2 Adults, no kids - Early vs Late Dinner seating?

[RobWreck]

Hi All,

My wife and I are planning our 5th Disney cruise, this time with a few other couples. I've always scheduled the late dinner seating with the idea of it being a more relaxed, less noisy experience. Some of the other couples, however, have hesitated at the late seating and have asked about aiming for the main seating. I dread the idea of spending 7 nights dining in a Chuck E Cheese-like environment with all the screaming kids.

Anyone with experience with both the early and late seatings, I'd really like to hear your opinions...

Thanks,
Rob

 

[adisneyaunt]

We enjoyed early dine for our group ( 9) we scheduled our excursions accordingly and enjoyed the freedom of having many hours to enjoy the ship in the later hours.
That being said... it was not a Disney cruise so less children ... I'm quite sure ...and Lots of themed pubs/bars and shops/shows along with the myriad of other activities to enjoy onboard each nite.
Enjoy ur Cruise!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Hi All,

My wife and I are planning our 5th Disney cruise, this time with a few other couples. I've always scheduled the late dinner seating with the idea of it being a more relaxed, less noisy experience. Some of the other couples, however, have hesitated at the late seating and have asked about aiming for the main seating. I dread the idea of spending 7 nights dining in a Chuck E Cheese-like environment with all the screaming kids.

Anyone with experience with both the early and late seatings, I'd really like to hear your opinions...

Thanks,
Rob

While we've only done late dining on 3 of our cruises, I didn't fine either one less quiet than then other. Not all kids are screaming kids.

The biggest issue with noise in the dining rooms is the close quarters of the tables to each other, and just the general service process (plate, silverware, whatever being constantly served, and cleared). And the just the number of people in the room trying to be heard over everything. And there's also the piped in "mood music" that apparently has to be loud to be heard.

And all that is at both seatings.

 

[MissMet]

We've cruised DCL 6 times. 5 late, 1 main. We just finally tried main seating on our last cruise (since we had our kids for this one) and hated it! Tons of kids, service felt rushed, and we felt so rushed during the day to get back to shower & get ready in time for dinner.

Funniest part, our first cruise we were upset & worried about being late seating. We ended up loving it.

Our upcoming cruise we have late seating, request of private table, and the kids secheduled in the nursery during dinner. Needless to say, we have it down pat.

 

[TrySomethingNew]

I would say the only screaming kids that would really affect you would be any that would be in close proximity. Luckily, most kids aren't screaming kids. I have to say that an inebriated adult with a naturally loud voice is at least as bad as a screaming kid, but the adult has more colorful language..

Since it is generally easier to switch to late dining from early, you might try it out with your group and switch if it's bad or not to your liking.

 

[AshleeH]

I would say the only screaming kids that would really affect you would be any that would be in close proximity. Luckily, most kids aren't screaming kids. I have to say that an inebriated adult with a naturally loud voice is at least as bad as a screaming kid, but the adult has more colorful language..

Since it is generally easier to switch to late dining from early, you might try it out with your group and switch if it's bad or not to your liking.

I was going to say this. We had early seating on our cruise and I didn't notice any kids being obnoxious, but it only takes a few drinks for an adult to become this way. I would be more concerned with that happening during late seating, but it's really luck of the draw on who is on your ship.

 

[lorimay]

We did early seating our first 2 cruises and we always felt rushed, of course back then our kids were young.

Now we only do late seating whether we cruise with the family or alone.
I agree with PP that the early seating is more rushed. Yes there are children in the late seatings, but much fewer, IMO.
The biggest issue is on port days, I feel so rushed to get back onboard and be ready for dinner at 5:45. I like being able to stay on deck just little longer when I know dinner isn't till 8:15. We love to go into the Piano bar and listen to the music and have a pre-dinner drink, so peaceful and quiet.

 

[Melissa S]

If you don't mind late then do late. We have very young children and we are waitlisted for main seating on our next cruise. Having late seating would be a huge inconvenience for us. We were waitlisted one cruise for main and luckily at last minute got it. When we arrived each night there were so many empty tables. One table next to us would literally show up an hour late each night because it was "too early" for them. you can take advantage of all the nice happy hours in the lounges and enjoy a leisurely dinner.

 

[Garyjames220]

We are a couple with no kids and we always go for the main seating and have two reasons for that

1 - just like to have dinner and then go to a show

2 - gives the food more time to go down so am not to full for room service that night

 

[CurtisB]

We (2A no K) prefer late. We like taking our time to get ready for dinner and seeing the show before we eat. We usually go grab a cocktail after the show and before dinner too. We have always been sat with other couples and have loved it so much that we are usually the last table out after dinner. At early seating we would be rushed out quicker so they could reset for the next seating.

 

[Quellman]

We (2A no K) prefer late. We like taking our time to get ready for dinner and seeing the show before we eat. We usually go grab a cocktail after the show and before dinner too. We have always been sat with other couples and have loved it so much that we are usually the last table out after dinner. At early seating we would be rushed out quicker so they could reset for the next seating.

We have shut down the restaurants a time or two also! The only night have an issue with late dining is on Pirate Night, I just can't eat and then do the buffet. The only time I have done the late night buffet was in 1998 so I don't remember it.

 

[KCBelle]

We (2 adults, no kids) tried 2nd seating on our first cruise and it just wasn't for us. The meal took so long that we were not out of there until after 10:30. Then we were so full and tired, we had to walk laps outside to stay awake so we wouldn't go to bed after eating so much. For our cruise coming up in March we selected 1st seating this time and we'll see how that is. I'm an early riser (and in bed by 10:30) so that probably has a lot to do with it.

