Three dining times coming

[Princesca]

I refuse to let him watch Cocomelon. I only put on Disney Junior in the house or Disney Plus on his phone. I encourage him to watch Bluey as much as possible but he prefers Spidey and His Amazing Friends, or his latest obsession, Toy Story.

I think we are finally done with Cocomelon, but I will probably take the songs with me to the grave.

We are now onto Blippi, Bluey, some Elmo, some Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. Bluey is a show we actually enjoy watching as a family. They once in awhile even make me cry. It's a really sweet show.

 

[kathi]

My daughter is going to be 18 in a few weeks and I am resisting the urge to look up Cocomelon!

 

[Dug720]

My daughter is going to be 18 in a few weeks and I am resisting the urge to look up Cocomelon!

Don't look it up!! It's even more annoying than Caillou.

 

[lanejudy]

Don't look it up!! It's even more annoying than Caillou.

Ugh! My daughter was stuck on Caillou for years! I didn't think she was ever going to give up that obsession.

 

[Dug720]

Ugh! My daughter was stuck on Caillou for years! I didn't think she was ever going to give up that obsession.

I banned it in my classroom. And Cocomelon. I will put Bluey on during breakfast or lunch (we're still eating in the classrooms because our school site shares space and it would have been chaos to re-do everyone's meal schedules). I like Bluey.

 

[meremac]

Reading through some of these comments has got me feeling all sorts of ways. I just came here to say (for anybody who needs to hear it right now) that there are always going to be folks who feel compelled to share their opinions on what should and shouldn't be "allowed", what does and doesn't "belong", what's right and wrong with the way you're doing things in your own family, etc. But that's all they are: opinions. The truth is that most people could not care less what you are doing at your own dinner table (within reason) in a theme park, at a restaurant, on a cruise, wherever. Literally, as long as your kid isn't throwing things at me or yelling so loud that I can't hear my own family or bumping into my table, I'm good. I don't care if your kids are on an iPad, I don't care what you're wearing, I don't care if you're all on your phones. You do you. Maybe your family is having a not-so-great day and you need to unplug from each other a little, maybe this is a reward for other good behavior during the day, or maybe this is the way that your family just operates on the daily. You know whose business it is NOT? Mine. It's all good, the way you're doing things is fine, the kids are going to be ok. Tune it out and do things the way they work for you.

 

[disneydreamer781]

I think that was their way of saying "yay! Separate tables!"
As for me after getting the nod from these boards to just let people know I'm not rude, just socially awkward owing to asperges - I'm great with sharing tables - thanks again guys!

Actually, I posted a comment here that was meant for another thread and had to put something. I couldn't just delete it. Maybe I should have just posted it was an error to avoid confusion.

 

[HeatherLassell]

It's grody.

I am dying. lol I haven't heard "grody" since the 90's!!!

 

[juxtapose]

Did we ever get confirmation if they are or aren't seating parties together? We're a party of 4 if that matters, and are are cruising the Dream M-F in 2 weeks.

 

[Calantha]

Did we ever get confirmation if they are or aren't seating parties together? We're a party of 4 if that matters, and are are cruising the Dream M-F in 2 weeks.

You will be seated with your party. You will not be seated with people who are not on your linked reservation list. That could change at any time, but when I spoke to them a few weeks ago it still wasn’t being implemented.

 

[Ronneeaght]

I refuse to let him watch Cocomelon. I only put on Disney Junior in the house or Disney Plus on his phone. I encourage him to watch Bluey as much as possible but he prefers Spidey and His Amazing Friends, or his latest obsession, Toy Story.

We are deep in a Spidey and his Amazing Friends obsession with DS3. I kinda like it, though. The songs are super catchy!

 

[Starwind]

My sister and I cruise together. Both adults. We bring our iphones with us pretty much everywhere on the ship, and we also bring our ipads to dinner. At dinner, we use them to pull up the DCL app and confirm/plan our evening and the next day(s) activities. We also use it to look at the menus for the next day so we can do our pre-order for the next days meals because we have food allergies - looking up the menus in advance saves time when it comes time to actually do the pre-order, because then we just need to confirm what we want instead of deciding, as the deciding is already done.

We find there is a lot of downtime/waiting during MDR dinner, so we take advantage of it to plan together. That in turn frees up time after dinner to actually do things instead of sitting planning.

We also take the time to talk with our serving team -- and have had some great conversations !! And hopefully they help us learn some new magic tricks and puzzles

SW

 

[nancipants]

We are deep in a Spidey and his Amazing Friends obsession with DS3. I kinda like it, though. The songs are super catchy!

It’s because they’re by the singer from Fall Out Boy!

 

[Travel60]

The problem with that is there is not enough space to feed everyone if you close the main dining rooms. Palo and Remy are already completely booked out most nights and the dining rooms are still full. Just think about it, there are 3 huge dining rooms that are completely full every night. Where are these people going to eat? They would have to make dinner from 4-10pm at Cabanas and keep it a buffet to feed everyone. No way that they can handle that many people as a sit down.

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I meant 4 rotations: ABCD, BCDA. CDAB, DABC. D is "do it yourself".

