dinner seating early or late with 3 yr old?

[scrap4girls]

Already schedule dinner for late seating, but debating. thinking most of the time our 3yr old would like eating buffet rather than fine dining. Whats been your experience?:rolleyes:

[B_Mc]

We're trying the early seating with a 1y.o., 2y.o. and 3y.o. next week! I'll let you know how it goes! Apparently the early is more often the "family seating" so you'll likely be in good company if you do decide to try the MDR.

[mymollysue]

I would say early if you are planning to eat a lot in the MDR.

[lady_cruiser]

Already schedule dinner for late seating, but debating. thinking most of the time our 3yr old would like eating buffet rather than fine dining. Whats been your experience?:rolleyes:

 

While we are in our 60s I have to say that our experience for going the main dining room to eat in the buffet area at night has been pleasant. Most (not all) of the food that you will find in the dining room at night is usually served at the buffet.

 

You can always go to the buffet area with your 8 year old and eat a small salad while he/she eats their meal and then check him/her into the kids area while you both enjoy an adult meal of your own.

[askimdog]

When is bedtime? Late dining can wreck this. Our 7 year old goes to bed at 8, so early dining is a must, especially if she has homework from school al,ong or wants a swim before bed. Don't think a later dining would work with a young child.

[ruready]

At 3 years old, my kid was a night owl so we did late seating for his first few cruises. He will be turning 5 years old in a couple of days and we have a cruise scheduled in the next couple of weeks. We are trying anytime dining for this time. On our last cruise, one night we did the buffet and it was fine.

[boulders]

I've found the MDR more parent friendly than the buffets. With the buffets, there's constant getting up to get: cutlery, napkin, another plate of food, drinks etc., not to mention looking for a table. With the MDR, someone else will get everything for you. After the first night, once they know the 3 year old's preferences, they'll bring it out pretty quickly.

 

My kids tend to stay up much later on a ship than they do at home.

[cb at sea]

Early seating is best for kids....late seating doesn't end until after 10pm....just too late for most young children.

All of the main cruiselines now have some sort of "anytime" dining option....you can go to the dining room anytime you want....that might be a good option for a family with small kids.

[klepton]

Early seating is probably your best bet.

 

Something else to note, you can ask that your child's meal be brought out with your appetizer. We did this, and it worked out very well. Allowed us to have dinner with DD, but after appetizers/her meal we took her to camp carnival and enjoyed the rest of our dinner. Kids can get bored at a long dinner whether it's early or late. Had we done late seating, DD likely would have fallen asleep after eating.

[scrap4girls]

I ended up changing my seating to an early seating. I was thinking about the anytime seating but after speaking to customer service I was her advice to go with a set seating time and early would also be best. Thank you for all your great advice. My next problem is my youngest is lactose and I hope we can bring on the ship some soy milk, cheese and yogurt. :rolleyes:

[TheCalicoCat]

Already schedule dinner for late seating, but debating. thinking most of the time our 3yr old would like eating buffet rather than fine dining. Whats been your experience?:rolleyes:

 

EARLY (we eat at about 6 at home & did not want to change the schedule) - you deserve to be seated & served & your child will (Well my 2 & then 3 year old) love it too. The waiters fuss over them. We only ate at the buffet when the MDR was closed - my son loved the waiters so much.

 

When we did eat in the buffet, the experience was far from ideal - trying to find a table, hold a child while holding a tray, waiting while the sandwich/pizza was made &/or served... NOT FUN!

[adamsclan]

We normally eat late, but there was so much to do on our recent cruise that our 4 yr old usually skipped a nap. We had 8:15 dining and she tended to fall asleep during dinner and/or was cranky. Our next cruise I plan to try early dining instead.

[nessz79]

I ended up changing my seating to an early seating. I was thinking about the anytime seating but after speaking to customer service I was her advice to go with a set seating time and early would also be best. Thank you for all your great advice. My next problem is my youngest is lactose and I hope we can bring on the ship some soy milk, cheese and yogurt. :rolleyes:

 

That's a good decision. Anytime dining also would have worked, but since your youngest has lactose intolerance, the early seating might be better...because you have the same waitstaff each night, they know how to work around dietary needs better.

