Questions about late dinner seating

[dtuleya]

What time will our breakfast seating be?

What time will our dinner be over? Do they serve everyone's courses at the same time (like at a wedding) or do they serve you as you finish with the previous one? We'd like to be able to graze with our children during their meal and then go to a very late dinner at Palo. Will this be possible?

 

[tkd lisa]

There are only 2 times you'll have a set breakfast time. If you are on the 7 day Magic, you will have a set character breakfast on one sea day. I believe late seating has the 8:30 ish time. It will be listed on the "tickets" you get early in the cruise. And on debarkation day, if you want a sit down breakfast, late seating is 8:30 in the restaurant that you ate at the night before (in other words, if your last night was in AP, your breakfast the last morning will be at 8:30 in AP).

Courses are served together unless you specifically ask otherwise (i.e. if you have kids, you can ask that they bring their entree with your appetizer, etc.)

We typically finished dinner around 10:00 to 10:15. It's not a really fast type thing.

Many people have an appetizer at their main restaurant, then eat up at Palo in order to be with their kids for dinner. You could also have them eat with the club, get room service or something from Deck 9, etc.

Enjoy!

 

[christinou]

There is no assign seating for breakfast, you can go anytime you want, except for the last morning, where you would have the late breakfast, I believe it is 8:00 a.m.
They will serve the kids faster if you ask them to, we generally were done with dinner around 9:45 p.m. Another option to eat with your kids before Palo would be to go to Topsider that night,a s you could earlier than your regular seating, when we went to Palo's we ordered room service for the kids, and they loved eating in the room while we got dressed, then they went to the clubs.

 

[kcashner]

Generally everyone at your table is served each course at the same time. They will server the children first if you request that. You might be at a table with just your family (you can request this if you'd like.)

So...your table is served when you have finished the course...not quite like a wedding where you might wait for the whole room or the server's entire area. The servers are very attentive, and want to get your food out as soon as the previous course is finished. Our favorite server gives a little talk on the first night asking everyone to please be on time for diner (8:30) or even a minute or 2 early as that way he can get orders in and get the food out quickly. We were usually finished by 9:45 unless we wanted to linger over coffee or dessert.

As to your Palo night....I'd either take the kids to Topsider's that night or let them go to dinner with the kid programming. Then you can schedule your Palo dinner any time you'd like.

 

[Grumpy's Mom]

I think it really depends on your servers. We were on time for dinner every night, as was the rest of our table (we were 9, (my four, another Dis family of 3, and a Dis couple of 2 - we met on the boards). Our servers, however, were extremely slow. We were the last table out every night, 10:15 to 10:30 was the norm. Several complained to the Maitre De, but the service did not improve. We were onboard over Christmas, so definitely wanted to make the formal and semi-formal (Christmas night) dinners, but got to Palo as often as we could. See Jgalecpa's trip report - four Palo meals! There, the service was fabulous, no matter who our server was, and the food..........yum!

 

[D'AngelosdoDisney]

Depends on age of your children. we had late seating last week and was no good for kids... Had them in dining room one night and they both fell asleep.. Suggestion if you have little ones, book early seating.. late take about 1 and half hours.

 

[tvguy]

Which seating works best for you really depends what your home time zone is.
As west coasters, we have had late seating on all 6 our our cruises, INCLUDING an Alaska cruise. 8:30pm is really still 5:30 pm for our stomachs, and with soccer, baseball, work, homework, our normal dinner time isn't until 7 or 7:30 pm pst, or 10 or 10:30pm east.
On other cruise lines, late seating cuts the rush for dinner. On Disney some of that is off set by the fact that the shows are BEFORE late seating dinner, instead of after like most lines do. They did offer 3 shows for the Golden Mickeys, one at the same time as early seating dinner for late seating diners, one at late seating dinner time for early seating diners, and one show at 10:30 pm for anyone who missed an earlier show or wanted to see the show again. Disney should do that with ALL the shows.

As I have posted before, Disney cruises do seem to attract more of an "early to bed early to rise" crowd that other lines. On most ships things just get hopping about 10pm, on Disney, things are pretty much winding up. That could be why they don't offer a midnight buffet except on one night.

 

[dtuleya]

The our boys will be 11, 12, 15 & 16 at the time we cruise, so they'll be fine at dinner. The older two will probably end up eating pizza or something around 4-5 PM to hold them over. I was just wondering if we could hurry their dinner along (we don't want to miss anything since this is our first cruise) so that the adults could then get them fed before our Palo seating. As much as my older one eats, he'll probably be eating at Topsiders BEFORE we hit our late seating dinner.

**sigh** it must be nice to be 6'1", 165 lbs and be able to eat constantly without gaining weight.

 

[ksjayhawks]

Your kids are old enough . . .

How would they do on their own? Could you take them to the restaurant, enjoy an appetizer with them, get the rest of their meal ordered, then go on to Palo's? Or let the 11 and 12 eat with the club that night; the 15 and 16 eat at Topsiders on their own? Or all the boys could eat at Topsiders on their own, then go on to other activities? Or you could take them up to Topsiders to get started?

Other option would be for you to get the latest possible seating at Palo's, so then you should be able to remain with them through entree and all they would have left would be dessert.

Something to think about!

 

[dtuleya]

Originally posted by ksjayhawks
Your kids are old enough . . .

How would they do on their own? Could you take them to the restaurant, enjoy an appetizer with them, get the rest of their meal ordered, then go on to Palo's? Or let the 11 and 12 eat with the club that night; the 15 and 16 eat at Topsiders on their own? Or all the boys could eat at Topsiders on their own, then go on to other activities? Or you could take them up to Topsiders to get started?

Other option would be for you to get the latest possible seating at Palo's, so then you should be able to remain with them through entree and all they would have left would be dessert.

Something to think about!

That's basically what I was thinking. Could we take them to dinner and then hit Palo's late. After all, I want my cake and eat it too.

 

[goingbacksoon]

About the character breakfast...

Late seating has character breakfast specifically at 9:45AM, although every other morning aside from debarkation is open seating for breakfast.

Don't know if your boys are in to the character thing stil, but just some info.

goingbacksoon