Why hasn't Disney solved the main/late dining debacle already?

[MomOTwins]

You did everything you were supposed to do in booking that original October cruise early enough to get Main, but it sounds like you kinda knew going in that your employer might not give you the time off that particular week.

Nope--I had no idea when my employer would give me time off. I really don't understand what kind of jobs allow people to book vacations a year-plus in advance. No employer I have ever worked for sets their schedules that far ahead.

To your point that they may be first come first serve and are just filling the waitlist as folks cancel, I think it is pretty clear that for many cruises main dining is not in fact full when they begin the waitlist. Especially when you can go on the website and see that the cruise is nowhere near sold out. The exceptions are probably rare sailings like Hawaii or Panama Canal that do sell out.

@MomOTwins, I feel your pain. I have two small children and I was really worried about late dining on our first cruise. I did eventually get moved from the waitlist but it too, a while. When your kids still nap and go to bed by 7:30, it’s no help to hear, “oh my 6 year old just takes a nap and is fine.” Or, “it’s vacation, bedtimes don’t exist.” When your kids still nap or if they’re particularly inflexible then dinner and bedtime consistency isn’t optional.

You want to know what my toddler did through every meal of our cruise? She screamed. Dinner took so long that she was such a mess every night. Even our main server commented on AP night about how we should keep her happy and quiet for the show. Every night after dinner we’d rush back to the room to get her to bed. There was no going to shows as a family. DH took DS to one and he almost passed out before it started.

I don’t know what a good answer is. But the struggle with toddlers is real.

Thanks, and yeah, it is hard to keep hearing I should just make my kids adjust to a new schedule. Every kid is different, even in our family: some will nap or can adjust to sleep in in the morning, and some just won't. That screaming through dinner is exactly what we are trying to avoid. Feeding snacks doesn't help either, since the problem is sleepiness more so than hunger.

I know this might sound mean, but I've been thinking while reading a lot of these comments, why some people take their young children on trips like this if they know there are going to be so many issues with eating, sleeping, etc. It's an awfully expensive vacation to deal with all of that. When my sister was little, she was HORRIBLE at meal and bed times. My family never even went out to eat until she was older, let alone go on an expensive vacation that would have just been torture for everyone.
If I knew ahead of time that I'd have to worry about meal times, nap times, bed times, etc. I wouldn't be taking an expensive Disney cruise. It just wouldn't be enjoyable. Oh--that's probably why I waited until my daughter was 8 before we went on a cruise. We did other vacations when she was younger.

If I did that, my twins' first disney cruise would be when they are teenagers. Waiting for kids to be older works well when you have a single child or kids close together in age; not so well when there is an age gap between them. Also, one of the things we love most about disney world is the magic you have when kids are young and when it is all still real. That--and the fact that most aspects of the ship, with the exception of late-dining--are kid friendly, is why we pay the Disney premium. When our kids are older, I expect we will switch to far less expensive vacations that aren't as kid friendly.

 

[magicfan1985]

I'm currently dealing with the stress of hoping to be moved off the waitlist for main dining. Every time I get some version of "no we can't tell you where you are on the waitlist, but everyone wants main dining because everyone has small kids." Two people in my [social media not-to-be-named] group actually cancelled the cruise because they could not get main dining before PIF. And I recall seeing a man flipping out at guest services on day one because his travel agent apparently didn't explain dining times to him and he had a baby and toddler who couldn't wait until 8:15.

So since this is a known issue for every cruise, do you think Disney should move the dinners earlier? 5pm and 7:30 would be so much more manageable for families than 5:45 and 8:15. What do folks think?

Or (more controversially) do you think main dining should be reserved for parties with children age 5-and under? Let's be real, if I were sans-kids I would pick main dining too if given an option, even though I don't really need it. 6/7pm-ish is when I eat at home, plus I'd much rather enjoy a show and entertaining after dinner than watch one before and go to bed straight after eating. But realistically, if the only option for me was an 8:15 dinner, I could live with that, unlike my kids who, the last time a late flight to WDW made us eat after 8, were sobbing their eyes out because they felt so bad, couldn't eat a bite, and then fell asleep in their chairs.

We booked 30 days out and got put on a waitlist for main. Our sailing is this Friday June 28th. I just checked our reservation this morning. We were still wait listed for second but I was able to change the dining time to main myself. The option had always been greyed out up until today. So keep checking as it could change anytime.

 

[squirk]

Nope--I had no idea when my employer would give me time off. I really don't understand what kind of jobs allow people to book vacations a year-plus in advance. No employer I have ever worked for sets their schedules that far ahead.

