I'm converted! No more Late Seating for me!

[ilovetheislands]

And you probably didn't feel "rushed after port", did you? I never did understand that theory from the late dining advocates. You're typically back on board at 4:00 anyway.

 

 

That is what I thought - The only folks that I could conceivably understand using that train of thought are those that are booked in a quad...they may take a bit longer to get ready and probably do not have time for that pre-dinner nap and cocktail after returning from a shore excursion.

[GlendaleCruiser]

I can't eat that many times a day. If I come back from port and I'm hungry, I want dinner, not a snack on Lido to tide me over to another meal late. I don't nap after excursions, I'm usually excited to go to the MDR for my favorite dishes.

 

And some may think it's too "scheduled", but as far as I am concerned, it is "scheduled for me" since I like to eat around 6-7 at home.

[truchattycathy]

That is what I thought - The only folks that I could conceivably understand using that train of thought are those that are booked in a quad...they may take a bit longer to get ready and probably do not have time for that pre-dinner nap and cocktail after returning from a shore excursion.

 

We book four to a room and never have a problem with early. We booked late one cruise and after the first night we asked to be switched to early. Just a personal preference.

[boandmeg]

yes, it's definitely a personal preference. We go on cruises for the ports of call, not necessarily the dining, shows, etc. Don't get me wrong, we love those things as well, but, the ports far outweigh those things. Staying in the ports as long as possible is important to us......if we HAD to be on board by 4:00, then i guess we MAY choose early dining, but when we don't have to be on board until 6:00 b/c the ship leaves at 7:00, there's no way we would do early dining. Those 2 extra hrs in Naples or Rome are much more wonderful than eating at 6:00, IMO. I guess eating is more important to some people than the ports of call.

 

to some of you early diners-when you're in ports in Europe and the ship leaves at 7:00 pm, does it not bother you to have to be on board a couple of hrs earlier than you would have to, to get ready for dinner by 6:00 when you could spend 2 more hrs at these wonderful places?? Just curious.....Thanks!

[yesaccasey]

I always do early seating. It gives you so much more time for the shows and night activities. There's not much going on between 6 and 8, so why not spend it in the dining room?

[Perfect Stranger]

yes, it's definitely a personal preference. We go on cruises for the ports of call, not necessarily the dining, shows, etc. Don't get me wrong, we love those things as well, but, the ports far outweigh those things. Staying in the ports as long as possible is important to us......if we HAD to be on board by 4:00, then i guess we MAY choose early dining, but when we don't have to be on board until 6:00 b/c the ship leaves at 7:00, there's no way we would do early dining. Those 2 extra hrs in Naples or Rome are much more wonderful than eating at 6:00, IMO. I guess eating is more important to some people than the ports of call.

 

to some of you early diners-when you're in ports in Europe and the ship leaves at 7:00 pm, does it not bother you to have to be on board a couple of hrs earlier than you would have to, to get ready for dinner by 6:00 when you could spend 2 more hrs at these wonderful places?? Just curious.....Thanks!

 

Carnival sails to the Caribbean, not Europe. In most ports you need to be back on board by 4:00. That's plenty of time to shower and lay down for a little while before dinner.

[crusinpsychRN]

I used to do early with two teens. In Belize after a day cave tubing and zip lining we didn't get any lunch and were really hungry. We got to the ship at 5pm, ran to Lido for a hamburger and it was more than tight to get to early dining for all of us to shower and dress.

 

Going solo I've done late 4 times. Loved getting sushi at 5:30pm. But it seemed all the photographers were shut down the hour before late seating and I found myself wandering around with not much going on.

 

I also thought more solos would be at late dining. Do you think that's true?

 

I'm back to early from now on.

[skittl1321]

Carnival sails to the Caribbean, not Europe. In most ports you need to be back on board by 4:00. That's plenty of time to shower and lay down for a little while before dinner.

 

Carnival cruises lots of places- they sail to Europe also.

 

Our carribean itinerary we have 5 ports and 2 of them the departure is 6:00, 1 is 7:00, and only 1 is at 4:00. (The last is San Juan at night- that messes up everyone's dinner plans.)

 

Aren't you required to be back on ship just 1 hour before the ship departs? It seems like most of these places you would need to cut into your port time, just a little, to get to early seating looking nice.

 

In Europe, even more so.

[Perfect Stranger]

I just visited the Carnival website and the only cruises listed for Europe are on the Magic in 2012.

[Knights on the Beach]

I just visited the Carnival website and the only cruises listed for Europe are on the Magic in 2012.

Carnival has done many cruises in Europe. I know quite a few people who have been on them.

