Kids in main dining room

[canadian85]

Booked on Carnival and will have early dining.

Will they try to seat us with other families with young kids? Or is it just random we could be sitting with anybody?

[cb at sea]

They may seat you with others...they may not! Either way, it's not a problem! Children are quite welcome in the dining room...the staff goes out of their way to make it easy and special for kids! They won't seat families with singles...they try to put families together, if possible.

 

If you get seated with "anybody"...talk to them! Chat! We find tablemates to be the highlight of our dinnertime! Most folks do! Enjoy.

[SonicHedgehog]

We also booked on Carnival (Liberty) and asked for early dining. But we are on waitlist :( even though we booked 3 months before the sailing date.

 

We are travelling with our baby who will be 8 months old at the time of the cruise. She is an "early bird" and wakes up at 6 am every morning - and this means she goes to bed at 7 pm every evening. It is almost impossible to try to make her bedtime later, we sure have tried that :rolleyes:. This means that if they won't be able to have us at the early dining, I won't be able to dine at all - I'll have to sit in the cabin with the sleeping baby.

 

I tried to email the Carnival staff, explain our situation and ask for the early dining but they say they cannot help; we are on the waitlist and need to speak with the ship staff when onboard.

 

Do you think we'll have the early dining? If not, what to do then? Do I have to order sandwiches to the cabin every evening..?

[KirkNC]

They will usually try and put similar families together. When our daughter was younger they always put us with other families with one or two children of similar age.

[Gatrcruzer]

To the OP:

Who you are seated with depends - usually you are seated with others, but if you are unhappy with your setup, talk to the head waiter and see if another arrangement can be made (usually they can switch things up). You can also see if you can put in a request ahead of time to have your family alone, which they may or may not honor. I understand that when dining with little ones it is a bit stressful, and I always preferred for us to dine alone.

 

As for Sonic: they usually have a buffet where you can dine before your baby has to go to bed. That was what we did when my daughter was under 3. She simply couldn't handle the long dining room meals, and she was going to bed early, so we found other ship food options. No need to order room service or starve! I will say that with the time change that might mess things up a bit for you, though, so that is definitely a possibility (I think you mentioned somewhere else that you were flying in from Europe?). You'll have to see how your baby does. When we flew to California when my daughter was 12 months (we live in FL) she stayed on her old time, so instead of waking up at 5am, she was getting up at 2am every day :( Hope you have better luck! Otherwise, maybe you'll all be nightowls on this cruise...

[askimdog]

Yes, early is the hot spot for those with kids or anytime. Last cruise, my sisters family, my brothers family, and my family ( all with kids 7-10/ 4 of them) had early. Upon arriving, with a Carnival snafu, my family was locked in anytime? We asked to change but it was full up.

 

We eneded up eating apart with anytime, it was not bad ( first off, we normally just do buffet anyway, but did do 2 evening meals in the MDR/ Walking in at 5:45 was slick, no wait and quicker to the table. Meal still took forever between courses so we had to miss desserts. but anytime is fine. Our 8 year old has a 7:30/8PM bedtime, so as mentioned...most kids can't reallly do late, so early fills up fast.

[canadian85]

Perfect, thanks!

[sailinglisa]

Sonic - if you can't get early dining, try for anytime dining. You can then go when you want.

[Keith1010]

Often they will put families together.

 

Keith

[SonicHedgehog]

I didn't know about anytime dining :confused:. Does it cost us something extra (we'll be on Carnival Liberty)?

[Mrsdigi]

I didn't know about anytime dining :confused:. Does it cost us something extra (we'll be on Carnival Liberty)?

 

No it's the same food as in the main dining room. You just pick when you want to eat. There may be a wait- like at a restaurant. Go to carnivals website and look at the FAQ page-- lots of info.

 

 

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