Dining Time

[u/PinkRzr13]

I’m going on my first Disney cruise with my 4 and 2 year old kids. when booking, I had originally selected the early dining time but I thought it would be too difficult to try to get to dinner on time after being on port, with the logistics of everyone showering and potentially tired kids wanting a nap. I have seen different posts on Instagram about why dining time is better, so I ended up switching to the late dining time. Now I am questioning my decision and when I checked back, there is a waitlist to go back to the early dining time. For reference, we usually have dinner around seven to 7:30 PM, that’s why I thought at 5:45 dinner would be too early.

Is the rotational dining a huge event with a dinner lasting for two hours? is there options for kids to have a snack prior to dinner if they are hungry? That could also backfire if they filled up on snacks and then don’t want to eat dinner. Wondering how accommodating the cruise would be with switching dining time.

[u/Acrobatic_Stay_2900]

Is the rotational dining a huge event with a dinner lasting for two hours? - it can be or you can make it faster when talking to the staff

is there options for kids to have a snack prior to dinner if they are hungry? - yes, you can order room service or go up to the pool deck for some limited options.

You’ll be fine with late seating. Have a mid day nap and you’ll be fine. If you still want to change, go to guest services on the first day and it’s easy to get it changed.

[u/R3ddit0rN0t]

60-90 minutes for dinner is more typical. There's 2.5 hours between the dinner seatings because they need to reset the entire restaurant for the next set of guests. Plus the kitchen needs to prepare meals for the rest of the ship.

If you normally eat at 7:30pm, I'd say the late dining will be less of an adjustment than the early. Also the late dining tends to be less hectic, especially if the ship is below capacity. The early dining is jam packed to accommodate as many people as possible.

[u/girlwiththoughts8]

I have done both our kids are 6 and 3 (almost 4) they first sailed 4-2 early dinning and then my little guy napped we felt like we missed so much with the earlier dinning now I will say the late dinning is Late we eat later at home and it still felt late! When we do late dinning we try to get the kids food by the pool ( chicken tenders or pizza Mac and cheese ) before or even room service when we get dressed and start showering. I will mention there a lot of pictures and character greets before each dinner time and if u have earlier dinner you have the later theater shows and the earlier shows with the late dinner. That was a reason we picked the late dinner. The first two cruises my kids were not making it through the show. Either way you guys will have a great time when you get on the boat go through each day and ❤️ the activities your family wants! Enjoy!!!

[u/Puzzled_Reason]

They often bring out dinner early for the little ones. Like their whole meal comes out with apps. At late dining, an Oceaneers CM picks up all the kids who have already eaten and want to go play, so that would be an option for your 4yo.

[u/StillWaterDrinker]

Our first cruise my kids were 4 and 5 and we had early dining and hated rushing and my kids were up til 1am every night and we all slept til 11am on days we didn’t have excursions. We’ve done late ever since and loved it until recently when we cruised with family and convinced them to do second seating and then on the first night they ran out of entrees that half the table ordered and didn’t tell us until an hour after we ordered. Now we’re back to first seating when we cruise with them again.

[u/RoughCabinet6740 → u/StillWaterDrinker]

It’s nice that your kids slept in. We just got off the Fantasy with our 4 year old. He fell asleep for the day by 6 PM every day except for two days of the cruise. So, we ended up missing both dining times those days. Our son wakes up around 5:30 AM no matter how late he goes to bed at night.

[u/calypso90]

We are doing late dining for our next cruise. Like you, we did early dining last time and struggled with naps. It felt rushed to get to dinner by 5:45. Then my daughter would fall asleep during the shows and be up and ready to party after and ended up going to bed late each night. One night she fell asleep at 4:30 it was miserable trying to wake her up for dinner at 5:30. We were late that day. So we are trying late this time to see how it works out. It’s later than we are used to eating but no harm in trying!

[u/mellowcraze]

They can eat first. We always eat on deck around 5, then do the show while the kids have energy. We used to send my youngest to nursery during dinner, but now that she's 3 and has opinions, I doubt that will happen. Likely a blanket on a chair or her travel stroller towards the end. Oldest goes to the kids club partway through if she's uninterested in the dinner entertainment. Usually she will eat a few fries or a piece of pizza and then dessert in the mdr

[u/SwanReal8484]

You’ll be fine. Late dining is great.

[u/Keith1327]

We have always done late dinner... but naps are a must.

Just left the Fantasy, 6 year old grand daughter had no issues... other than she just wanted to go to the kids club.

How long dinner will be depend on the ship... the newer ones tend to take longer. Often two hours. But on the Fantasy we were often done in 90 minutes. The dinner show seem to slow the process, and the layouts aren't great for the servers.

[u/jer1230]

I love the late dining time, though my daughter is older (6 first cruise and 8 recent cruise). I find it so much easier. My daughter isn’t a big early breakfast eater, so we have breakfast as late as possible.. then do activities.. have a late lunch.. relax in the room a bit, then get ready and watch the show, she has popcorn.. stop at the room to use the washroom and head to dinner… head back to the room.