 

We always use anytime dining and have never started a dinner after 7 PM. Our kids were 6 and 8 on our last cruise and the late dining would have been too late for even them.

[huneymoonerz]

We did early with the kids. We found it easier than the buffet. People just bring the food to you. I let my 3 year old watch shows on my iPhone a few nights when the service was slow. My 1 year old loves to ear (LOL) so he was entertained.

 

"Late" is way to late for late for my kids. They are not good nappers.

[Julienatul]

My 3 year old would never last for late seating! It is usally from about 8-10pm and his normal bedtime is 8pm so that wouldnt work for us. He would be a bear, lol! if your child is used to eating late and going to bed late it might work for you otherwise see about switching to early seating once onboard, the maitre d will most likely accomodate you.

[capriciousc]

We were assigned the late seating on a Disney cruise a couple of years ago (we booked somewhat last minute and the early seating was no longer available). The first night my then-5-year-old fell asleep at the table! I plead our case with the "front desk" and they squeezed us into the earlier seating - it was much more enjoyable for everyone.

 

I second the advice to have your child's meal brought out with the appetizers. We often do this even when dining out around home, and then make sure we have something for her to do (color, small toys, etc.) until her dad and I are done eating.

[Tggrtoes]

Looks like you're from CA but are going out of FL? Do I have that right? If so, remember there's a 2-3 hour time difference. Since we're in AZ, we always pick late seating to stick to schedule and it works out well to give time for a brief nap after a full day playing before rushing to dinner.

[scrap4girls]

yes we are going cruise out of FL. I haven't even though of the time difference. I think I'll keep the early seating. I bet it would be easier to move it to a late seating other wise.

[flamingo33417]

No one said it..but I will..leave your kids at home..you will enjoy yourselves more than you can imagine. Maybe you will miss knowing what they are doing at home..but there are phones on board and at every port...thats cheaper than paying their fare. You wasting your money if they are younger than teen-agers.:mad: Been there..done that !:o

[TheCalicoCat]

No one said it..but I will..leave your kids at home..you will enjoy yourselves more than you can imagine. Maybe you will miss knowing what they are doing at home..but there are phones on board and at every port...thats cheaper than paying their fare. You wasting your money if they are younger than teen-agers.:mad: Been there..done that !:o

 

 

Completely disagree. We've had a couple nice cruises with our young son. Once with the grandparents & once without. It is very nice to have someone else prepare your food & then do the dishes. No one is stuck eating mac & cheese because that is the taste of the toddler & they also are not running a diner as a consequence. (or plain because that is the taste of the grandparents.) Without even getting into the fact that my son loves to see the water, the other boats (tugs & pilots as well as the sailboats in port), birds (we don't have pelicans where we live), etc.

[TheCalicoCat]

No one said it..but I will..leave your kids at home..you will enjoy yourselves more than you can imagine. Maybe you will miss knowing what they are doing at home..but there are phones on board and at every port...thats cheaper than paying their fare. You wasting your money if they are younger than teen-agers.:mad: Been there..done that !:o

 

 

That was not one of the choices given...

[gotta cruise again]

I ended up changing my seating to an early seating. I was thinking about the anytime seating but after speaking to customer service I was her advice to go with a set seating time and early would also be best. Thank you for all your great advice. My next problem is my youngest is lactose and I hope we can bring on the ship some soy milk, cheese and yogurt. :rolleyes:

 

Check on your cruise line's website and/or contact them regarding special dietary needs. I know Princess has a form you can complete, along with a physician's note/signature that you send to them prior to the cruise. The dietician then sent the information to the ship and also a letter to us regarding the special requirement (food allergy in our case).

 

They suggested eating in the MDR where more control could be given in the food preparation and to ask about ingredients at any other eating area like the buffet. They also said they would be happy to provide labels to read when available but to understand that some items may be pre-prepared when they receive them so they may not know all ingredients.

 

I also haven't seen it said: most diners don't mind children in the late seating as long as they are well behaved and not disruptive. I was with a group of 45 at late seating and the small children were wonderful! However, if children don't like being up that late or sitting at a 2+ hour meal, then be willing to leave the meal early if they start getting cranky rather than letting them cry or whine. When dining in the MDR with small children, it's probably better to get a table just for the family so if you have to leave early, you aren't disrupting the others at your table.

