SO WHATS THE DIFFERENCE PLEASE BETWEEN 1ST AND 2ND SEATING DINING? - WHICH ONE DO YOU PREFER AND WHY?

[knewton64]

Hi -
I've got 1st seating and wondering what the differences are -
Got upcoming cruise on the Fantasy is the reason why I'm asking
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Is is more noiser, more kids, more crowded, more feeling "rushed" on 1st seating vs 2nd seating or.....
I dont know and need help please
*
*
TIA!

 

[Lillebelle]

This thread was asking for reassurance that 2nd seating was still good so keep that context in mind, but a lot of people shared their thoughts on the dining times: https://www.disboards.com/threads/dinning-second-seating-pros.3954782/

Yes to everything you said -- 1st seating will be more full, have more kids, and thus be busier and noisier.

You should also consider the order of your evening activities. If you want to see the shows, those are offset with your dinner seating. So if you have 1st seating, you'll do that, then head to the theater after. If you have 2nd seating, you'd see the show before dinner. For some people this matters, some it doesn't.

 

[CaptainMarvel]

I think that where people fall in regards to early vs. late dining tends to come down to a lot of personal factors/preferences. I'm a late dining person, as I enjoy the somewhat more leisurely atmosphere, getting to see the shows before dinner, and, on more activity heavy cruises, not having to rush to get cleaned up for dinner post-excursion. That said, I'm also someone who generally eats dinner after 7 p.m. (so 8:15 p.m. isn't a particularly big deviation for me), comes from a family of night owls, and doesn't have young children in their travel party. Whereas, if you're someone who generally eats early or likes to go to bed early/closer to 9 or 10 p.m. or who prefers an evening with a large potentially uninterrupted block of free time post-dinner (depending on whether or not you chose to go to the theater entertainment), early dining might be a better fit.

 

[nherbert]

We always do early dinner so I can’t compare, but I never feel rushed, if anything I find its slow. It is always packed and yes there are a lot of kids. I don’t feel that I miss anything with early dinner as I enjoy eating early and then doing the activities after. There are reports you stand more chance of a private table in second seating, but we have always got one in early seating when we request.

 

[Henlady]

As others have said, it’s strictly personal preference. We normally eat at 6:00 at home. So early is our preference. We prefer having time for our food to digest before we turn in for the night. Some say that for early dining they feel rushed coming back from port excursions, but all aboard is almost always 4:00-4:30.

 

[Mom2Anna&Elsa]

We did early seating on our March Dream 2024 cruise since we usually eat around 5:30 or 6 pm. at home due to work/school schedules.

However, we’re switching to second seating for our upcoming June Treasure cruise because it will be summer (longer days) and many of the ports have an all-aboard time later in the day. All-aboard at Tortola is 5:45 and I don’t want my port time to be disrupted by dinner.

My daughters are older (11 & 9) and with the accessibility of food at all times, late dining won’t impact us. I’m looking forward to seeing if the dining room won’t be quite so crammed like first seating was for us.

I will also say we never felt rushed during first seating. Although I disliked how early the last morning breakfast before disembarking was for first dining.

 

[Erica1016]

We feel that time on a cruise (for us) is just different than in real life, so comparing our dining time to when we eat at home doesn't matter. We like late dining because it extends our eating time in the day, meaning it leaves us more time and room for other snacks. For example, grabbing some chicken tenders for a late afternoon snack. After dinner, I'm too full to enjoy other snacks!

We're two adults and it is nice that there seem to be fewer kids at late dining, which also means there are somewhat fewer kids in the shows (since they're at dinner). This is not why we choose late dining, but it's nice.

 

[Nicnicnic.nic]

I did early dining last time to try to align with the kids' normal schedule at home but for our upcoming cruise we are going to do late dining because we want our younger one to be more awake for the shows and our plan is to take turns splitting up at dinner if our younger one needs to go to bed....always room service. Plus last time I did feel rushed to be ready for dinner and I don't want that this time around. But mainly it's because our priority is for both kids to get to enjoy the shows not just our older

 

[KKKKCS]

Being from the west coast, we generally have second seating. The 8:15 seating is closer to our normal dinner time. First seating for us would be like eating dinner at 3:15 in the afternoon. Plus, we hate having to race back to the ship early from shore excursions, Castaway Cay, or the beach in order to get showered/cleaned up in time for early dinner. If we lived on the east coast probably a totally different story.

 

[jdb in AZ]

When we've had late dining I'm still digesting when we go to bed -- it can be very uncomfortable. Early dining means more kids, and more noise.

 

[Pixarfans]

We feel that time on a cruise (for us) is just different than in real life, so comparing our dining time to when we eat at home doesn't matter. We like late dining because it extends our eating time in the day, meaning it leaves us more time and room for other snacks. For example, grabbing some chicken tenders for a late afternoon snack. After dinner, I'm too full to enjoy other snacks!

We're two adults and it is nice that there seem to be fewer kids at late dining, which also means there are somewhat fewer kids in the shows (since they're at dinner). This is not why we choose late dining, but it's nice.

So funny I like early so I can go up on deck for after dinner movie, fries and tenders! Either way it’s all about the food

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Hi -
I've got 1st seating and wondering what the differences are -
Got upcoming cruise on the Fantasy is the reason why I'm asking
*
Is is more noiser, more kids, more crowded, more feeling "rushed" on 1st seating vs 2nd seating or.....
I dont know and need help please
*
*
TIA!