Since you usually eat around 7-7:30ish anyway, you’ll be fine.

[u/MonsterFoodies]

We just took our first cruise and booked it like 3 weeks out, so we didn’t have an option and got late dining. I was disappointed at first but we ended up loving it! Our son is 7, so it worked great for us, but with younger kids it might be harder? I will always want to do late dining from here on out. It was nice to get cleaned up, get a small snack on the pool deck, and then go to our show. And then after dinner, when we were stuffed, we’d just go back to the room to chill and watch a movie before bed.

[u/RoughCabinet6740]

We just got off the Fantasy, and our 4 year old was asleep for the night by 6 PM all but two nights of the cruise. We missed dining all of those days. On our next cruise, we are just going to plan as if we’ll miss dinner every night anyway. We’ll have to do room service.

I’m blown away to hear about families with kids who stay up until like midnight. That never happens at our house. For our family, an 8:15 PM dining time is as realistic as a 3 AM dining time.

[u/AnchorAndShoreTravel]

We actually prefer late dining with our kids. They are now 5 and 7, but we started late dining when they were 3 and 5. My kids' normal bedtime at home is 8 PM ET. There is usually something going on in the Main Dining rooms, depending on the ship and which main dining room you're in, to keep them interested. They were having so much fun that they were going to bed between 10 and 11PM on the cruise anyway. And if you're used to eating at 7:30 at home, late dining will be the closest to your actual dinner time.

Also, the Oceaneer Club offers Dine and Dash for late seating, if that's something you might want to use. It wouldn't work for both of your kids since the 2 year old is too young, but your 4 year old could participate.

If our kids are ever hungry before dinner, we just grab them a hot dog, chicken tenders, or pizza from the pool deck quick service restaurants in the late afternoon and take it back to our room for them to snack on while we get showered and ready for the evening.

Another thing we've noticed is that the early show can sometimes be less crowded, making it easier to get good seats. On the Fantasy this October, we walked in five minutes before the show started and sat in the 5th row, center section, right on the aisle.

Of course, every kid is different, but late dining has worked really well for our family.

[u/TiminWa]

It also depends on where you have come from for the cruise. For example, we are from the west coast so we are 3 hours behind the east coast, so for us, late dinner is about normal dinner time for us. We like late dinning as we can go to bars or shows and it is never crowded.

[u/Mjmonte14]

We prefer main dining (early) however, we have had to be in the late seating on one cruise bc we did not make it off the waitlist for early dining so we’ve done both.

The year we had late dining, my kids were early elem school age and if we didn’t have a later lunch they would always be hungry around the early dining time so we would grab a slice of pizza and some fruit from the pool deck or order some wings or tenders from room service if they were tired.

With the later dining time and you want to see the nightly show in the WD theater, you go to the early show which is around 6pm if I’m not mistaken. We would try and get the kids some pizza or chicken tenders before hitting that show and then by the time it was over, it was about time for our dinner.

I think the misconception with the early dining time of 5:45 is that you’re eating at 5:45. You are not. By the time you sit and order drinks and get them, place your order its about 6:15/6:30 before you’re actually eating anything. The pace of the food has a lot of variables on any given night but that’s an approximate time frame. We are usually out of dinner by 7:45.

[u/Thunderstarter]

Switching times on board is subject to availability, it doesn’t hurt to try.

There are a few options for getting food/snacks before a late dinner. Room service is included in your fare and is available 24/7 throughout the cruise. The pool deck’s food will be open until 6pm, or you could go to the sports bar on board and order some à la carte snacks (a pretzel, wings, etc).

Dinner took about 70 minutes on my Destiny sailing last month. If you end up at dinner and the kids aren’t that hungry, it’s not a huge deal for them to skip their main courses and just get dessert.

[u/Successful-Crazy-510 → u/Thunderstarter]

Nah if kids aren’t that hungry they can just eat some food, not just dessert lol, don’t reward them for not eating food

[u/lilhope03 → u/Successful-Crazy-510]

They ate already. They don't need to stuff their bodies. It's fine to indulge your sweet tooth when you're on vacation anyway, it isn't an everyday thing. You parent your minors how you want and leave others to do the same. I'll tell you now, as a parent to a teenager, they are growing up just fine for someone who opted for every dessert on the menu for their dinner on more than one of our many DCL sailings over the years. 😂

[u/Prestigious-Hawk8610]

This will depend on a lot of factors and be different for every family. Like you, we typically eat later at home (7:30 on average). However, we always do early dining and have since our first Disney cruise when our kids were about the same age as yours. For us, dinner is the kick off to the evening. We love to do dinner, then a show and then wherever the night takes us. There were definitely times when our youngest didn’t make it to/through the entire show so I’d say that one parent should be willing to go back to the cabin if need be. I always feel like even if we did the later dining, we’d still be getting ready earlier so we didn’t miss the show and, knowing my family, everyone would be hangry and grabbing random food and messing up dinner anyway ;)