Dinner seating

[dancechick99]

I have asked for early seating on our first cruise in August. Still waiting to hear from someone going on August 28 Wonder. Anyway, here goes. Is there any advantage to either late or early seatings? Are you rushed to get out during early seatings? Will we be in a rush to see any shows? Can you change your seating time when you get on the boat? I appreciate any help on question number 2 out of 2000. Thanks.

 

[DVC4US]

We have had both early and late seating. The biggest advantage to late seating was we had more time in the early evening to get ready. On our last trip we had early seating. I did not feel rushed while eating dinner, but I was always rushing to get ready for dinner. The one thing some people do not like about late seating is you get done with dinner very late, usually around 10 or 10:30. I do not think you will be rushed to get to any shows and yes, you can request a change in seating once on board ship. It is usually eaiser to change from early to late then it is from late to early. We have decided that from now on we will have late seating for dinner and not do early seating. Hope all this helps.
LeiLani

 

[PammyK]

Hi Dancechick99...

I'll be on the August 28th Wonder - taking my nephew as a 10th b-day present - if all goes according to plan. I've requested late seating for dinner b/c my nephew is used to eating dinner later at home. Plus I think it is a little more relaxed than early seating. Hopefully it was the right choice.

 

[dizmomof2]

Early or late seating also depend on if you have children in the clubs or not. We usually eat late at home and were going to pick the late seating, however, because of advice on this board I checked out the kids Navigators and found many of the activities they really wanted to do were at the same time as second seating! They would have had a choice of eat in the "cool" restaurants with us or go to the kids club activites. This would have been a battle as we wanted them to eat dinner with us every night (otherwise they would have never come out of the club!) and they would not wanted to miss the fun stuff in the club.

If you have kids you may want to check out the Navigators on Barb's site to see what they might miss before choosing your seating.

 

[dancechick99]

I am new to the message boards. What is a Barb and where is her sight?

 

[thedisneymom]

Check www.castawayclub.com-its terrific! They have menus, navigators, and pictures that you'll enjoy.

 

[budwmn]

We just came back from the 4/13 Wonder sailing. We chose the second seating and were happy overall. My son missed some of the fun activities in the Oceaneer's Club, but still enjoyed the movie time that they had later in the evenings.

Our one regret was that we missed the "adult" performance of the comedian (his earlier "G-rated" performance was hysterical). His only show was from 10:15 to 10:45 pm. By the time we left Triton's and dropped our son at the club it was 10:35. We thought we could catch the end, but the club was full. A group of us stood outside trying to hear what we could.

One benefit of the second seating was that we saw the early show. It was never too crowded so we always had great seats. The one night we ate at Palo's, we went to the later show. It was packed and was full of very young children and babies.

FYI: On the last morning before you get off the ship they serve two seatings of breakfast. If you have the early dinner seating, you must be at breakfast by 6:45 am. The later seating starts at 8 am. We appreciated having a little extra time to pack up in the morning.

Enjoy your cruise!

 

[savs]

There has been several people saying the late seating the children miss the evening activities????? I thought when I read the navigators they showed the fun activities ending at 8:15 and the late dinner starts at 8:30 so what would they all miss?????

Does it take a long time to check them out of the clubs??? I know they would probably miss the shows since they are shown before the dinner....but what else would they miss?

Thanks,

 

[mmouse37]

They probably mean if they attended the show first (as you do with late seating) the kids would miss out on some activities. For late seating, your showtime is 6:30 pm. Shows usually last about an hour.

MJ

 

[Michelle]

The main evening activities in the kids clubs start around 7:30 to 8:00 pm. Kids that are in early seating are done by then and ready to go. Kids in LATE seating haven't even eaten yet and probably won't get to the club much before 9:30 or 10:00, unless you rush them through dinner.

 

[floridaminnie]

We enjoy the late seating with a 3 yr old DD. What I do is let her eat at 5:30 with the kids and pick her up for the late dinner after the special event around 8:15-8:20. and then send her back to the club after our dinner. We've been lucky being doine around 9:30 or 9:45.