Plenty of jobs out there are project- or goal-based and don’t require you to be in a definite place at a definite time without fail. I don’t know what kind of job or what kind of manager you have, but it sounds kind of crappy that you gave them tons of notice and they couldn’t work with you on the cruise dates.

To your point that they may be first come first serve and are just filling the waitlist as folks cancel, I think it is pretty clear that for many cruises main dining is not in fact full when they begin the waitlist. Especially when you can go on the website and see that the cruise is nowhere near sold out. The exceptions are probably rare sailings like Hawaii or Panama Canal that do sell out.

To be fair, that isn’t what I said. I said we don’t know how many are truly “held back” and how many come back into inventory as people cancel. And I suggested that for those tables that actually are held back, there may be very good logistical reasons for doing so.

Even if the ship is not full, that doesn’t mean Main can’t be full. I think each MDR holds about 700 people. So that’s 2,100 for each seating (assuming Dream-class). Main can handle only about half the ship. It could be as simple as your cruise had a lot of people book ahead of you and all of them wanted Main, too. I am pretty sure DCL didn’t refuse your Main seating request just to be obstinate.

Look, I am totally sympathetic that Late seating is going to make your cruise less than ideal, given your kids’ age and usual dinner time. I am facing that same possibility as well next February. I really hope your waitlist comes through.

I just don’t think DCL’s current setup is a “debacle” or “an issue to fix”. I think it just feels that way to you in the moment because your boss made you reschedule, and now you’re facing the possibility of having to either keep your kids up late for the MDR and facing meltdowns, or skipping the MDRs entirely.

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

I know this might sound mean, but I've been thinking while reading a lot of these comments, why some people take their young children on trips like this if they know there are going to be so many issues with eating, sleeping, etc. It's an awfully expensive vacation to deal with all of that. When my sister was little, she was HORRIBLE at meal and bed times. My family never even went out to eat until she was older, let alone go on an expensive vacation that would have just been torture for everyone.
If I knew ahead of time that I'd have to worry about meal times, nap times, bed times, etc. I wouldn't be taking an expensive Disney cruise. It just wouldn't be enjoyable. Oh--that's probably why I waited until my daughter was 8 before we went on a cruise. We did other vacations when she was younger.

I said to my DH recently that I'm glad we didn't have the money for a family vacation before DD was almost three! By that time, she was pretty easy and flexible, although on our second WDW trip, she was a bit of a "threenager" and also got sick, so that was not amazing. But I ultimately think it worked out in our favor that we couldn't afford to cruise with a very young toddler or I wouldn't have had a good experience!

We are lucky that DD is a night owl who can also sleep in. Do we let her stay up until 11pm and sleep until 10am on a normal night? Heck no! At home, this happens only on the occasional special occasion (July 4 fireworks, for example.) Do we let her do that on a cruise so we can do the show, late dining, and sometimes family karaoke after, or at Disneyland to watch Fantasmic! and then close down the park on the last night? You bet!

I fully understand that is not a reality for every family, but I think a good time can be had on a DCL cruise even if you can't get main dining. A combination of poolside eats, room service, and Cabanas would get the job done nicely. Is that fun for every cruise? No. Is it okay on the odd cruise that you book only a few months out and your kids are young enough to need early dining but you can't get off the waitlist? Yes.

 

[Dug720]

I really don't understand what kind of jobs allow people to book vacations a year-plus in advance. No employer I have ever worked for sets their schedules that far ahead.

Teaching. Certain times are standard, others you know when you get the school calendar.

On the negative side, we're restricted to peak vacation times and prices.

 

[Maggie'sMom]

Nope--I had no idea when my employer would give me time off. I really don't understand what kind of jobs allow people to book vacations a year-plus in advance. No employer I have ever worked for sets their schedules that far ahead.

There are tons of jobs that aren't dependent on an employer setting a schedule. I work as a consultant. I have my clients and projects that I work on at specific times each year. Some times of the year are busier than others so I don't vacation during that time. During slower times, I can pretty much take time whenever I want. The trick is the projects have to be when they have to be done. Sometimes that means the week or two before I take a vacation, I'm working evenings and weekends to get the work done. But as long as the work is done, my boss doesn't care when I take off.

 

[Karin1984]

Teaching. Certain times are standard, others you know when you get the school calendar.

On the negative side, we're restricted to peak vacation times and prices.

Or (office) jobs that are not connected to any kind of operational / seasonal business and businesses where there is more than one person to do the job.

I work in marketing and I will go on a 3-week vacation August 2020. As long as I make sure all my projects are handed over to a colleague, I can go whenever I want. I do realize this is a luxury not every job of business has.

