Advice on seating time

[jaa37]

Hi all - my family is doing a four-day Disney Dream cruise for the first time. We have four-year-old twins whose normal bedtime is around 8. We're like them to be able to go to at least one of the shows at night without keeping them up past 9. Right now we're thinking we're better off signing up for the late seating - then we will order room service for the kids around 5:30, go to the early show (which starts around 6:15, I think?), and then my wife and I can eat quickly at the late seating (with the kids having a snack if they want) before getting them back to the room to get into bed by 9 or so. Does that seem best? The alternative is to do the early seating, but I'm worried they won't be able to stay up for the late shows, which I guess don't start until 8 or so.
Any thoughts from more experienced cruisers?

 

[Maggie'sMom]

Hi all - my family is doing a four-day Disney Dream cruise for the first time. We have four-year-old twins whose normal bedtime is around 8. We're like them to be able to go to at least one of the shows at night without keeping them up past 9. Right now we're thinking we're better off signing up for the late seating - then we will order room service for the kids around 5:30, go to the early show (which starts around 6:15, I think?), and then my wife and I can eat quickly at the late seating (with the kids having a snack if they want) before getting them back to the room to get into bed by 9 or so. Does that seem best? The alternative is to do the early seating, but I'm worried they won't be able to stay up for the late shows, which I guess don't start until 8 or so.
Any thoughts from more experienced cruisers?

There really is no "eating quickly" in the MDRs. If you have the second seating, you get seated starting at 8:15. Then you place your drink orders, order your food, and the food comes out one course at a time. When we've had second seating, we never got done before 9:30, and 9:30 would be an early finish.

I think you are better off with the early dining if you want to shoot for a 9:00 bedtime. The shows start at 8:30, but are usually slightly shorter than an hour so you'd be more likely to be done before 9:30. And you may not want to go to the show every night. The nights you don't go to the show, you can make the 9:00 bedtime with no issue with the early dining. With late dining, you are guaranteed to not be done before 9:00 every single night unless you skip the MDR.

 

[RamblingMad]

Two problems. First, the room service is awful. Second, if you get early dining, your time to leave on the last day is super early. This is why late dining is better. The shows are more tween age and above with the on deck shows being better for younger kids. You might want to alternate between the two of you with the kids and the shows.

 

[Chemist]

I would go for early dining.

Your kids may or may not be up for the show.
But its better for them to skip the show than to skip dinner!

(And dining is slow no matter which seating you are doing.)

Last day breakfast is super early if you get early dining. However, Cabanas will be open, and you can show up whenever for that.

 

[Quellman]

The shows are more tween age and above with the on deck shows being better for younger kids.

We only watch the dedicated shows (Frozen, Tangled, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin) and not the variety shows when on board. They are familiar to my 6 year old and he has a great time.

 

[gotomu212]

I’m different than everyone else- we’ve sailed since our kids were 2 and we much prefer late dinner so they can see the shows. Ours loved the shows as 4 year olds with their favorite songs. Instead of room service you can do poolside food before the shows, and then if you really want to make this fun you could put your kids in the clubs during late dining. That gives the parents time for a grown up meal, and the club will definitely keep your kids awake an extra hour (Conversely we would bring ours to late dinner and if they fell asleep that was okay too).

Its only 4 nights so you can be a little loose with bedtime too

 

[deliela999]

Just FYI, they have the shows live on the TV in your room too. My daughter turns into a monster past bedtime and after dinner she was DONE so we went back to the room and watched the show on TV. I'm sure it's better in person but this worked for us.

 

[gotomu212]

Two problems. First, the room service is awful. Second, if you get early dining, your time to leave on the last day is super early. This is why late dining is better. The shows are more tween age and above with the on deck shows being better for younger kids. You might want to alternate between the two of you with the kids and the shows.

You can also talk to your head server the last night and change to late dining breakfast. You might not have your same serving team, but they always have had room at late dining breakfast.

 

[disneyholic family]

we did early seating this summer for our group of 9 that included 3 toddlers who normally go to bed at 7 PM.
i was worried they would be too tired for the show, which i think was at 8:30 for those who had early dinner.
The kids were fine. They were wide awake for the shows and LOVED them.
The ages were 3 and 5 years old.
This was on a 7 night cruise, where there was a show every night and the kids attended all of them.
My son felt the first seating was better as that would have them eating dinner pretty close to when they usually eat (normally they eat at 5:30 PM, so early seating was very close to that).
.

 

[RamblingMad]

We only watch the dedicated shows (Frozen, Tangled, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin) and not the variety shows when on board. They are familiar to my 6 year old and he has a great time.

I agree. These are great shows. Much better than the work alcoholic one and the magician.