 

[MickeyD]

We have always had late seating, even when our son sailed with us when he was young. I prefer it over having to rush back from port, or being rushed out of the dining room because they need to get ready for the next group. That said, no matter which you choose, the dining rooms are noisy--kids or no kids. Putting that many people in a room with bad acoustics, does not make for an intimate dining experience. That is what Palo and Remy are for.

 

[RedSox68]

We've cruised DCL 6 times. 5 late, 1 main. We just finally tried main seating on our last cruise (since we had our kids for this one) and hated it! Tons of kids, service felt rushed, and we felt so rushed during the day to get back to shower & get ready in time for dinner.

Funniest part, our first cruise we were upset & worried about being late seating. We ended up loving it.

Our upcoming cruise we have late seating, request of private table, and the kids secheduled in the nursery during dinner. Needless to say, we have it down pat.

This is why we do late dining on all of our cruises. We are all adults now that my daughter is older and we like eating at around 7:30-8:00 even on the ships with anytime dining. I know there are kids at both seating, but have been by the dining rooms during early seating and sometimes we have seen chaos with kids running around and noise. I have heard many times from friends who did early that they felt rushed to eat and get out in time to set up for late dining. We have never felt rushed at late dining -- except Pirate Night when they want to get you out to enjoy the show. I also like the extra time before dinner to either enjoy the port or relax between show and dinner -- get a before dinner drink, walk around, etc. And with late dining, you can sample the lunch offerings without being too full for dinner. It's really a personal preference though.

 

[Anchors Away 2016]

We were 9 people, adults and teens, and we did early seating for 7 nights last summer. I really didn't see a lot of loud or misbehaving kids. In general each room was VERY loud, but not because of the kids. There are just so many people. And the loudest part is probably the servers. They are trying to talk to everyone at once, and to be heard over the others, and they are trying to be interesting too.

We were pretty lucky, noise-wise, because we were sat kind of on the edge of the room in each case. Closer to the middle would have been even louder. Don't know if you can do anything about that though.

As for being rushed or having more time, I would ask you to consider two things:

1) Do you plan to go to the Live Show every night? If you do, you may find that early seating isn't much earlier than the early show. On our cruise, main dining was 5:45 and the early show was 6:15, so if you wanted to get there a little early to get seats together, you'll probably be there about 6:00. Not much different.

2) What do you plan to do afterwards? Do you plan to go to bed at 10:00 or do you plan to do activities? We found that early seating made the evening activities feel more relaxed and like we had more time after dinner.

So think about what your evening activities are going to be like and choose the dinner time that fits with that.

 

[cheermom2four]

We are 2 adults (with kids ages 5 to 29). We have done 2nd dining both times and put 2nd dining this time also. It did seem quieter (we walked by during first dinner and it was loud!). We were able to relax before dinner and if our youngest got hungry (or anyone for that matter) we would just get a snack. I guess it would also depend on which itinerary you were doing. We chose later this time especially since we are doing port intensive itinerary where we dont need to be back till 6pm. We will use this time to take naps after running around all day then go to dinner and be able to stay up after dinner also. Its kind of what you are used to. We are two hrs diff. from florida so we actually kept our eating time by eating later dining. We wanted the transition back to home being easy on our youngest and it was definitely easy since we ate the same time.

 

[hanscarlet]

We have 2 young kids and always do main seating and I often will advocate for main seating for couples with little ones... having said that, if it was just me and my husband, without a doubt I would do second seating in NY minute

 

[dtrain]

My wife and I just got off the Fantasy and opted for the early seating. It was a wonderful atmosphere every night and we never noticed overly noisy children. In fact, most of the kids in proximity to us were extremely well behaved and actually added a bit of fun to our dining experience. On our first night, there was a young girl (around 7-8) who sat at the table next to ours and my wife overheard they had the same name. She leaned over and asked the girl how she spelled her name (because it's always a thing with my wife LOL) and the little girl spelled out H-a-y-l-e-y. Eureka! My wife was thrilled she spelled it the 'correct' way and they formed an instant bond. Each night after, we spoke with the family and had a bit of fun with them.

 

[Shanti]

We like late seating. We rarely go to the shows, so that doesn't play into our preference. Instead, we're big on outdoor activities at port and on the upper decks of the ship. I like for us (mother & 12 year-old son) to be freshly showered and properly dressed for dinner at the MDRs, so main dining would require us to stop our port or pool deck activities no later than 4:30pm to get ready. I don't really like cutting things short that early. Then, after dinner, since we're nice & dry and clean, we're not in the mood to get messy again by swimming or riding the Aqua Duck, so that mostly limits us to indoor activities after dinner. On many port days, that would translate into no pool or slide time at all for us. No fun. Also, for those who like to have fun on the upper decks, it can be quite chilly out there in the late evening if it's a winter cruise, so we prefer to be outside during the late afternoon, and inside (eating dinner) during the evening.

 

[Amanda129]

I personally prefer the main dining because I'm an early riser, so this gives time for my dinner to settle before bed (which is usually soon after the second show). Also, I live in Florida, so the main dining time is closer to my regular dinner time, which makes it easier on me to adjust back to my regular schedule when I get home.

I've done both the main and late dining times, and haven't noticed any difference in the noise - with the exception of a fuller ship (so more people in the dining room).