1st time family Cruisers- Dining time help

I know it’s subjective but your personal choice for dining ? 1st or 2nd seating. Me, wife, 15d and 10s . Thanks

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I know it’s subjective but your personal choice for dining ? 1st or 2nd seating. Me, wife, 15d and 10s . Thanks

 

 

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We prefer early (main) dining. But we're not late night people. Eating at 8:00 is hard on my tummy.

We prefer late because it is a little more calm and laid back....and it frees up a spot in Main for a family with little kids. We do a "healthy snack" about 4pm because 8:15 dinner is late. The only downside is you won't be at all hungry for the pirate buffet.

Another vote for late, our kids are now 13 and 11 and we have done late all but one sailing. We feel like it is a rush to get from afternoon activities to early dining. Also, given that my kids are not exactly early risers early dining means we really only get to 2 meals per day and for my wife and I it just seems wrong not to get 3 decent meals per day on a cruise when someone else is doing the cooking and dishes :D

If we are selecting a set time and cruising with family, we would choose main, or early, seating. But we always choose My Time, or whatever each cruise line would call their flex time dining, as we prefer the flexibility of arranging our dining times each day based on where we are and what we will be doing on a given day.

If we are selecting a set time and cruising with family, we would choose main, or early, seating. But we always choose My Time, or whatever each cruise line would call their flex time dining, as we prefer the flexibility of arranging our dining times each day based on where we are and what we will be doing on a given day.

Have you ever cruised on DCL? I'm just wondering from your sig line and a couple of your answers. DCL has no equivalent to "anytime" dining. You can choose to eat in Cabanas, which for dinner becomes a sit down with a limited menu chosen from the MDR menus. However, this is not available the first or last night of a cruise.

Have you ever cruised on DCL? I'm just wondering from your sig line and a couple of your answers. DCL has no equivalent to "anytime" dining. You can choose to eat in Cabanas' date=' which for dinner becomes a sit down with a limited menu chosen from the MDR menus. However, this is not available the first or last night of a cruise.[/quote']

 

No I haven't - guilty as charged! My answer was more generic and not relevant to DCL - sorry. :) But thank you for providing that information for me. Always good to learn something new.....

While all the cruise lines I've been on are more alike than different, DCL does some things quite differently than other lines. Dining on DCL is a big deal. It's about fun, sometimes small shows, etc. There's a lot more to it than just food. We LOVED eating dinner in Cabanas, but truly felt bad about missing our normal dining.

There are no disembarkation groups on DCL. You eat breakfast and leave the ship when you are ready--any time from when they announce that the ship has cleared Customs (usually between 7 and 7:30) and 9:00. At about 9:10, they start looking for anyone who hasn't disembarked. Some small ports do require to deviate from this practice, but this is the norm.

DCL does a lot less "nickel and diming" than other lines, although they are starting the practice.

THe ships DOCK at Castaway Cay...no tendering for the private island. And it truly is an island, not a strip of land leased by a cruise line on an inhabited island.

Late. Earlier shows are less full so you can wonder in at 6 and still get decent seats. Don't have to rush in from excursions and shower, etc.

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Another vote for late' date=' our kids are now 13 and 11 and we have done late all but one sailing. We feel like it is a rush to get from afternoon activities to early dining. Also, given that my kids are not exactly early risers early dining means we really only get to 2 meals per day and for my wife and I it just seems wrong not to get 3 decent meals per day on a cruise when someone else is doing the cooking and dishes :D[/quote']

 

 

 

This! Same for us. Older kids like to sleep in then hit the buffet later. Don't like to cut the day short to get ready for early dining. DH and I usually get ready a bit earlier and enjoy a nice glass of wine without the kids before the late seating of dinner. Vacation bliss! Enjoy!!!

 

 

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we prefer late when on DCL so that we can go to the early theater show..

on DCL, the theater show is more important to us...so we do that first and then have second seating for dinner...

on other cruise lines, i go with early seating, but not on DCL...

even when the kids were younger (teens), second seating worked better for us....again so that we could go the first show...

