But the dining rooms aren't the only food on the ship. You go to the dining room for a dining room experience. There are quick service options available for people who want a quick service experience.
Please don’t judge others until you have walked in their shoes. We would never allow an iPad at home at dinner time, but our youngest is Autistic and struggles with crowds. He loves to eat out and it is rare that the iPad comes out. I always have a bag packed with small toys and colouring books. We also love to chat over dinner. However, if somewhere is busy we will get out the iPad as it helps him to zone out from the busyness of the room and relax. Sometimes things are more complicated than they look from the outside.
It has nothing to do with judgment. I'm not saying you're a bad mother. I'm saying iPads don't belong in dining rooms, just like bathing suits don't belong in dining rooms, basketball shorts don't belong in dining rooms, and cell phones don't belong in dining rooms.
You can have a normal dining experience(not quick service) and not have it last 2+ hours. It is not fast food or fine dining. There is a middle ground to that, you know. Nothing rushed about a 90 minute meal, which is probably more the average. You can still have a great meal and experience without it taking 2+ hours. I don't know why you have to go to extremes like you do in these discussions.
I've done two post restart, both early, both larger parties (4 adults, 3 kids). We usually clocked in around 1:30, but maybe a little later on a night like Animator's show night. We typically did app, soup/salad, entree, desert.
I've never had a meal on a Disney cruise ship that went 2+ hours. I think you're diagnosing a problem that isn't there. If everyone was going 2:30, I'd agree that they need to speed things up. But I don't think people are going 2:30.
We do try to get out of there earlier. We have been pretty unlucky that we have been sat with others that like to take their time. I have actually had to ask the server to not keep us on the other diner's schedule.
I agree. I actually love the buffet option on other cruise lines since sometimes you just want to grab something quick.
I didn't have short meals on any of the three cruises that I've done since the restart. On the last one, I don't think any meal was shorter than two hours. Those servers really liked to talk and we enjoyed playing crayon games. No rush!
I still laugh at a memory from our first cruise on Disney back in 2016. A stateroom telephone. Yes, a stateroom telephone. Brought to the MDR. To occupy a young child. DS, who celebrated his 5th birthday onboard that sailing, was dumbfounded.
We had lunch in the main dining room on Nassau day in April because we couldn't get off the ship with unvaccinated kids. We had the most incredible meal with an AMAZING team of servers (shout out to Natanael on the Magic). They were telling jokes, doing magic tricks, teasing the kids, teasing my mother-in-law, swapping stories about their own families. Two hours straight of just joking and laughing together. It may have been the most "pixie dust" I've felt since I saw SpectroMagic for the first time when I was 7. There were maybe two other families in the whole dining room, and I couldn't help but notice the one other large family had 6 or 7 members, each one with their head buried in their devices, half of them with headphones in. They didn't interact with one another or their servers beyond ordering their food, and they all looked miserable. My heart broke for those kids that their parents were robbing them of the amazing experience that my kids had. "The man at lunch who turned a napkin into a mouse" was the highlight of their whole trip.
Of course. I wouldn't expect them to allow someone to bring a boombox into the dining room either.
That describes pretty much every dinner that I had on my February cruise. The servers are why I go back to the main dining rooms every night, every cruise, even though the food is the same. They're just so much fun to talk to!
I've tried to put my finger on what makes them so special, and I think it's authenticity/genuineness (if that's a word). When you're talking with them, you don't get the sense that they're just very good customer service people who are trying to provide very good customer service. You get the sense that they're GENUINELY enjoying the interaction too. Like they're not just playing with my kids to make my kids happy, they're playing with my kids because it makes them happy.
I mean, the theater itself is the functional equivalent of an ipad, just on a big stage instead of a small screen, so ipad would never be needed there.
No, I understand. No idea how long they take to eat, LOL
I remember those days. I could get hot food on the table in under 15 minutes. LOL