 

We prefer late dining. We had early once (on Carnival Victory) and we had a group of 11 and all wanted to sit together. If they moved us to late as we requested, we would have been split up. We kept the early time, but it was a pain. On many of our past Carnival cruises, we were in port much later than 5:00 in some cases. Carnival used to stay in Cozumel until 10:00 or even midnight, for example. I guess the main reason I wasn't crazy about it was because we don't eat dinner at 6:00 at home, so why would I want to on a cruise?

 

I'm ready to try any time dining on our next cruise if we have a small group. We had 16 on Valor last month, so we needed an assigned time. It was hard enough to get everyone there on time as it was. I knew there was no way we could do any time. We'd never get them all there at once. ;)

[boandmeg]

Perfect Stranger--Carnival cruises to Europe and we are booked on it in May of 2011. Every one of our ports of call leave at 7 pm, with the exception of Rome, which leaves at 10pm. :) So, I definitely want to stay in the ports of call until I absolutely have to be on board. I may never get a chance to go back. Like i said, I'd rather have 2 extra hrs in Europe than eat at 6:00.

[Perfect Stranger]

That's "strange". I wonder why they only listed 2012.

[boandmeg]

not sure, but the first sailing is the one i'm on, which leaves Venice on May 1, 2011.

[geezersgirl]

I love late seating! The biggest benefit is that there are usually very few kids at the later seating times.

[Knights on the Beach]

That's "strange". I wonder why they only listed 2012.

The Carnival site does show cruises in Europe starting in May of 2011. I had no problem finding them when I did a search:

 

http://www.carnival.com/BookingEngine/SailingSearch/?dat=052011&dest=E

[halos]

.

We prefer late dining. ;)

 

I love late seating!

 

Me too!!

 

We spend every second of daylight outside on deck and watch the sun set every night. I can't waste one second of sunshine, fresh air and sea. I much prefer to go to dinner when the sun is no longer available to warm my skin.

 

As far as being too full to go to bed, I don't eat til I'm stuffed to the gills, because going to bed on a very full stomach isn't any fun.

If we are late for, or even miss a show it's no big deal to us. We don't cruise for the shows.

[skittl1321]

I just visited the Carnival website and the only cruises listed for Europe are on the Magic in 2012.

 

Didn't the Carnival Freedom debut in Europe? I could be wrong, but I thought the virtual cruise here on CC for Freedom was the Med.

[Gman2004]

I couldn't imagine finishing dinner at 10:00 p.m. No time for the calories to get burned off.

 

A fast walk on the treadmill for 1 hour will burn about 600-700 calories. So unless you're heading off to the gym after your early seating dinner you're not going to burn that meal off by bedtime.;)

[Name Of The Game]

Ugh I can't exercise when I'm full. You're not supposed to do it before bed anyway it keeps you awake.

[sandij]

We've done three European cruises and having the early seating was never a problem, they offer pretty much the same food at the buffet upstairs until mid evening. so if your tour keeps you late you just eat there instead.

[GlendaleCruiser]

Didn't the Carnival Freedom debut in Europe? I could be wrong, but I thought the virtual cruise here on CC for Freedom was the Med.

 

 

So did the Dream last year and so will the Carnival Breeze when they add it to the schedule.

[drafterdw]

we have done any time dining the last two cruises and are booked for that in Feb....would not go back to a set time, we can choose when to go depending on what we are doing during the day or during the evening. Never waited longer than 15 minutes

[T. Advisor King]

A fast walk on the treadmill for 1 hour will burn about 600-700 calories. So unless you're heading off to the gym after your early seating dinner you're not going to burn that meal off by bedtime.;)

 

I think it would take a 10k to burn 600 calories, so you won't be doing that in an hour unless your "fast walk" is Olympic race-walk pace!

 

As for the early-late thing, I just shake my head at the prospect of having to wait until 8:00 for dinner. Say I'm up having breakfast at 9:00 am at the latest, so then lunch is probably around 1:00 pm, which means I'd have to wait seven hours before eating dinner. The only way that happens is if you're having another meal in-between. But that's just not healthy and to make it work, you'd probably have to eat less than half of your dinner, otherwise you're just stuffing yourself every day. Alternatively, it works is if your day runs from, say, 10:00 am to 2:00 am. Then you could have breakfast around 11:00, lunch around 3:00 pm and dinner around 8:00 pm. But if I'm up until 2 in the morning, I'm probably still waking up before 9 and now I'm just tired from lack of sleep.

 

As for the original poster's conundrum about the couples in the booth, I'd think the men (and women) would sit diagonally opposite. So I'd be opposite to my wife and next to the woman from the other couple. But any way you do it, you're obviously having to turn sideways to talk to one person.

[ItsAllAboutTheSass]

Our reasons for Late Dining:

1. Less kids

2. I enjoy watching the ship leave port

3. I don't feel like I am being rushed thru dinner to get the next seating set up.

4. We don't really do the shows, we enjoy having conversations with the dining room staff as long as we aren't bothering them. Sorta ties into number 3.