Those who have tried My Family Time Dining

[momof4_tn]

I apolgize if this has been asked but the Search button is gone. I'm looking for those who have used the My Family Time Dining and your experience with the AO staff coming to pick up the kids.

 

We are taking our first family cruise in December on Oasis and I really like the idea of it, but I'm wondering if they are efficient with it.

 

My other option is do late dining and feed the kids earlier in the WJ and take to AO. We would attempt a few nights in the MDR, but right now we are stuck with late dining.

[Nettee]

you need to be on Early dining to use this service. The AO staff wait for ten minutes I think from about 6.45 - no problem with them, the challenge is to get the children fed in 45 minutes. Our waitress worked very hard to make it happen and I can't fault her but it did make it a rush so we didn't keep on with it.

 

In the end we were very happy eating all together and then dropping the children ourselves afterwards while we found some evening entertainment.

 

We also did the odd night of speciality dining a bit later where we fed the children in the windjammer first which also worked fine.

[Ourusualbeach]

I have to agree that as fast as the serving staff go they are very rushed to get the kids out and ready for pick up. Several times dessert was a cookie to go as there was not enough tine for the ice cream.

 

We also found it inconvenient as you had to take the kids to just outside the dining room in the middle of your appetizer. We had a couple of instances where the AO staff were 5-10 minutes late.

 

We did your idea of taking the kids to the WJ early then dropping them off at AO and enjoying a later dinner by ourselves and we really liked how that worked out.

 

This was all 2 years ago but I don't think much has changed. Now the kids are just that much older and they are wanting to order the Chops steak every night in the MDR. Oh the good old days of chicken fingers and fries.:)

[nolesrule]

I have to agree that as fast as the serving staff go they are very rushed to get the kids out and ready for pick up. Several times dessert was a cookie to go as there was not enough tine for the ice cream.

 

We also found it inconvenient as you had to take the kids to just outside the dining room in the middle of your appetizer. We had a couple of instances where the AO staff were 5-10 minutes late.

 

We did your idea of taking the kids to the WJ early then dropping them off at AO and enjoying a later dinner by ourselves and we really liked how that worked out.

 

This was all 2 years ago but I don't think much has changed. Now the kids are just that much older and they are wanting to order the Chops steak every night in the MDR. Oh the good old days of chicken fingers and fries.:)

 

Chickens don't have fingers.

 

My method of choice is to eat together as early as possible in the MDR (either early seating or MTD), and then one of us delivers them to AO when the kids are done eating and we return and finish our meal leisurely.

 

We tried the MFTD pickup, but the kids really need another 15 minutes. The poor waiters do their best to get everything out in a hurry. It's not their fault, but it's just not really possible.

 

I'm not so much interested in feeding the kids first at WJ, because that means 30-45 minutes of wasted time in the WJ when we could be doing something else. Plus, meal time is always family time for us, and just the kids eating doesn't feel right.

[ginadc]

We did MFT once during our last sailing on the Allure in February. The AO staff were right outside the dining room from 6:40-6:50--I often noticed them there even when we weren't using MFT, because for some reason at least one of my kids seemed to always need to go to the bathroom right about that time. They seemed very prompt about it, at least on this sailing.

 

It is convenient to some degree, but I agree with others who say that it makes dinner for the kids pretty rushed. A 6:50-7 pm window might work a little better, but since AO evening session officially starts at 6:45, that would probably leave them with too many staffers out of Adventure Ocean for too long.

 

If you get to the dining room right at 6 pm, get seated and let your waiter know immediately that you're doing MFT, I think it works pretty well. But even a five-minute delay on the front end can make things a little hairy as you're trying to get your kid(s) out the door. Most of the time, we just either wrangle the kids through dinner, or have one or the other parent take them up to AO when they're done eating, whenever that may be.

[ckfred]

On some ships, the AO staff will take kids to dinner in the WJ, getting a choice of pizza or chicken fingers. That works well.

 

We have also asked our travel agent to request seating in the MDR near the entrance. On the first two cruise with out son, we were some distance from tne entrance. Trying to navigate a kid through a dining room with waiters carrying large serving trays is just an accident waiting to happen.

 

We haven't done the AO pick-up service, but rather simply taken our son to AO, usually after the entree. This isn't that bad. Once, my wife couldn't figure out which dessert I wanted, so she ordered two for me.

[Baxter]

Our kids loved the option to dine with the kid's club for dinner. We were a little unhappy that they would prefer to eat in the buffet than join us for dinner, but we got past that. I think this time around we will "require" that the kids join us in the main dining room for lunch when it is available and then if they want dinner with their friends, I still feel like I had a sit down meal with them. They're 7 and 5.

[beckyjohns]

We have Early Seating on the Allure and I would like to use the My Family Time Dining, but I'm worried it will be too rushed. I've thought about switching to My Time Dining and making a 5:45 reservation each night to give us a just but more time before 6:45 pickup.

 

I can't seem to get a straight answer anywhere about what time they feed the kids if they go to camp for dinner. From what I've seen, it looks like if they want dinner at camp, they HAVE to be there at 5. If they eat elsewhere, they CANNOT go to camp until after 7.