 15 minutes. Not bad, for drinks, bread and appetizers, main course, dessert.

To each their own, of course, but our family dinners were a highlight of our cruise.

 

[LindaBabe]

After 11 cruises, I'd rather skip the main diningrooms sometimes, especially if the serving team is 'not all that' but it's hard to do when we travel with first timers / extended family. Dinner is a social time when everybody gets together.

 

[flexsmom]

We usually do a "casual" dinner one night at Topsiders/BBB and find that the food is really good, actually, so that we can eat on our own schedule. We've also skipped altogether and grazed at the quick service places.

I think sometimes we find ourselves wanting to do something else but the serving team almost guilts us into showing up - maybe like they are concerned that we'll stiff them on tips if we only go 4 or 5 nights out of 7, which we would never do, but I'm sure happens frequently. I would think it would almost make their lives easier, since they'd have fewer people to deal with on any given night, to tell the truth, but we always get the "oh we missed you SO much" routine. We always call to let the dining room know if we're not coming, although I'm not sure the servers always get the message. If we have Palo booked, we tell the servers the night before.

 

[kamgen]

After 11 cruises, I am excited to skip some of the dining rotation. We plan to skip 2-3 times on our next cruise. THere is nothing wrong with it and you shouldn't feel guilty about it. It is your cruise....enjoy it

 

[tinkerbell2181]

We were just on the Dream, and we never had a 2 or 2 1/2 hour dinner. And we were in the later seating, when things were not so rushed.

We went to dinner at 8:15 and were usually done by 9:30.
So 1 hour 15 minutes. Not bad, for drinks, bread and appetizers, main course, dessert.

To each their own, of course, but our family dinners were a highlight of our cruise.

Almost ready to go on our first cruise and I cringed when I read 2 and 1/2 hour dinner. I really hope your time is closer to how long it will take us during the first seating.

 

[DMMarla07860]

I enjoy the sit down dining. I don't do it at home, so enjoy it on the cruise.

 

[bbn1122]

I've only been on two cruises, with my third being next week on the Dream.
The first was with extended family on Carnival. Two tables of 23 people, so we ate together all 4 nights.
On the Magic 7 nights last Easter, we did one night at Palo and one night at Topsiders. Next week is only a 3 night, so we will go every evening to experience each new dining room. But we are planning a 7 night for 2012 and I can definitely see us going to Cabanas or casual by the pool or even maybe room service one night. Sometimes you do not feel like getting dressed and showered just for dinner even on a cruise/vacation.

 

[girl_barrie]

On our previous cruise, we enjoyed the sit down meals for the most part, all except for our table mates who came to dinner already drunk, with several bottles each night and got progressively more sloshed as the dinner progressed. The later it got, the louder & more obnoxious one particular person became - NOT pretty!! Worst thing is that they weren't random strangers, but our traveling companions!!! NEVER again will we cruise with people that we do not know and get along with extremely well!! Oy!!!
But, I must say - having 2nd seating with a 5 year old is not the easiest thing! We've had to leave early to put him to bed more than once - and one time our head server made a "bed" out of 2 chairs & some tablecloths for our little man, who fell asleep at the table!!
I think that switching it up is a good thing!!