But if in the end i would had to change my cruise, the time of dining is not that important to me and I prefer late anyway.

 

[DietCokeMommy]

I know this might sound mean, but I've been thinking while reading a lot of these comments, why some people take their young children on trips like this if they know there are going to be so many issues with eating, sleeping, etc. It's an awfully expensive vacation to deal with all of that. When my sister was little, she was HORRIBLE at meal and bed times. My family never even went out to eat until she was older, let alone go on an expensive vacation that would have just been torture for everyone.
If I knew ahead of time that I'd have to worry about meal times, nap times, bed times, etc. I wouldn't be taking an expensive Disney cruise. It just wouldn't be enjoyable. Oh--that's probably why I waited until my daughter was 8 before we went on a cruise. We did other vacations when she was younger.

Cruising in general is actually an awesome way to vacation with little children. Everything is so convenient and easy to get to. And the room setups are great. Sharing a typical hotel room with my kids is hard because they can see us. But with the bunk beds and curtains they don't see anyone else and they actually sleep.

But every kid is different. My son is way more flexible than my daughter and needs a lot less sleep than she does and always has. We can mess with his schedule and no problems. My daughter is much different. In general she's just a tougher kid. But there's not really a way I could have predicted that she'd scream through every meal on the cruise. She was finally happy at Castaway Cay, eating while sitting on top of a picnic table. I probably looked like a terrible parent, but she was finally happy at a meal and it wasn't hurting anyone. And my life didn't stop when I became a parent. I take my kids on all sorts of trips. We fly places, we drive places, we rent houses, we stay in hotels, we go on cruises. And we deal with the bad moments because the fun and memories make up for them. But no matter where in the world we are, dinner needs to happen by 6 and bed by 8 for my younger one.

Nope--I had no idea when my employer would give me time off. I really don't understand what kind of jobs allow people to book vacations a year-plus in advance. No employer I have ever worked for sets their schedules that far ahead.

I am a manager of software designers at a software company and I can generally plan ahead as far as I want. It's actually better to plan far ahead because I can block off my calendar and no one schedules me for important things on those dates. And in almost all cases, my boss could cover for me if anything came up that really needed to happen on those dates.

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

I would be thrilled for more anytime dining options. Cabanas with a different menu, keep all the pool deck options open past 6. We're not fans of the MDR. We prefer more flexibility in when we arrive, a shorter experience, a table for just our family, less chaos and NOISE!

I don't think there's an answer to get everyone who wants it in an MDR at the earlier time, but there could be more options.

 

[jlynch924]

I think that if Disney ever figures out how to please everybody, THAT will be real **Disney Magic**

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

I am so glad so many want main dining; means I should never have trouble getting the late time which we vastly prefer. (We're east coast, so no time change concerns for us for the PC cruises). We really enjoyed the less crowded deck in the late afternoon, get to enjoy our veranda at sunset, and the kids usually got an ice cream or something small from room service to tide them over. I only got hungry early one time, and just had a small tuna salad roll and some fruit on the pool deck. We took early dining our first time and it just didn't work for us, so I will gladly take the late time!!

 

[disneymagicgirl]

We have always preferred late seating...even when our kids were all little. We get down for naps later therefore they are able to stay up later. It allows for a more relaxing day as we aren't rushed to get to the ship, showered, naps, and to dinner so early. I think people may not realize that if they've never sailed, thus the stress when they think the 2nd seating is so late. I'm sure there are some that just don't like late though...they could always do cabanas.

 

[Disneyland_emily]

The two times we booked really late (4-6 weeks before sailing) we’ve cleared the waitlist for main dining.

Not sure if they use an algorithm on who clears and who doesn’t as apparently several families who booked months earlier didn’t so I was surprised my party of 5 cleared-

 

[darnheather]

Seeing that DCL has been sailing 20+ years, this isn’t news. Other lines have moved to open dining but the dining experience is completely different on DCL.

Yes - I thought I had to have early dining, however all the reasons given for preferring late make a lot of sense!! We are in EST and I’m usually in my PJs by 8:00! .

Back in 06 and 08 it was 15 minute staggered. 5:15, 5:30 and 5:45. Depending Remember that???

I sometimes change after dinner and where my pj's to the show if I even make it. I try so hard to stay up late on the cruises but usually I'm exhausted after the excitement of the day.

 

[mousefan73]

I don’t think it’s really such a big issue. We always choose late dining and I seen many families with infant and toddler’s were very wide awake and happy. In fact our children were late stay up o I don’t think it’s really such a big issue. In fact our children were late stay uppers on vacation. We would let them sleep in in the morning and take a long late afternoon naps. I recall my kids at one and two waking up from their nap at 5 PM and they be good to go until almost midnight.