Early seating is generally around 5:00-5:30, late is around 7:45.

We prefer early seating because we don't like going to bed with such a full stomach every night, Early seating just fits into our lifestyle better. While we are west coasters, we switch to local (ship's) time and eat at what would be dinner time (5ish) for us because we tend to do longer cruises with many time changes in them.

Typically, yes, there will be more kids at early, but I've not found that to really be an issue. Haven't felt rushed to finish eating.

 

[tvguy]

Being from the west coast, we generally have second seating. The 8:15 seating is closer to our normal dinner time. First seating for us would be like eating dinner at 3:15 in the afternoon. Plus, we hate having to race back to the ship early from shore excursions, Castaway Cay, or the beach in order to get showered/cleaned up in time for early dinner. If we lived on the east coast probably a totally different story.

West Coaster here too and with kids, early seating would have been a potential problem for our kids. But we pretty much stayed on west coast time on the ship. Rarely in bed before 1 am, up at 9 am, breakfast....... all our excursions were after 11 am so no hurry. Port days early seating dinner would have also forced us to hurry to get cleaned up for dinner. Even with late seating, our kids were looking for a snack at midnight, so we ordered room service. We had cruised the year before on HAL which had a midnight buffet, something Disney does not have. Our kids loved hitting the carving station and desserts at midnight, then going for a 30 minute stroll on the upper deck before going to bed at 1 am.

 

[KrzyKtty101]

I think it depends on your family. We had 1st seating last time and regretted it. My family is used to dinner at 7, so either worked for us that way. But we spend so much time snacking during the day that by early dinner, we just weren't hungry enough. This time we are going for a later dinner to give us more time to digest lunch first.

 

[CamColt]

I have always chosen late dining, even when my kids were as young as 3 and an infant. I don’t want to cut my day short to get ready for dinner.

 

[Liastaob]

I think it depends on your family. We had 1st seating last time and regretted it. My family is used to dinner at 7, so either worked for us that way. But we spend so much time snacking during the day that by early dinner, we just weren't hungry enough. This time we are going for a later dinner to give us more time to digest lunch first.

Lol, yeah, eating at Enchante we're still pretty full by the time 2nd seating rolls around.

As the previous West Coasters mentioned, we're MST and 2nd seating makes way more sense for us. Now, if we did and Alaska cruise it'd be different.

 

[SteffyLou]

We have been on 10 Disney cruises- 7 without our kids but with a niece under 10 and 3 with 4 kids under 10.

Prior to having kids we always did the late dinner. I will say though that is when the kids club used to come in and pick kids up and bring them back to the club (I don't know if they started this back up again or not). We really enjoyed the late dining as it left us more time to do things during the day.

However, since having my own kids, there is a 0% chance we could do late dining. We eat by 5 normally with after school activities and early school lunches. My kids would be a mess if we tried to hold them to late dining.

 

[JM_97]

Late dinning overall has fewer children, although that's all relative on Disney. I'd rather eat later anyway to have more time on land and to do things on the ship. We aren't huge show people so planning for the entertainment in the WDT before/after dinner is a wash to us. We will go to a couple shows but it's not a make or break sort of thing. But for others, that could be important.

Rotational dining is great as you get to know your servers and they know what you like and don't like but I will say I do enjoy Anytime Dining on other cruise lines. In a lot of ways, it makes it feel more like a vacation since you can just kind of go with the flow. Sometimes you just don't feel like going to a sit down restaurant and would rather have room service or a cheeseburger and a beer by the pool lol

Disney will probably never do Anytime Dining, which is understandable because a lot of people pay the premium for the unique rotational setup. But I would not be opposed to having that option on DCL.

 

[Dug720]

Disney will probably never do Anytime Dining, which is understandable because a lot of people pay the premium for the unique rotational setup

I would imagine the reaction to them changing it - since people know the system on DCL - would be about like when Royal *tried* it with 4 dining rooms on Anthem and her sisters. They quickly went to I think one (maybe 2) that is for fixed dining and the others are any time. Likewise on Celebrity's Edge-class they have 4 and initially people who had fixed were assigned to one - but they whined that they wanted to try the others (in spite of being able to order the specialties from them in each...and the rest of the menu being the same in all 4.

I like the fact that different lines have different options. If anytime works for you, there are a lot of other lines to pick from.

 

[kiford]

We prefer second dining:

• fewer children, less noisy;
• more leisurely as they don't do another service afterwards (though they will set up for breakfast at the end of dining but there's less pressure to rush);
• early dining is way too early for me to eat. At home we typically eat around 7:30 so 5:45 is practically afternoon to me;
• early show. I find the late show after having a heavy meal is more apt to make me sleepy (one of our friends routinely falls asleep during the show if we do early dining);
• if it's a port-intensive cruise, it's almost impossible for us to get back early as we want the most time on shore;
• early dining means less ability to snack at different places throughout the day as I won't be hungry at dinner. If I have lunch, 5:45 feels like I just finished it.

Our friends with whom we occasionally cruise now prefer early dining due to some medical issues. There are some positives to it:

• more time after dinner to do things where there are fewer children around so less busy;
• If you have problems sleeping on a full stomach, early dining can be easier for you (I have some issues with sleeping on a full stomach now, but I can usually manage around it);
• time to go to a lounge after dinner for a drink without being up too late.

So there are pros and cons to both. It really depends on you, whether you have children, and your preferences but we will always prefer later/second dining.