 

[disneyholic family]

on our 7 night cruise, in the main theater we had 4 disney theater shows, 2 variety acts (that were really good) and the opening of the lion king movie.
We also had two other variety acts that appeared at times other than the main theater showtimes.
Basically, there was non-stop entertainment of the highest quality.

 

[sbenemerito]

Another vote for early dining. Dining on a Disney cruise is part of the fun. Ask for dinner to be served quicker than normal (which we have done) or skip the appetizer/salad and get right into the entree. That skips a course and saves time. Then, go to the cabin to get ready for bed -change clothes, brush teeth etc (some kids wear their pjs to the shows). After the show, head back to the cabin and straight to bed.

Also, consider going to the early show and then Cabanas for dinner if you want a quicker meal. I would avoid room service, if possible. Not a lot of choices and the food is not that good.

 

[cedricandsophie]

I’m a big proponent of late dining because it’s more relaxed. I don’t have small kids anymore but when we did, they were fine with going to early show and eating later, but we never eat before 630 or 7 at home. I do not recommend cabanas because part of the fun of the MDR is the ambiance and the servers. You obviously know what works for your kids. And I was never one of those moms or grandmas who forced bed times at a certain time especially when on vacation, so I expected everyone to do what we wanted and adapt.

 

[Weedy]

I agree with you for late seating.
When my kids were little I was always very strict with bedtime.
But we found on cruises there was no bedtime
We always did late dinner. Feed the kids early either from food from the pool deck or room service. Went to the early show and then dropped the kids off at the kids club. They were much happier there then sitting through a long dinner.

 

[Marc D]

OP’s plan involves a lot of sacrifices - kid eating sub-par meals and missing the MDR, not enjoying the MDR themselves. Also, a quick MDR meal puts a lot of pressure on the service team.

Family meal time on a cruise is too important for us and we would not go without. When our son was young, we would do early dining together, then go back to the room for him to shower and change into PJ’s then go to the show. He fell asleep a few times but most nights, he would easily sit through the entire thing without a problem, then go to bed.

 

[DisneyPiPhi]

I think your best bet is to all enjoy early dining together, then either go to the show or catch the show on the TV in your room while the kids get ready for bed. The original plan sounds pretty rushed.

 

[disneyholic family]

i agree that dinner in the main dining rooms is one of the highlights of a Disney Cruise for both adults and children (even the youngest).
The rooms themselves are interesting, but the staff assigned to you will go above and beyond, especially when there are little kids.
Our server and assistant server were so good to the toddlers in our group.
Every dinner was an experience because of the servers.

 

[tvguy]

I think you are just going to have to make your best guess and hope it works.
Kids and family habits are all different. Been a long time since either of my kids was 4, but DW and I would have done a happy dance if they went to sleep at 8 pm. You could put them to bed, but neither would fall asleep until at least 10 pm at that age. I worked graveyard shift (11pm to 7 am) at that time, and left for work at 10:40pm and many nights I had two faces in two bedroom windows waving goodbye to me.
And we tend to eat later on vacation than at home.
We are late seating people. And late seating tends to be a much more relaxed, slower meal service. On DCL we were rarely out of the dining room before 10 pm. My son and the wait staff took turns showing off magic tricks after dinner. We had quite a crowd around our table after dinner.

 

[disneyholic family]

I think you are just going to have to make your best guess and hope it works.
Kids and family habits are all different. Been a long time since either of my kids was 4, but DW and I would have done a happy dance if they went to sleep at 8 pm. You could put them to bed, but neither would fall asleep until at least 10 pm at that age. I worked graveyard shift (11pm to 7 am) at that time, and left for work at 10:40pm and many nights I had two faces in two bedroom windows waving goodbye to me.
And we tend to eat later on vacation than at home.
We are late seating people. And late seating tends to be a much more relaxed, slower meal service. On DCL we were rarely out of the dining room before 10 pm. My son and the wait staff took turns showing off magic tricks after dinner. We had quite a crowd around our table after dinner.

people always say this about late seating, but we had the same experience in early seating.
This past cruise was the first time we did early seating and it was great and relaxed and the servers seemed completely relaxed and hung out at our table playing with the toddlers (and the adults for that matter).
.

 

[tvguy]

people always say this about late seating, but we had the same experience in early seating.
This past cruise was the first time we did early seating and it was great and relaxed and the servers seemed completely relaxed and hung out at our table playing with the toddlers (and the adults for that matter).
.

Except that they have to have everyone out and everything set up for late seating. I'm just a few weeks off a Celebrity cruise. It was nowhere near full and we had late seating. THAT was the quickest Late Seating I have ever had because our server team has just 2 tables, DW and I at one, and another couple. When we finished a course, the next one was there. We were out in 30 to 45 minutes every night.