 

[SuJo]

I'm currently dealing with the stress of hoping to be moved off the waitlist for main dining. Every time I get some version of "no we can't tell you where you are on the waitlist, but everyone wants main dining because everyone has small kids." Two people in my [social media not-to-be-named] group actually cancelled the cruise because they could not get main dining before PIF. And I recall seeing a man flipping out at guest services on day one because his travel agent apparently didn't explain dining times to him and he had a baby and toddler who couldn't wait until 8:15.

So since this is a known issue for every cruise, do you think Disney should move the dinners earlier? 5pm and 7:30 would be so much more manageable for families than 5:45 and 8:15. What do folks think?

Or (more controversially) do you think main dining should be reserved for parties with children age 5-and under? Let's be real, if I were sans-kids I would pick main dining too if given an option, even though I don't really need it. 6/7pm-ish is when I eat at home, plus I'd much rather enjoy a show and entertaining after dinner than watch one before and go to bed straight after eating. But realistically, if the only option for me was an 8:15 dinner, I could live with that, unlike my kids who, the last time a late flight to WDW made us eat after 8, were sobbing their eyes out because they felt so bad, couldn't eat a bite, and then fell asleep in their chairs.

We did not have main dining on our last cruise and were put on the waitlist. We were not changed before the cruise. When we got on the cruise I went to the main desk to ask about moving and they told me to go to "this" dining room (I don't remember which one it was) and that is where they are allowing people to change the seating times. We went there and were easily moved to main dining. So if you don't get off the waitlist you can do it when you board.

 

[pixiedustedme]

Nope--I had no idea when my employer would give me time off. I really don't understand what kind of jobs allow people to book vacations a year-plus in advance. No employer I have ever worked for sets their schedules that far ahead.

To your point that they may be first come first serve and are just filling the waitlist as folks cancel, I think it is pretty clear that for many cruises main dining is not in fact full when they begin the waitlist. Especially when you can go on the website and see that the cruise is nowhere near sold out. The exceptions are probably rare sailings like Hawaii or Panama Canal that do sell out.



Thanks, and yeah, it is hard to keep hearing I should just make my kids adjust to a new schedule. Every kid is different, even in our family: some will nap or can adjust to sleep in in the morning, and some just won't. That screaming through dinner is exactly what we are trying to avoid. Feeding snacks doesn't help either, since the problem is sleepiness more so than hunger.



If I did that, my twins' first disney cruise would be when they are teenagers. Waiting for kids to be older works well when you have a single child or kids close together in age; not so well when there is an age gap between them. Also, one of the things we love most about disney world is the magic you have when kids are young and when it is all still real. That--and the fact that most aspects of the ship, with the exception of late-dining--are kid friendly, is why we pay the Disney premium. When our kids are older, I expect we will switch to far less expensive vacations that aren't as kid friendly.

I recommend booking 2 or 3 well-timed cruises at the release date, and then canceling the ones you don't need after you find out when you can vacation. As long as it's before PIF, there will be no penalty.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

I really don't understand what kind of jobs allow people to book vacations a year-plus in advance. No employer I have ever worked for sets their schedules that far ahead.

I've never worked for an employer that wouldn't work with their employees on vacation time. Especially when some vacations have to be planned that far in advance.

Even when I was an hourly employee (for 13 years), except for one vacation, I was always able to plan/book my vacations as far out as I needed and always got the time off.

 

[mmmears]

I don't think it's a debacle. There are ways to work around things if you don't get off the wait list including trying to shift your schedule, dining at Cabanas (I know it's not the same), ordering room service, having a late afternoon snack, etc.

If these things won't work for you then I guess you have 2 options - either book a cruise that still has main dining available or taking a different vacation. Lots of people, even those without small children, need early dining for health reasons, time changes, etc. and I think that first come first served is the fairest way Disney can make it. When I didn't care I made sure to book late because I knew everyone seemed to want early, but now that someone in my family needs early we either book early or get on the wait list and hope for the best. Honestly I preferred late since it was less crowded. Oh, and there were plenty of kids in late dining. Just like at WDW, kids manage to stay up later than they do at home.

 

[Lisa F]

Nope--I had no idea when my employer would give me time off. I really don't understand what kind of jobs allow people to book vacations a year-plus in advance. No employer I have ever worked for sets their schedules that far ahead.

There are plenty of jobs that don't have a set "schedule" where people can book pretty far in advance and be relatively assured they can have the time off. I do kitchen design and have never been denied vacation no matter when I've asked for it. I just am responsible for planning my projects and obligations around my time off.