s/o Kids at Dinner

[K&Rs Mom]

I didn't want to hijack the other thread, because this has nothing to do with dvds, but several people mentioned taking the kids to their clubs between courses because they were finished eating. I thought I read on the RCCL website that they now will have some of the Adventure Ocean staff outside the dining room after an hour so you can take the kids to them halfway through dinner then they all walk up together. Has anyone done this? I can't find a link now - did I imagine it?!

 

Also, on the one cruise we were on (Independence last March), the kids' appetizers came with our appetizers, their entrees (whether from the kids' menu or the adult menu) with our entrees, and dessert the same. If one of them didn't order an appetizer, their entree still came at the same time. Is this unusual?

[boulders]

My Family Time dining is when the AO staff will meet your child outside the dining room. We tried this on the Radiance in August. It was the first week they had implemented it and it didn't work well IMO. The meeting time was 6:40, exactly when the entrees were being served. So, up I get when my entree is served, go outside with the little one, and wait and wait and wait until AO gets their act together. Come back 10 minutes later, my entree is cold and my other 2 children have finished their entrees. I much preferred NOT doing MFTD.

 

Any other time, without MFTD, the children's appetizers and entrees were served at the same time as the adults'.

[cb at sea]

If you do main seating in traditional dining, the kids will eat with you, and then go off to their respective activities...evening AO is geared toward the early (main) seating.

Some folks will feed the kids at the buffet, send them off, and then do late seating on their own.

[guk]

if you ask they will bring the kids food out whenever you want to fit in with what best for you, our waitress used to have our DD juice on the table before we even arrived then just asked at the beginning of the meal each day when she wanted each course

[smoothy]

My Family Time dining is when the AO staff will meet your child outside the dining room. We tried this on the Radiance in August. It was the first week they had implemented it and it didn't work well IMO. The meeting time was 6:40, exactly when the entrees were being served. So, up I get when my entree is served, go outside with the little one, and wait and wait and wait until AO gets their act together. Come back 10 minutes later, my entree is cold and my other 2 children have finished their entrees. I much preferred NOT doing MFTD.

 

Any other time, without MFTD, the children's appetizers and entrees were served at the same time as the adults'.

 

Give them a bit to shake the bugs out of the system, I think MFTD should work out fine once they get their timings and coordinations down. The first week of any new operation is the hardest and I don't think they would let problems like you saw stay in place.

[K&Rs Mom]

If you do main seating in traditional dining, the kids will eat with you, and then go off to their respective activities...evening AO is geared toward the early (main) seating.

 

That's what we did last time. It didn't occur to me to take them up between courses, because their food was coming out the same with ours, but I like the idea of it because the wait between finish appetizer & start entree could sometimes be trouble.

 

Is the MFTD like the My Time Dining that you have to sign up for? It seems like 6:40 is pretty early to be done with the 6pm seating, even if they get all their food at once.

[K&Rs Mom]

sorry, double post

[jam82]

When we have cruised with our son, who has been cruising at ages 1 and 2, the waiter always brought his food first, usually with our appetizers, sometimes earlier. We told our waiter that our son will have the chicken nuggets and fries each night. It worked great. Many our the waiters have then brought cookies for my son while we had our entree. Everyone was happy.

[crusinmama06]

Boulders! Do I remember you saying that you thought the MTFD people were put in a different section away from the other diners?

 

Right now I have my kids signed up for the MTFD on Explorer - but we are going with a group of family members and I don't want us all banished to a separate section just because I signed the kids up for MTFD. :confused:

 

I may switch it before its time to sail.

 

So will we be banished? Sitting next to the bathroom door? :p

[jagwebb]

We did the MFTD on the Freedom at the end of Sept. It worked great. We never "signed" up for it. We just registered the kids for AO the first night and then each night, an AO counselor would be waiting outside the MDR at 6:40 pm. Some nights we did it and other nights we did not. We never had to tell them in advance. I think they wait for a little while and take whatever kids show up. We usually ordered dinner for the kids before we even ordered our appetizers. And they were always finished by 6:40 and our entrees were usually brought out around 6:50. As far as table assignments - I don't think they assign those with MFTD to a separate area. We were at the back of the dining room right by a window with several other tables that had no kids at them. And also - they assign the tables before you even get on the cruise and they have no idea at that time who will be doing the MFTD. We were a group of 9 - 4 different families. Two families had kids and two did not and it worked out just fine. At least this is how it worked on our 9/27 sailing...

[boulders]

MFTD people were not in a different section. My waiter had no idea what I was talking about when I requested My Family Time Dining and said that I would have to get reassigned. :confused: Said "Have a nice cruise" when I left the table that night too. So I did get myself reassigned. Didn't like the waiter or the tablemates (who showed up 35 minutes late) either.

 

I got told off for expecting to see the AO staff outside the MDR each day. Even when we did sign up, because we ended up at the back of the MDR, by the time we hiked out to the front, we could have just as easily taken the elevators up to AO.

 

It was my understanding when MFTD was first rolled out, that those signed up for it would be in a different section and that AO staff would come through to collect the kiddos. IMO, that would work better than what they had on the Radiance in August.

 

BTW, we did end up sitting next to the kitchen door, at a table for 8 by ourselves. :(

[CruisingCamper]

We are signed up for the Family dining for our Jewel of the Seas cruise in February. We have DS3 who will probably go to AO at night some.

 

So, what I am understanding on the thread is that we need to order his food immediately when we get seating in the dining room, and by 6:40 he'll be ready to go! Then we'll have to take him to meet the AO staff at the dining room entrance? I hope it goes well.. we'll see.

[kte95]

I talked to my TA about MFTD. She said that we could do it as long as we were on the early seating (which we are) and we register at AO when we get there. I was thinking we would keep them with us for formal nights and have them go on the other nights. We are a group of 8: 4 adults and 4 kids under 9. I envision them being well behaved, but reality is not always what I envision especially when there is so much to do and probably less sleeping than usual.

 

I have never cruised with my kids before so any thoughts on having the kids with me on formal night are welcome. I heard there are kids dinner nights that happen on formal nights. (?)