Any early eaters experience late dining?

[dad of 3 addicted to DCL]

I too am an early eater; a habit I picked up from many years in the service. We also like to stretch our day out (inport via excursion/exploration, at sea in soaking up the sun/activities). Unfortunately, my wife is a 'hangry' person, so I make sure around 4:30 to guide us to the Daisy's D-Lites to grab fruit/salad/wrap...although on this last cruise on Magic she was hankering after Schwarma. . I know you said earlier that you're not a big fan of pool food - most is barely edible fast food - but what about absconding some of the more healthy/tasty from Cabanas/Marcelline? for the late afternoon snack. Personally, I find the Cove Café noms to be waaay too sweet until they break out the savory selections in the evening. Every so often, the chicken fingers and fries are ok, but I prefer the more substantive and (somewhat?) more healthy food

 

[brentm77]

I too am an early eater; a habit I picked up from many years in the service. We also like to stretch our day out (inport via excursion/exploration, at sea in soaking up the sun/activities). Unfortunately, my wife is a 'hangry' person, so I make sure around 4:30 to guide us to the Daisy's D-Lites to grab fruit/salad/wrap...although on this last cruise on Magic she was hankering after Schwarma. . I know you said earlier that you're not a big fan of pool food - most is barely edible fast food - but what about absconding some of the more healthy/tasty from Cabanas/Marcelline? for the late afternoon snack. Personally, I find the Cove Café noms to be waaay too sweet until they break out the savory selections in the evening. Every so often, the chicken fingers and fries are ok, but I prefer the more substantive and (somewhat?) more healthy food

I like the idea of a later healthy snack from Cabanas. I forgot about the fruit, salads, and wraps on the Magic, which we thought were better than the Fantasy - and also the shawarma! I too don't mind chicken fingers if I am feeling like something less healthy. Between those options, I am starting to be less concerned. They may even beat a few of the MDR menus that are getting a little boring for me (what a great problem to have). For all I know, I may be in the mood to skip the MDR many nights, which we naturally started to do on one or two nights anyway.

 

[sjuncfan]

Obviously this was either before the kids club changes, or your son did not hang out at Edge...because many of the activities in the clubs happen after dinner and the shows.

Speaking as someone who works in the office past 5 pm and typically doesn't get home until 6 or later, I'm surprised, if not shocked, by the number of people who eat dinner at 4 pm on this thread. Medical workers (doctors, nurses, etc.) might be done by 4 if they work in hospitals, otherwise it's factory workers or farmers who are done with their day in time to eat at 4 pm. If anything, I'm more likely to have to eat a late lunch at 3 pm than eat an early supper.

And since I'm coming from the central time zone, the "main dining" is a late lunch to me, while the second seating is pretty much when I'd normally eat anyway.

I think we were on the last cruise before the kids club changes. He used to love the Club/Lab but wasn't interested in it this time. He hung out at Edge a little during the day but you are correct, he missed most of the evening stuff including the ice breaker. It bummed me out that he missed out on fun stuff, but DS is an only child and doesn't feel the need to be around other kids all the time. He has this attitude which is totally foreign to me of "I already have enough friends, I don't need to make new friends that I'll only know for a few days or a week." I want to be friends with everyone so I don't get it... I try to tell him it may make that week more fun for him, but he's happy to hang out on his own and I can't really force him to make friends (he knows he needs to be friendly to everyone). On our last cruise he did a lot of walking around on Deck 4, he and I did a race on the midship detective agency, he and DH went on the aquaduck a bunch of times... he's busy at home and loves his down time, so he had a great time even without spending a lot of time in Edge.

 

[DCLMP]

OT, but, curious, do businesses close early there? I almost never worked normal hours, but the movie and song "9 to 5 " popularized the stereotype of those hours as being the normal, which I never understood as few companies give paid lunches, so the normal work day was 9 to 530 or 9 to 6 depending on whether your lunch break was 30 or 60 minutes.
When my kids were school age, it was always a mad scramble after school. 3:30 pm dismissal from school, rush them to after school sports at 4, lucky to get home by 7 or 7:30 pm to START fixing dinner. The end of Little League season was brutal. Our fields did not have lights, but with sunset later, you can safely play until 8 pm, which puts you home at 8:30pm to start dinner, homework, showers.
Other than my first cruise, which only had one dinner seating at 6 pm and dinner was a 3 1/2 hour 12 course affair. And no other food options than the MDR. We always have had late seating, whether it was the Caribbean, an Alaska, or even a Hawaiian cruise.

That was us too. Judging by how packed the freeway and the gym is at 5pm. I would say eating at 5pm is not the norm for working people. There always seems to be a lot of people stating they eat early. I often wondered what hours they work.

