Not sure which seating to choose this time?

[smheese]

While we generally eat early all the time at home and got the main seating our last couple cruises, our kids are now 10, 12 and 14 and wondering if we should switch to later seating? What are the advantages and disadvantages of both? At first I thought it would be advantageous to have more time on the islands on port days and not rush back but it seems all the excursions get you back to the ship an hour or more before leave time anyway. Just wanted to hear some feedback from other families as to which is better suited to a family with kids our age that won't really be using the clubs anyway unfortunately. 

[1025cruise]

If you don't mind eating late, go late. 

[Missus_Aitch]

We've been cruising since DD was 8 and always have the later seating.  It makes for more relaxed afternoons, as you say, plus the lines for the water slide will dwindle when the early diners leave the pool to get dressed. And there are fewer very young kids, which makes for a more pleasant dining experience (plus fewer of them in the early shows). I recommend it!

[joyfullmommie2017]

We love second seating.  So much more relaxing

 

[Cedricandsophie]

I too vote for late seating.  The kids can go to the club after dinner.  And before dinner you have the early show, a family game of some sort and then a much more leisurely dinner.  My husband still loves the shows.  I could care less,  he goes with our adult disabled daughter and her friend, who we always bring.  Sometimes I show up, sometimes I take my time getting ready and head to a bar for a drink,  we meet up after the show.  The girls often go to see characters and we head to the piano bar.  or sometimes we all hit family karaoke or a game show.  Then a leisurely dinner with our usually excellent servers and the girls may watch for characters while we go to the adult show or go dancing.  When my grandkids were your kids ages we never saw them after dinner. They would get back to the room late or we would pick them up late,   Now we are lucky that our adult daughter and her friend can be on their own and just meet us back in the room.  

[cantgetin]

Definitely late.  The only down side is that it is a long time from lunch to dinner, which we solve with a "healthy snack" in the late afternoon.

[Tasm3n]

For us, the choice depends on which coast we are sailing from.  We live on the west coast and always do late dining when sailing from the east coast.  We treat late dining as if it was regular dining just on the opposite coast 🙂

 

We've definitely enjoyed not having to rush to get showered/ready for dinner after a day at port.  That is a nice perk of the later seating.

[nolatravelgirl]

Loved late dining for all the reasons stated. It is nice to not feel rushed to get to dinner. We usually have a pool side snack and then popcorn during the show. Most of our party is used to eating an early dinner at home but everyone seemed to adjust nicely. Heck, even the kid who always gets up at the crack of dawn was sleeping in a bit more since we kept him out late as we would sometimes hit an adult game show after dinner while he enjoyed the kid's club for an hour, which he loved. The kid's club were still very full after late dinner so they won't be alone. 

[rinkyd]

I haven't been on Disney yet (going this Fall), but aren't the show times earlier than on other cruise lines....like 6 pm and 8 pm?  If you would want to see the shows and have a late dinner, you would have to be ready early anyway for the early show at 6?  It wouldn't matter if you DON'T want to see the shows, but we picked early dinner so we could see the late shows at 8 pm.  Please let me know if I am incorrect on the show times.

[gometros]

On 2/28/2020 at 3:10 PM, rinkyd said:

I haven't been on Disney yet (going this Fall), but aren't the show times earlier than on other cruise lines....like 6 pm and 8 pm?  If you would want to see the shows and have a late dinner, you would have to be ready early anyway for the early show at 6?  It wouldn't matter if you DON'T want to see the shows, but we picked early dinner so we could see the late shows at 8 pm.  Please let me know if I am incorrect on the show times.

 

Correct. There are two show times each night, one for the late seating, usually around 6:15pm and one for the early seating, at 8:30pm. 

[nolatravelgirl]

On 2/28/2020 at 3:10 PM, rinkyd said:

I haven't been on Disney yet (going this Fall), but aren't the show times earlier than on other cruise lines....like 6 pm and 8 pm?  If you would want to see the shows and have a late dinner, you would have to be ready early anyway for the early show at 6?  It wouldn't matter if you DON'T want to see the shows, but we picked early dinner so we could see the late shows at 8 pm.  Please let me know if I am incorrect on the show times.

There is an early and a late show. The only caveat is there are only 3 Disney shows, which IMHO are the only ones really worth seeing. The others are filler shows (comedian, magician, etc) that we didn't feel we had to see if we were enjoying other things. Also note that early dinner starts at 5:45 but the early show doesn't start till 6:15. That 30 minutes can make a difference. Not sure what ship you are on but the Wonder only has one Pirate Party that is sandwiched between early and late seating dining. If you had early seating dining you were at a disadvantage for getting prime viewing for the party. I know they rush dinner so people can make it out but rushing around is not my idea of fun. We had a prime spot on the 10 floor balcony which made for the perfect viewing spot of the whole stage for little kids without anyone having to hold them up. Also great spot to see Pirate Mickey ziplining and then fireworks. The servers seemed much calmer at late dining since they weren't trying to rush everyone out.