New to cruise: 8 pm dinner???!!!!

[Cackyschmackers]

Hi, I've never been on a cruise before and we're going to go on the Dream 4 day cruise to Bahamas Feb 12, 2018. I suspect we'll get the 8 pm dinner slot as I haven't booked the cruise yet. My kids normally go to bed at 7:30 and are asleep by 8:00. How do people handle this super late eating time with kids? My boys will be 5 and 6. We normally eat at 5:00. Also, on a cruise ship geared towards kids, is there a reason the dining times are so late? Is the 8:00 dinner filled with cranky, tired kids? If my kids were in the room is it possible for one of us to watch the kids while the others eat and then have someone who ate quickly come relieve the person who stayed with the kids so that that person could go eat in the dining room? I hate the thought of anyone missing dining in the restaurants.

Also, unrelated, what time do you actually end up getting off the ship at the end. It says 7:30 am. Would I be okay booking a 1:00 pm flight out of Orlando airport?

Thanks for any help!

I hear you. My kids are older, and we still do main seating at 5:45. We eat dinner at that time at home. Plus, there is no way I could ever go to bed on that full of a stomach. One year, DCL cancelled one of our cruises, so we had to choose a new one only a few months out and only late seating was available. I asked to be put on a wait list for Main and we got it. I think you have plenty of time to get Main seating; if not, call every so often to ask if it has opened and make sure to request it. You'll still have opportunity to request it when you board. There are other options for dinner if you don't get it and late doesn't work. Your entire family can eat at Cabanas which is sit down menu service for dinner. You could eat on the pool deck quick service spots. And you can get room service which is really fun; probably would be a treat for your kids. In fact, you could let them do that, then send them to the kids club and you and your husband can go to the MDR together. Either way, I think if you request it at this time you might still get it. Good luck!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

when I first cruised .... dinner at 8 was 'main seating'

the folks who missed main were sent to early seating ......

curious how the terms have changed over time .....

Well, late seating is still "Main" on most other cruiselines. Only DCL calls early seating "Main". Probably because, with families, that time is the time most people want.

 

[KristiMc]

At least with my kids when they were little bedtime went out the window when we were on vacation. Try to have them take a little nap during the afternoon so they can enjoy the shows and the kids clubs in the evening. If you stick with the later dinner, the servers will bring out their meal quick so they can go to the kids clubs after they eat. This gives the parents the rest of dinner to enjoy casually. You might find that your kids close down the club at midnight like mine did.

 

[oakleycat]

We are also among those rare families who prefer late dining. My kids were 6 and 8 when we first cruised and have never had a problem with it, but we tend to eat late anyway and find it nice to be able to swim/relax before dinner.

 

[cedricandsophie]

We have done late seating since my grandkids were five, it's never been an issue, I hate eating st 6 or before. It is just way to early. And please try not to eat in cabanas! You miss all the fun Of the main dining rooms.

 

[McQueenMaterMom]

This is all great advice! The dine and play sounds great if the waitlist doesn't work. And the 1:00 flight sounds perfect.

So my next question is when do you see the big nighttime show if you have the late seating? Is it while the main seating takes place? Or is it after dinner?

 

[KristiMc]

This is all great advice! The dine and play sounds great if the waitlist doesn't work. And the 1:00 flight sounds perfect.

So my next question is when do you see the big nighttime show if you have the late seating? Is it while the main seating takes place? Or is it after dinner?

Those with late dinner see the show at 6:15.

 

[Dug720]

This is all great advice! The dine and play sounds great if the waitlist doesn't work. And the 1:00 flight sounds perfect.

So my next question is when do you see the big nighttime show if you have the late seating? Is it while the main seating takes place? Or is it after dinner?

While Eary Seating is happening.

 

[elvispursley]

I must be the only one who likes the late dining and requested it on every cruise so far.

Not sure where you live, but just wanted to note that for west coast folks - late seating is closer to our regular dinner time. Early would feel like a late lunch! Of course if this cruise is after a week in the parks and everyone has adjusted to the time change, that doesn't help you.

We like late dining (actually prefer it). Our first cruise, my youngest, who was I think 8, fell asleep at some point during the meal, every night! I have a picture of him each night, passed out. For him, it was more from all the activity. But if we had main dining, we would really have screwed our body clocks up given we are west coast folk and would likely be starving right about bed time. Of course, we are just the opposite of most people, we like to use the cruise first before doing the parks as a leisurely way of adjusting to east-coast time so we are ready to get up and tour the parks early and not feel like we are getting up in the middle of the night! As many pp have mentioned, call DCL ASAP and change your dining time/get on the wait-list and then try and get it changed once onboard.

 

[MsOnceUponATime]

We prefer the 8pm dining due to returning to the ship from our excursions and being able to shower and relax, take in a show and then slowly meander to the dining room. At home (currently we live in Texas) I like to eat dinner no later than 6:30 or 7 at the latest, but when we cruise I enjoy being leisurely my entire cruise. The 8pm dining allows us to maximize our day (and I'm an early riser) and stretch out all of our activities. We've been doing the 8pm dining since our first Disney cruise when we "got stuck" with the 8pm dining. lol I've loved it ever since!