[lman2b]

I can't imagine leaving my children at home. One of my most fondest memories is vacationing when I was young. My children loved the beaches at the ports and I would never take that away from them.

 

But we cruised the Pacific Coast and had early dining. We have set dinner time and bed times at home so I was worried about how well they would handle any late night. I was really unsure what to do beforehand but decided to stick with our early dinner time. I would totally have changed it to the late seating had I known. Eating the fancy dinners were not important to my kids and if they had been tired during them, it would have been okay. But as it was, they were bored and restless (but awake) during the long early dinners (they really are quite long) and all they seemed to have for the kids each night was the regular mac n cheese or chicken fingers etc. They were happy with that, but like I said, a fancy dinner is not important to them and they would rather have eaten quickly and been able to explore or play more.

 

After dinner we had the "late show" at something like 8:30-9:30 and then my son had to leave the show each and every night because he insisted on going to bed. He was too tired from the long day. And these were Disney shows! I would much rather have had him enjoy the shows, then be too tired at dinner.

 

If we get to ever go to the east coast to cruise, I will definitely do the early dining, but the pacific coast for us will have to be the late dining if we do it again.

 

Plus the early dinner means taking showers and getting all ready before, and that is really early to do for a 5:45 dinner! And throw in if you want family pictures BEFORE the kids eat and get messy at dinner, then you lose so much of your day because you have to go back to the room to get ready.

 

My advice is to think about your priorities. Do you want to take pics before, then you will be dressed up, which means more time getting ready. There are lines to wait for the pic, and you have to be done by dinner-seating time, so you have to get ready really early for that. We had to be in our room (only 1 shower in the room) by around 4:00 to get ready for special nights (pictures were a high priority for us and we bought the big picture package at the beginning and felt obligated to take as many as we could). It was a bummer to pull the kids out of the pool for that :(

 

So try to think of what is more important for your family. I imagine your kids will be very tired at the end of the day (like mine) and put the least important stuff at the end. I don't have a lot of experience on cruises, but it sounds like they all have shows. I don't know if non-disney cruises have family-friendly shows, but if they do, would you rather your little one see the show awake or sleep through that but eat dinner? Can your children sleep on your shoulder or lap? My son seems to always want to be in his bed, so he wanted to leave the show. I didn't find the dinners so important that I would have minded leaving early. There is so much food to choose from, it wouldn't have been a big deal.

 

Oh yeah, we often ended up eating late lunches, so the early dinner was a bummer when we weren't really all that hungry.

 

Now I have to ask a question to those who might be able to answer this, which might hopefully help you too.

 

We had the dinners where we had the gratuity that was expected to be paid to our servers (aren't most of them like that?). I knew we had the option of room service or buffet, but I felt obligated to go to the formal dinner service since I felt that taking away that expected gratuity (unless the service was so bad it was not justified) was wrong. In other words, if we didn't go to the dinners, we would still have felt obligated to pay the gratuity as the servers were counting on that as part of their income right?? How do people deal with that on the cruise, if they want to eat at the buffet and skip the server at dinner? Are the servers still counting on your tip since it is a normal expectation for them?

[klepton]

No one said it..but I will..leave your kids at home..you will enjoy yourselves more than you can imagine. Maybe you will miss knowing what they are doing at home..but there are phones on board and at every port...thats cheaper than paying their fare. You wasting your money if they are younger than teen-agers.:mad: Been there..done that !:o

 

Now you've gone and done it... and in the family cruising forum too... ;)

 

I'm gonna have to disagree as well... we cruised with our 6 yo DD last year and it was an awesome experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. It certainly is a different dynamic. It was an itinerary we'd done before, so didn't feel like we were missing out on anything, and geared the trip completely towards her.

 

That said, DW and I left DD with Grandpa the week before and did a Bahamas cruise ourselves, so I'm a big fan of time away from kids as well.

[katyf]

If you're planning on your daughter being awake for dinner, I'd go with the early.

 

If your goal is to get her to sleep in a stroller for dinner, I'd go later.

 

I've been on a bunch of cruises (4) with my kids and we always go to dinner one the earlier side. If they still have energy after that, we go hang out somewhere with music and let the kids 'dance' (or, now that they are older, bring them to kids club)