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We prefer the late. And if the 10 year old eats and wants to go the the kids club they come to the front door at about a 915 and collect the kids and take them to the club. You can then send the older one to the club and enjoy the quiet ( if you are comfortable with that of course) our daughter 7 at the time would actually eat so she could go with the CM to the club.

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Late. Much more relaxed. And if you’re a first time disney cruiser please give the main dining room rotational dining a chance. Beautiful venues, the servers follow you from Room to Room. We have been on 20 Disney cruises and have never eaten anywhere but the main dining rooms or Palo, the specialty dining which costs 30 extra a person and is only available for adults. Well worth an adult night out.

We have early seating and like it. Part of the decision depends on when you normally eat dinner. 8 is way past our usual time.

We prefer early dining b/c we eat early at home.

Another point to consider is where you are traveling from. If coming from the west coast, 8pm EST is 5pm PST, so that might mean you are keeping the kids on something closer to their normal schedule.

We picked late because of time zones. We'll actually be eating at our normal time. Plus it sounded much less frantic with everything else going on.

We picked late because of time zones. We'll actually be eating at our normal time. Plus it sounded much less frantic with everything else going on.

So does that mean you do everything else according to your home time zone? Do you go to bed and get up by PST when you're on a cruise in EST time? I don't get it. When I'm on a ship I operate on ship time. I understand it might be nice your first night, but after that?

So does that mean you do everything else according to your home time zone? Do you go to bed and get up by PST when you're on a cruise in EST time? I don't get it. When I'm on a ship I operate on ship time. I understand it might be nice your first night, but after that?

Especially with kids, it can be easier to keep things largely the same. On the ship, they can eat when they are hungry other than dinner. If they want to "sleep in" by EST standards, so be it. Just being on vacation, things tend to run later than at home. Kids may need to be up at 6am to get ready for school and ride around town for an hour on a big yellow "lunchbox." On the ship they may sleep till 9...but that's still their 6am schedule if they are on PST. Bedtime can be when they get tired. So yes, with kids it can make sense to operate on their "home" schedule....or at least something like splitting the difference.

I would love to do late. A lot of people we've cruised with and would share a table with, eat late. And as adults traveling without children, the late seating tends to be less families with young children. But my wife can't eat that late, so we're stuck with main seating.

We've only done early dining which we've been happy with. I don't like the thought of dining shortly before I go to bed. I enjoy seeing the shows after dinner.

We prefer late. We did early our first 2 cruises, couldn't get it for the third, but preferred it in almost every way. Servers are not rushing as much to get everyone through dinner so they can turn around and do it again for the late cruisers (there are also less guests at the late seating to keep them running around). The only problem is you aren't hungry for the pirate buffet.

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Please forgive me if this is a stupid question but we're first time DCL cruisers and I've opted for early dining. If we're eating at 6pm (this will be on Magic), does that give us time to get to the first performance of the shows...?

Please forgive me if this is a stupid question but we're first time DCL cruisers and I've opted for early dining. If we're eating at 6pm (this will be on Magic), does that give us time to get to the first performance of the shows...?

No, because the shows are timed to align with the dining times. The first show is for guests with late diding and the second show for guests with main seating. The shows generally run concurrent to the dining times, so that while you are at you main seating the first show is in progress.

We are on the Windstar Star Pride TA cruise April 7th out of San Juan. Prior cruises have been on Celebrity and Holland America. The ships sailing out of the US all have early and later dining times for dinner. Most Americans tend to eat early at home. 5 to 6 pm. On Windstar, and many of the European ships, their early dinner times start at 7 pm. I believe that the Europeans eat their dinner later than we Americans. Now, it you are a senior citizen, the more difficult it is to digest your food. The later you eat does not allow for full digestion by the time you retire for the night. Many older people have Acid Reflux problems that can be very severe. I know that it takes me a good 4 to 5 hours to completely digest a decent sized meal. If I were to finish my dinner by 8 or 9 pm it would be 2 am before I could attempt to go to sleep. Really don't know how I am going to fare on this cruise as I don't want to order room service at 5 pm every dinner time. Windstar, unlike a lot of cruise lines, does not have a separate buffet option for dinner. Only the main dining room.