Early or Late Dinner seating...and why?

[Ofinn]

I can't even imagine eating dinner at 530. I don't even get home from work to after 6. I always thought only people that are retired eat that early. Anyway do whatever suits your lifestyle. The time of day you eats not going to affect your health. The only thing that matters is what you eat, and who cares about eating healthy on vacation. Enjoy your cruise.

 

[tvguy]

Any doctor will say it's not good for you.

Some people smoke and swear that it makes them healthy.

They say 2 to 3 hours, so were are within that time frame.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I can't even imagine eating dinner at 530. I don't even get home from work to after 6. I always thought only people that are retired eat that early. Anyway do whatever suits your lifestyle. The time of day you eats not going to affect your health. The only thing that matters is what you eat, and who cares about eating healthy on vacation. Enjoy your cruise.

Well you don't actually eat at 5:30. The doors open at 5:45 to 6:15 (depending on the cruise). By the time you're seated and order and get your food it's no earlier than 6:15-6:30 (could be later).

I've eaten dinner around 5:00 for most of my life.

 

[kuhltiffany]

Good to hear! We've always done early seating but recently moved to the West coast so I just switched us to late for our next cruise. We're looking forward to being able to try all the evening events we never managed to get to before...

We just got off Fantasy and did late dinner. It was perfect for us. We are West Coasters, and stayed on PST. We therefore at late breakfast, late lunch (if any), and late dinner. We liked going to the shows early. We liked not having to watch the clock to make sure we were ready for dinner in time. We also like the Dine & Play for our son...he was done with dinner in an hour or less, and off he went to play for a few hours. We stayed up late every night (midnight or 1:00am), so we weren't going to sleep right after eating.

 

[grantclaire]

We have done both, early seating can be too early especially on port days and late can be too late for us most days. So we usually book the early seating and sometimes skip the MDR on port days, head to Cabanas instead.

 

[NCConch]

We have done two 3-night cruises and had early seating both times because we eat at 5:30 most nights at home. We just cruised last weekend so I can remember how things flowed. We were never rushed and each night had its own pace. This year's service team was not as good as last year's team. Last year we had more attention and fun.

 

[jburge12000]

We have always done the second seating and never had any issues. We prefer it since we usually do things in the ports and don't want to be rushed back because of our dinner time. Also we are west coast, so most of our cruises work out well since the later dinner is our normal dinner time with the time change, but even our Alaska cruise we kept the second dinner so we could enjoy the ports more. My kids are 8 and 12 now so if we are hungry we sent then up to get something quick and small for all of us to eat back at the room when we get back to the ship.

 

[Ofinn]

Any doctor will say it's not good for you.

Some people smoke and swear that it makes them healthy.

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.

 

[Dug720]

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.

Exactly. From what I have learned in traveling abroad, for many other countries, their evening meal is not until 8 or later.

 

[Love2Cruz]

I'm not concerned about eating and going to bed as I stay up late when on vacation. My plan is to get a nap in for us so that after dinner we can head up to the deck and do the pool/hot tub and watch some movies on the jumbotron, walk around, check out the shops...etc. I'm sure I'll burn off any calories by the time my head hits the pillow.

 

[moomy-san]

We've had both early and late and prefer early. I don't like going to bed on a really full stomach. Also when we had late dining we often missed the start of some late night activities because our servers were slow. I like early... We get ready for dinner, enjoy the meal and then have the whole evening to enjoy drinks in one of the lounges or a movie up on deck.

 

[Ofinn]

Exactly. From what I have learned in traveling abroad, for many other countries, their evening meal is not until 8 or later.

Everyone has a personal preference, but to tell people its bad for their health is wrong. I'm at the gym every night between 5 and 8 working out with hundreds of people who I would assume eat when they get home. Eat early or late just don't overeat.

 

[Iamaplanner]

My daughters are light weights and it is hard for them to stay up late - yes, even on the cruise. They get even more tired from all the excitement and sun during the day. I just couldn't drag them to a late seating. They'd have no appetite, would be whiny, and they would make us rush to get out of there. For us, early seating is better. We can eat and then see how they feel.

That said, I've never felt rushed by the staff. We have had lovely dinners and the staff have been very attentive to my girls.

 

[wajones2]

My husband and I prefer late, but past three cruises have done early with DD. The last cruise she was 4 1/2 and stayed up until 11 each night in the clubs, which totally surprised me! So next cruise we will have late seating and if she still has the energy she can go to the club after.

 

[Tiffylv]

.

 

[astronautmom]

If you have already done early dinner and didn't love it, as you said in the OP, then go ahead and try second seating dinner. That is exactly what we did with our two cruises. Our TA recommended first seating because our kids were young. We liked it and fell into a good rhythm, but were disappointed to miss out on the dine & play option. On our second cruise, we did second seating and the best part of it was:

Oh, another perk is a late dinner means late breakfast on the last day.

Overall though, we preferred the rhythm of the early seating. Maybe it was just what we did first and the second cruise was different, but we found it harder to make it to the family game shows in the D Lounge that we enjoy. We also didn't make much use of the dine & play, because we were all finished eating by the time the counselors came to pick up. Maybe it was because we didn't have tablemates to chat with; and maybe we didn't have tablemates because we have three kids and there wasn't a good match left for us in second seating. We enjoyed our 2 adult and 1 child tablemate last year during early seating.

I say that if you were even a little unhappy with early seating or curious about second seating, just try it. It's not going to make or break your cruise, as long as you have a good attitude. You're going to be on a Disney cruise, there is food everywhere, it's going to be great.

I thought about that too as that's the time we usually eat at home, but I figure if we're too famished to wait, we can always just order an antipasto from Room Service or get a quick bite at Flo's.

Exactly.

 

[kat17d]

Just got off the dream today. Initially had first seating. My husband thought second setting would suit us better. This way we could not rush our day and allow our daughter to take a late nap. This worked out great! We're able to meet characters before dinner and even made it up for fireworks on pirate night. Second seating for us from now on!!!

 

[Love2Cruz]

Great responses and input, thank you.

We're going to stick with late seating and see how it goes.

 

[wilma-bride]

We have done 4 cruises and had late seating three times. On our last cruise we had main dining and, for us, it was just too rushed. Dinner itself wasn't rushed necessarily but we found it too difficult, especially on port days, to get ready for dinner in time. For me, it really impacted on the way I felt after the cruise too. I felt like, apart from a couple of sea day mornings, I just didn't ever have enough time to relax. we had mixology one afternoon, too, and how we ever got ready for formal night, I'll never know (mostly my fault for being unrealistic about how long it would take to get ready and reluctance to leave the bar )

We are cruising in May on the Westbound Panama Canal and briefly considered main dining, purely because it should be an altogether more laid back and relaxing cruise anyway. However, we decided to go back to late dining as that is what we prefer and works better for us. We like to be able to get ready for dinner, see the early show and then have a drink in the bar before dinner. The only downside to late dining is that we are always really full so don't feel much like drinking later on (although that saves our onboard drinks bill) and never really fancy any food from the late night buffets or snacks laid out in the adult areas.

 

[NorCalGal]

Our wait staff, while nice, was not impressive to me, nor did they dote on my DD as I've heard others have done.

We had my 6yo niece with us on the Wonder in April, early seating. Our experience was completely opposite. The wait staff was so amazing with her, even amusing her when she had finished her meal and we were still eating (as others have stated, kid's meals seem to come out with adult appetizers.)

I would say your experience was not typical and shouldn't be a reason to change your dining time (although maybe make sure you don't get that serving team again...) There are lots of other good reasons to change from early to late, but I wouldn't consider that part of it as related to your dining time.