Early or Late Dinner seating...and why?

[NorCalGal]

My niece also ordered chicken strips and broccoli EVERY NIGHT, LOL. After getting her ketchup served in a Mickey head shape all those nights, she now makes my brother put her ketchup on her plate at home that way! He's getting really good at it.

 

[holula]

No doctor is going to tell you eating at 8 pm is bad for you health. That is about the most ridiculous thing you have said on these boards.

I agree. Most European countries eat that late as an everyday thing. I could never eat at 5.30, even 6.30 is too early. We usually eat between 7.30-8.00 at home and on vacation we aren't waking up as early as we do at home!

 

[JLS]

We prefer late seating. It just makes the day feel so much longer and more relaxed. Having to be back in the cabin out of swimsuits by 5 or so just to hurry for 5:45 dinner really felt like we were cutting short our afternoon leisure time. It also is a mess if you eat a later lunch. We were never hungry at 545. We cruised on the Fantasy with another family who for various reasons needed to do early dining so we compromised in order to be seated with them but it did not work well for us.

I think you should choose what matches most closely with your family style. If you are a family who tends to eat early at home and likes to be more scheduled with meals and bedtime then choose main seating. If you like to be more leisurely in the late afternoon then choose late seating.

 

[AGibbs]

You could always try late dinner and see what you think.

Reasons we choose late dinner seating, always:

-Less people in general, and far less kids.
-Less people = less noise.
-Easier to get a private table, since there are less people.
-Early show is far less crowded than the later show. Far less children at the early show, as well, so way less "little voices" at inappropriate times in the show. We had out Palo Dinner at 6:00 on the last cruise, so we ended up seeing the later show. The amount of noise during the show and the fact that it was sooo much harder to find a seat was astonishing.
-We're young, we stay up late hanging out in the room and watching movies. We don't particularly want to eat dinner at 6.

Hello! While trying to decided whether my husband (28) and I (26) should do the late dinner option, I came across your post. A lot of the points you listed have convinced me that the late dinner option would be better for us since we would like a more intimate setting since we will be celebrating our one year anniversary during this cruise. On your Jan'17 girls only cruise, did you opt for the late dining as well? If so how was your experience?

 

[KayKayJS]

We do early dinner. I'll preface this by the fact that we're young/mid 20s. But we eat dinner as soon as we get home from work at 5:30 every day. We work out a lot and that combined with my blood sugar issues, it's tough To go more than 5 hours or so without eating. We did late dining on our first cruise and found that we were eating an early dinner at 5-6 and then eating again at 8 and leaving so stuffed we would fall asleep and not enjoy the adult activities on board. It was just too late/too heavy for us.

We prefer early as we're out early and then see the show, and by 10pm we are ready for the adult activities on board, and if we need a snack we'll grab one.

It's really gonna come down to your families routine.

 

[raven0855]

On our first cruise our son was 5. He usually goes to bed at 7pm so late dining seemed like a stretch but we went ahead with it. I have to say it was one of the best things we did. The other family travelling with us had a 7 and 5 year old as well. The kids food was brought out very quickly, they eat and then we let them go to the kids club. Can I just say it was amazing sitting with the other couple we went with and having an adult dinner..it was crazy! We book late dinner all the time now. Our son enjoys himself while we eat and then we pick him up and then go back to the room and its off to bed for him!!

 

[AGibbs]

We do early dinner. I'll preface this by the fact that we're young/mid 20s. But we eat dinner as soon as we get home from work at 5:30 every day. We work out a lot and that combined with my blood sugar issues, it's tough To go more than 5 hours or so without eating. We did late dining on our first cruise and found that we were eating an early dinner at 5-6 and then eating again at 8 and leaving so stuffed we would fall asleep and not enjoy the adult activities on board. It was just too late/too heavy for us.

We prefer early as we're out early and then see the show, and by 10pm we are ready for the adult activities on board, and if we need a snack we'll grab one.

It's really gonna come down to your families routine.

I am a lab tech and my husband is a teacher and football coach, if we were to go by our families routine then we would be eating dinner close to the time of the late dining option. So late dining for us may not be that bad of an idea. I am curious to know what your experience has been like with the amount of noise during the early dining time. Are there more children during the earlier dining time?

 

[KayKayJS]

I am a lab tech and my husband is a teacher and football coach, if we were to go by our families routine then we would be eating dinner close to the time of the late dining option. So late dining for us may not be that bad of an idea. I am curious to know what your experience has been like with the amount of noise during the early dining time. Are there more children during the earlier dining time?

We've never noticed more children if there are more! were childless (for now) and if it were an issue I'd definitely have noticed.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I am a lab tech and my husband is a teacher and football coach, if we were to go by our families routine then we would be eating dinner close to the time of the late dining option. So late dining for us may not be that bad of an idea. I am curious to know what your experience has been like with the amount of noise during the early dining time. Are there more children during the earlier dining time?

I've found the dining rooms to be extremely noisy. Regardless if it's early or late dining.

 

[Notyourtypicaldisney]

Late seating feels more relaxed. There are slightly less kids perhaps because the dining room seem so a little less crowded. For those that feel you can't wait until 8:15 to eat that would be assuming no opportunity for a light snack a time 4 p.m. I am fairly certain food can be found. THe disadvantage to late seating is some of the late night food options are not appealing at all because you just ate.

 

[StuartMcK]

We went with late seating on our first (and so far only) cruise. Fits better with the schedule we keep at home & makes the day seem more relaxing - not having to clock-watch to make sure we're dressed for the early seating.

 

[Chrislovesdisney]

I'd prefer late (emptier, less kids) but my dd's are 18 mos and 4.5 at sailing, and we eat around 5:15 when we're home, so we are doing early seating to keep them as close to routine (read: as less cranky...) as possible. We are traveling with a group, this way someone can sneak off with the baby and skip the shows if she needs to get to bed.

 

[Dallas_Lady]

Even with young-ish kids, we prefer late dining. Our kids are pretty bed-time flexible though and don't have to keep to a strict schedule. We liked the idea of not feeling rushed in the early evenings after a day of activities to get to dinner and we're night owls. Not every night, but some nights we let the kids eat earlier (room service, pool deck) and take them to the kids club and we go to the dining room on our own.

 

[Dallas_Lady]

But it really depends on each family. Our family tends to push back meals on vacation (later breakfast, later lunch, etc). So later dinner works out fine.
We also stay up later so no worries about going to bed on a full stomach.

This is us exactly. Our whole day seems to shift when we are on vacation.

 

[Sytrace]

I've found the dining rooms to be extremely noisy. Regardless if it's early or late dining.

This is true! You really notice it in AP and RC/RP for some reason. Or at least we do.

To answer the original question, we prefer late dining now. On our first cruises, we wanted early dining,but then we did not get early dining ( I think it was cruise 5) and since then have been on late seating.
For our family (we have two teens who like sleeping in a bit on debarkation day) it just works out better to eat later.

 

[hanscarlet]

We always do main but I have to say this past cruise - this was our first time eating at 7:30 for our Palo reservation and I have to say it was much much more relaxing, I totally get why people do late seating now.

 

[Rabb it]

My girlfriend and I prefer late seating because it's not as busy, I think families typically do first seating cause kids don't normally eat late at night and people say their kids will fall asleep during second seating sometimes.