 

[Sherrilatte]

For unknown reasons, we eat dinner much earlier than most people our age. Frankly, we would fit in very well in those Florida communities that eat dinner at 4:30.

We are planners and almost always book so far out that getting early dining is a breeze. The one or two times we waitlisted, we were moved to early before the cruise. For the first time ever, we booked two cruises just after the paid-in-full date, which puts our odds of getting moved to early dining pretty low, I suspect. I will go to dining services first thing, but the success for that will depend on our boarding time, which may not be great.

I am curious how other early eaters fared with late dining? It won't be very helpful to hear from the naturally late eaters. We don't have young kids - in fact, our daughters are college age - but I know certain members of our family won't wait until three hours after our usual dinner time to eat, and that MDR dinners will be affected. My hope is that they eat light and then eat in the MDR as a family. But what was others experience? Was it as difficult as it sounds form some in your group? Did you end up liking it?

Frankly, if DCL had better non-MDR options, I would be perfectly content skipping the MDR's most nights, but they don't.

Our family always eat later--it's more relaxing and the staff seem more relaxed as well.

 

[Alicatt]

We usually eat between and 6 est and we prefer late dinner on DCL. At home, we eat breakfast early but on a cruise we start within room coffee and pastries before we get dressed then we make our way to breakfast. Our lunch is later than usual and then I order room service snacks while we are getting ready for the 6 pm show. By 8:15 we're hungry but not starving.

 

[IceSkatingPrincess]

We (2 adults in 30s no kids) eat dinner around 5pm almost always when home. When on a cruise, we opt for late dining since we do not want to rush back from activities and excursions to get ready for dinner. This has been a complete non-issue. There is so much food available on the cruise it's super easy to just grab a snack if needed to hold you over. We love late dining.

 

[bayri]

We've only gone on two cruises so far, once at each time. However, the early dining was during lower post-COVID attendance, so I can't speak on noise or crowdedness. However, we did have two different time zones. The first cruise we sailed out of Florida, and since we live in the western states, that was really early for us... The second cruise was out of San Diego, and we did late dining. That's closer to our normal time zone, and that ended up too late... So we've determined that for us late dining would be perfect for east coast itineraries, and early dining for west coast. We're currently waitlisted for early dining on our next cruise in April, so it'll be interesting to see how we feel about it if we get in (RE: crowdedness, noisiness, etc).

 

[brentm77]

We've only gone on two cruises so far, once at each time. However, the early dining was during lower post-COVID attendance, so I can't speak on noise or crowdedness. However, we did have two different time zones. The first cruise we sailed out of Florida, and since we live in the western states, that was really early for us... The second cruise was out of San Diego, and we did late dining. That's closer to our normal time zone, and that ended up too late... So we've determined that for us late dining would be perfect for east coast itineraries, and early dining for west coast. We're currently waitlisted for early dining on our next cruise in April, so it'll be interesting to see how we feel about it if we get in (RE: crowdedness, noisiness, etc).

The crazy thing is that my wife and I will be doing late dining on the East cost one week, then home for a week (Mountain time), then late dining on the West coast. That is really going to mess with the biological clock!

 

[HokieRaven5]

Just got off a sailing on the Magic with late dining. First time doing it and we found it great for how we were cruising. The dinners felt quieter than my experience with the first dining time.

My wife is an early eater and she would order room service around 4-5pm just to have something to hold her over during the show or other activities before our dinner.

There’s plenty of food available for you to make it work, but I also hope you can get switched to your preferred dining time. People on my sailing got switched to main dining just a few days before we sailed.

 

[mickeyway]

We have always done early dining. The few times we were waitlisted, we were able to switch either before the cruise or when we boarded. At home we eat around 6 or 6:30, and DS is usually in bed by 8:30/9. (He's 12 so I'm sure that will shift any day now). Pre-COVID when we cruised he usually missed at least a couple of the shows. Our last cruise, this past December, we decided to try late dining to see if we liked it better. DH thought we'd like having a bit more downtime in the afternoons, and not rushing to the show right after dinner. It did NOT work well for us. DS was falling asleep at the table and went back to the room partway through dinner. We talked to our head waiter and we were actually able to shift to early dining for the rest of the cruise... we were very thankful but I'm sure that's not always possible. Now we know that we are early dining people through and through

Not sure that West Central Alabama is much different than anywhere else. I'd say we usually eat dinner here around 6:30pm. Of course, in my town, the main industries are either a) The University, or b) Mercedes-Benz, so there is a good bit of later diners when they get off of 2nd shift over at MBUSA...

We usually request early dining on DCL because I hate late dining, not so much for the 8ish start, but more for the fact that if you get the "wrong" service team, you could be there until 10pm...