 

[belac]

We like the late seating as well. However it happened to us by our own mistake with DS. Our DS was 4yo the first cruise he took with us and actually did well with late seating. We never realized the time since we always did late before DS. When I realized, I did request wait list but never got it . Luckily, I decided to prepare at home just in case. I started a few weeks ahead and had dinner a half hour later than normal a couple of days at a time. It worked well but, the first night he was tired. With the traveling it was understandable. He did great the next 6 nights. Our wait staff was wonderful. We were seated with another family that had a little girl same age. Staff offered us the menus from the next night so we could choose meals and it was like we were the first table out of the dining room the following nights. It went much faster, like half hour to 45 mins faster. Maybe ask if you can do that, if you don't get the main seating and like our kids didn't want to do dine and play.
Also, we did have down time in-room. I would give him his bath (DH would call RS) then watch a movie with cheese plate or nuggets before the main nightly show, if he didn't nap.
It was also great to walk around deck a bit (abt. an hour or so) after dinner to get the food digested, and get some of that fresh open sea air. He met a great little friend that way too. They were both not keen on the clubs at their age, and the nightly walk became their routine. Slept soundly every night and in bed by 10:30 pm.
That late bedtime got us an extra 2-3 hours in the AM from then on till today 5 years later. Can't get him up before 7:30 am.
I also learned not to plan early excursions. MY DS is the type of kid that needs sleep, and the late bedtime did not do well with early excursion. I regret it. We went right back to ship after, then total down time cause he was a horror. The rest of the day was a loss but he was better after a nap.

 

[cmwade77]

We live on the west coast, so not usually an issue for us when doing an East Coast cruise, we just keep our west coast schedule of waking up, eating and sleeping, then an 8:30 PM dinner time is really like 5:30 PM to us. Also helps a lot if you like to do the late night stuff, because even midnight to 1:30 AM isn't that late.

 

[Divslp]

We had personally done the 5:45 seating the first two cruises, but on a recent cruise we tried the 8:15 seating. I personally liked it, even though I don't usually eat after 8pm at home. I made sure to use the stairs after dinner and some more brisk walking, as well as sleeping a little later so I wasn't sleeping on a full tummy. I liked that we had until 6:15 to do whatever we wanted until the show (if we wanted to go) and then another hour or so after the show to finish up getting ready or anything else we might have wanted to do. With the 5:45 seating, we felt so pressed for time in terms of making it back in time and getting ready for dinner and the show afterwards. It felt much more relaxed this time with the late seating. We also had the 8am breakfast since we were second seating, so we were able to sleep until 7:30am or so. Waking up prior to 6:45am was difficult for my son for the past 6:45am breakfasts for the main seating guests, but he woke up and was ready perfectly this time for the 8am breakfast.

I would do it again!

 

[Capt_BJ]

We live on the west coast, so not usually an issue for us when doing an East Coast cruise, we just keep our west coast schedule of waking up, eating and sleeping, then an 8:30 PM dinner time is really like 5:30 PM to us. Also helps a lot if you like to do the late night stuff, because even midnight to 1:30 AM isn't that late.

Yep ... we did two of our DCLs with kids from the west coast ... just kept them on the 'home' schedule and 'late dinner' was no problem ......

 

[gotomu212]

This is all great advice! The dine and play sounds great if the waitlist doesn't work. And the 1:00 flight sounds perfect.

So my next question is when do you see the big nighttime show if you have the late seating? Is it while the main seating takes place? Or is it after dinner?

This is one of the reasons we like late dining even with little ones. We did early dining twice and both times our son made it mostly thru dinner but crashed and completely missed the shows. By switching to later dining he would watch (and LOVE) the show and then go to dinner. The first few nights he fell asleep halfway thru the meal (which was fine they put another chair at the table for us and he laid right down). The other hard part with early dining is pulling the, out of the pools early to start getting ready. With later dining we can enjoy some time on deck when the pools aren't "kid soup". Given the things we wanted him to experience later dining was better (and I'll echo that bedtimes and schedules kinda went overboard for us- time does work differently)

 

[bumbershoot]

My kids normally go to bed at 7:30 and are asleep by 8:00. How do people handle this super late eating time with kids?

West coasters here so it's not an issue. And my son has never had an early bedtime (Dh would never have seen him) so again it's not an issue.

Works well for our family.

) I've never noticed lots of cranky, tired kids at late dining

Neither have I.


Late dining watches the show while earky dining eats. Then they swap. Basically.

So with early dining you are going to miss the shows if you want them asleep by 8.

 

[cruiser21]

we prefer late seating, so there are a few of us.

I'm there with you. We eat dinner at 8pm or later at home. Its been this way since our kids were babies. On days I work the earliest I get home is 7pm. My dh works nights. We're just used to it. Europeans eat late...not a big deal. I say whatever your used to at home do on the cruise. No right or wrong answer here.

 

[over50visits]

when I first cruised .... dinner at 8 was 'main seating'

the folks who missed main were sent to early seating ......

curious how the terms have changed over time .....

Yes curious how terms change! Carnival, I believe, uses "early" and "late." RCL uses "first" and "second." I don't know what most lines do, having cruised on just a handful of them, but at least for the larger cruise lines, there doesn't seem to be a standard for using "main." Kind of reminds me of the "main" cabin on airplanes. As Will would say, "what's in a name?" I can just see Disney managers debating the terms LOL

 

[Dallas_Lady]

We did the late dining back in 2012 when my kids were 4 and 6 and it was fine. They are pretty flexible when it comes to when they go to bed and wake up, though. We took afternoon naps, woke in time to get ready for the show and dinner afterwards. We really liked the later time and are doing it again next year.

 

[RedStars]

We did late seating and I was worried because my youngest was 3 (there were 5 kids aged 3-8) But it worked out great. And yes, there was at least one kid asleep on a chair each night but no one cared.

We're doing 2nd seating in Nov again: my kids are 9 and 6 now.