Just to make the math easy, let's say there are 2,400 passengers and about half, 1,200, at each seating. Under the current 3 rotatons, that 400 in each dining room for each seating. In a 4 rotation setup, there would 300 in each restaurant for each seating. And 600 do it yourselfers. Now the 600 are not on a clock....they can eat at anytime - say 4 to 9 - (Palo or Remy with reservation), Cabanas, pizza, burgers, the fruit/salad stand. Plus dining those places would be much shorter time.

Opening Cabanas would take a few extra servers but they could use the rotation servers. And use select menu items from MDR. It would take a lot of pressure off the MDR servers.

Disney could market it as "the best blend of Disney's famous rotational dining and your time dining".

 

[Ronneeaght]

It’s because they’re by the singer from Fall Out Boy!

Oh my gosh, I didn't know that but as soon as I read your post I started playing the song in my head... it totally is.

 

[Lilsia]

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I meant 4 rotations: ABCD, BCDA. CDAB, DABC. D is "do it yourself".

Just to make the math easy, let's say there are 2,400 passengers and about half, 1,200, at each seating. Under the current 3 rotatons, that 400 in each dining room for each seating. In a 4 rotation setup, there would 300 in each restaurant for each seating. And 600 do it yourselfers. Now the 600 are not on a clock....they can eat at anytime - say 4 to 9 - (Palo or Remy with reservation), Cabanas, pizza, burgers, the fruit/salad stand. Plus dining those places would be much shorter time.

Opening Cabanas would take a few extra servers but they could use the rotation servers. And use select menu items from MDR. It would take a lot of pressure off the MDR servers.

Disney could market it as "the best blend of Disney's famous rotational dining and your time dining".

How would the kitchens plan for that. And how would they order food not knowing who is going to dine in what location and with what menu each night? Right now, they pretty much know how much of every item that they are going to need. If you offer more options that you have no idea ahead of time what people will eat, how do you order for that and make sure that there is not a lot of waste or that you don't run out? And what if one day everyone decides to just go to the MDR instead of Cabanas? A cruise is basically a banquet and the key to a successful banquet service is knowing your numbers and times. Everything is planned ahead of time. There are just too many people to go all loosey goosey and still put out the amount of food that they do. If you ever watch one of these kitchens, things are timed and well choreographed. Yes, it would be great for the guests, but a nightmare for the staff. All this hassle for what, so that a person can eat at 6:30 instead of 5:45?

 

[Kwami]

There's really no point to any of this. The third seating option was to accommodate physical distancing guidelines while scaling up the number of passengers on a cruise. Now that Disney has given up on physical distancing, there's no need for a third seating option.

It would be great to guarantee everyone a private table, but it's not worth it if we have to eat at Cabanas every 4th night. There are just too many problems with that idea. How do you handle this on cruises that aren't a multiple of 4 nights? Do some people just get fewer nights at the main dining rooms than others? What happens to the pirate menu and other special menus?

 

[Dug720]

Disney could market it as "the best blend of Disney's famous rotational dining and your time dining".

That's already what Cabanas has been in the evening. Though I'd argue with "the best of the rotational menus" - they literally picked the things off each menu I'd never order and put them on the menu in Cabanas.

 

[holula]

Perhaps I wasn't clear. I meant 4 rotations: ABCD, BCDA. CDAB, DABC. D is "do it yourself".

Just to make the math easy, let's say there are 2,400 passengers and about half, 1,200, at each seating. Under the current 3 rotatons, that 400 in each dining room for each seating. In a 4 rotation setup, there would 300 in each restaurant for each seating. And 600 do it yourselfers. Now the 600 are not on a clock....they can eat at anytime - say 4 to 9 - (Palo or Remy with reservation), Cabanas, pizza, burgers, the fruit/salad stand. Plus dining those places would be much shorter time.

Opening Cabanas would take a few extra servers but they could use the rotation servers. And use select menu items from MDR. It would take a lot of pressure off the MDR servers.

Disney could market it as "the best blend of Disney's famous rotational dining and your time dining".

DCL would field so many complaints about this. Imagine being on a 5 night cruise and having the rotation with D twice.

 

[Dug720]

DCL would field so many complaints about this. Imagine being on a 5 night cruise and having the rotation with D twice.

Agreed. Really the only option I could see would be for them to make Cabanas essentially something like Select every night where when booking you'd choose "Select" or "Rotational". If you choose rotational you'd have everything as normal - rotating through the 3 MDRs with your dining team at one of the 2 set times and you might have to share a table. If you choose "Select" (or whatever they chose to call it), you would be in Cabanas every night. You could have the option to make a reservation for each night or you could just show up and wait in line - you'd have your own table, BUT you might have to wait a while for it and you would not be guaranteed the same serving team.

Of course then you'd have people who wanted "Select" but it was full when they booked or people who wanted Rotational but both seatings were sold out when they booked (based on my experience with RCCL and Celebrity, Select will usually go first).

But that's about the only way I can see them keeping the Rotational fans happy and at least attempting to satisfy the "I'll only eat with my own party" people.