I really, really wish Cabanas was back open for dinner like it was pre-COVID. Every other cruise line manages to have the buffet open at night, not sure why DCL can't do that either, especially at the prices that they are charging. No offense, but after you've had the Pirate Night menu 5 or 6 times, you may have had enough...

Cabanas is closed during dinner now? NOOOOO!!! that was my backup plan.

 

[Carohs]

We've done both and just preferred late, even when we sailed in our same time zone. Between activities and a buffet lunch, we weren't ready to eat dinner that early. We really didn't start feeling hungry til after the show and then it was like, oh btw, why haven't you fed me yet grrr, grr. Ideally we would eat about 7, but I've learned to grab a small snack from the pool deck late afternoon. There's usually a 7 or 7:30 activity, too, to keep our minds off dinner.

 

[brentm77]

DCL just moved us to main with five days to spare! It was a pleasant surprise, since I had given up on moving unless we got lucky after asking when we boarded. It's nice not having that hanging over our heads and will making boarding more enjoyable. I guess we won't find out if late dining would have worked for us just yet. But we still have early dining on the family Baja cruise we have scheduled in May, so that might be the one.

 

[Halfbrit]

We usually eat at 6pm and we have teenage kids who complain if they don't get food at 6. We've done 3 DCL cruises and had late sitting at each one. We got through it by treating the trips as different time zones (2 of them were actually different time zones) so acclimatized ourselves to the 'time zones'. Worst case was that we had a snack at our usual dinner time just to tide us over, being careful not to eat too much.

 

[AZMermaid]

We have early dining booked for our NYE treasure cruise. Im debating switching to late just to hit the shop when it opens the first night. We live in AZ and my kids will be 12.5 and 14 and are pretty go with the flow. My main concerns are missing out on stuff in Edge and feeling like we need to eat an early dinner. We don’t have great metabolism or self control, lol! Sticking with west coast hours may help. In the winter we are three hours behind. My kids are early risers, generally regardless, so I’m wondering if we could keep that up all week.

 

[auntlynne]

DCL just moved us to main with five days to spare! It was a pleasant surprise, since I had given up on moving unless we got lucky after asking when we boarded. It's nice not having that hanging over our heads and will making boarding more enjoyable. I guess we won't find out if late dining would have worked for us just yet. But we still have early dining on the family Baja cruise we have scheduled in May, so that might be the one.

Hope you are safely onboard and have a great cruise.

 

[cutiger96]

We eat a 6 at home but love the late dining. It allows us to not feel rushed to get back and shower. We simply eat a snack at the pool area around 4ish and are fine until dinner. Honestly the one time we did the early dining I found myself not hungry after having eaten bigger lunches on the cruise than I do at home.

 

[Girl of the South]

I did a TransAtlantic solo a few years back. Didn’t want to deal with the MDR at all. Took a couple ZipLock bags and filled them with cheese, shrimp, rolls (from my plate, not directly from the buffet line) and had a picnic dinner in my cabin - supplemented with room service sometimes or, um, ice cream! Freed up at least 2 hours a night. Also had a late FULL lunch wherever. So moved big meal to lunch. Worked out great for me.

 

[tidefan]

I did a TransAtlantic solo a few years back. Didn’t want to deal with the MDR at all. Took a couple ZipLock bags and filled them with cheese, shrimp, rolls (from my plate, not directly from the buffet line) and had a picnic dinner in my cabin - supplemented with room service sometimes or, um, ice cream! Freed up at least 2 hours a night. Also had a late FULL lunch wherever. So moved big meal to lunch. Worked out great for me.

This is why I wish Cabanas was still open at night.

 

[Agent 86]

Our most recent cruise was our first with our 2.5 year old daughter. We got the late dining time and were happy with that because we valued her being awake for the theatre show more than her being awake for dinner.

We managed just fine. We aimed to "snack" up on the pool deck before the theatre show (although you know what they say about best laid plans and sometimes we were caught out by how early they closed). We also purchased popcorn to snack on during the show. Other people brought in cookies, grapes, etc from up on the pool deck in their popcorn buckets. I was very tempted to do the same, noting that I would do my very best to clean up any major mess my daughter dropped. I will probably do that next time.

Our servers were mostly okay about getting our daughter's meal out ASAP. However, she was also happy to "snack" on the bread rolls before dinner. If I had my time again, I probably would have been more forceful about having her meal at the table much earlier, even if we simply had to request a "default" meal of pasta / rice and vegetables.

You can request your meals as quickly as possible and also request that they bring out the entrees and mains (or starters and entrees depending upon your terminology) at the same time. Usually they can do that, but not always. If your dessert won't melt, you could also request that ASAP.