pros and cons of early or late dining

[helen haywood]

You can't switch from Anytime to your regular time. You are assigned either Anytime for all nights of your cruise and thus can go whenever you want during the hours it works, or you are assigned Early or Late. You must chose before you cruise. You can try to ask for a change upon boarding, but there is no guarantee it can be accomplished. Anytime Dining is pretty popular and will probably be "sold out" beforehand.

[serene56]

Why can't you use anytime dinner on days your regular seating time needs don't fit your schedule?

 

 

Because you have an assigned seat- doing it that way you will have taken up extra seats (while your traditional seats went empty.

 

There is only so many anytime seats available each night

[Yvonne]

We've done, and enjoyed, both. With early dining we're able to enjoy that midnight snack since we have more time after dinner to digest, and have more time in the evening to enjoy the activities and shows. With late dining it's nice not to have to rush back to the room so early to get ready for dinner, but the main drawback for us about late dining is that we're so full after dinner we really can't enjoy the midnight buffet or snack later, or even one of those frou frou drinks.

[usafchick1980]

I prefer early because even on vacation I am an early riser..which like someone else said unfortunately means that I go to bed around 10. So I can't eat that late or I will not be able to sleep well because of the food still sitting in my stomach.

[Warm Breezes]

We used to do early before anytime because we normally eat around 6 at home. We switched to anytime when it came out and will never go back. We love the flexibility to go to dinner when we want to and not when we have to. If we find a wait staff we like we can always ask for them again, but this has never been a big deal for us. On the Destiny we had the same wait staff 3 out of 4 nights. On the Glory we only had the same wait staff once. Our longest wait was about 25 minutes on the Glory on Elegant night. Otherwise we have not had any other waits and our service has always been good (just a little slow on that busy Glory night...we went at prime time...our mistake.)

[elcuchio24]

Always anytime for us, one of the reasons we are back to cruising with CCL regularly. Eat when we feel like it, get a 2 top, quicker service, not so much waiter dancing and related foolishness.

[nw2this]

Is the Captain's party always during the first seating?

Is there always a show at 6, 8 and 10? What time are the adult only shows 10, 11, 12 or do they vary from night to night? Is the adult only show always comedy? What time are the outdoor movives? Thanks.

[viellemouk]

I've done both. I enjoyed not having to rush when we had late seating, but we went back to the cabin to change into more comfortable clothes, and I started dozing while waiting for DH. Sometimes I just stayed in while the others went out. First cruise with the kids, we would have a late night burger. With late seating we couldn't do that.

 

So next time, it will be back to early seating. I hope I can get it. (wainting for my passport before I book a NY's cruise.) Then I can enjoy the rest of the evening, and even indulge in a snack.

 

I really liked always having the same wait staff at dinner, so Anytime doesn't appeal to me.

 

It is good there are plenty of choices!

[simplelife]

When we were younger, we liked late seating. Now, though, that is just too late for us to eat! I guess that means we are OLD.:eek:

[KansasK]

We always liked the early seating just because it seemed to let us do more after dinner. You are all right about sometimes being rushed to get to dinner. I never felt rushed out of the dining room, but we get there on time, and maybe that has helped.

 

We eat at about 6:00 p.m. at home, so it seems OK to us. It is good that there are a number of choices for when to eat dinner.

[treyprice]

We did the early dining which we loved. You could get there at 6:00 and eat slowly until 8:00 or you could show up around 7:00 and the waiter would speed things up a bit for you.

[RMM34667]

Since my first cruise I've only done anytime dining. But my next cruise anytime was full so we are waitlisted, with early dining as the alternative. I am actually looking forward to trying traditional dining with the same table and wait staff each night. I still HOPE we can get anytime, we've always gone to dinner between 6:30 and 7 PM. When sailing with a larger group it was always only us. And this time there are 6 of us, but when it was just me and my Mom it was great meeting new people every night. Never had a bad table mate. If we don't get it I have a new experience to look forward to.

[T. Advisor King]

Pros of early

- If you eat three square meals a day, it makes for a long, hungry wait if you’re going from, say 1:00 pm at the latest for lunch to 8:30 pm (by the time your food actually arrives) for dinner

- If you’re inclined to snack if you have to wait 7 hours between meals, early seating minimizes the chances that you’ll end up overeating.

- If you typically are in bed by 11:00, the early seating allows you to do something after dinner, rather than eating and heading pretty quickly to bed

- If you plan to leave the ship early on port days, a late seating may make it impossible to get a sufficient night’s sleep

Pros of late

- If you have a port-intensive itinerary and you like to spend as much time on land as possible and the ship leaves port between, say, 6:30 and 7:30, then you’ll avoid losing port time because you won’t have to be back on the ship for dinner. This is more of an issue if “getting ready” for dinner is a long, elaborate process for you

- If you like watching as the ship leaves port and the ship is scheduled to leave between 6:00 and 8:00, then you won’t have to worry about missing it.

- If you’re not a fan of kids, the late seating tends to have fewer kids

- If you like the idea of your fellow passengers “dressing up”, the late seating tends to be a little more dressy than the early seating

 

I think it is funny to hear people say they have to "rush back" for early seating -- as if they didn't know what time dinner would be until the last minute. I appreciate that you have less time in the port or at the pool. But you know that going in. It really shouldn't be a "rush" unless you're fabulously poor at planning your time.

 

I disagree with the poster who said that the late seating has a younger crowd. Based on my own observations, late seating tends to appeal to more "traditional" (i.e., typically older) passengers. Early seating tends to appeal to people with young families.

 

At home, we usually eat dinner right after I get home from work (around 6:00 pm), subject to kids' sports/dance/work schedules. But if I'm not home by 6:30, they're probably eating without me. No one in my family could possibly last until 8:00. And I don't think too many people think it is particularly healthy to eat breakfast and lunch and then have a late afternoon meal just so you won't be starving until dinner at 8:00. If you're eating four full (or close to full) meals a day, that's one too many. I don't go on vacation to gain weight.

 

I'm also surprised anyone things they're being rushed out from the early seating to accommodate the late seating. Those meals are so painfully slow it is almost unbearable. I don't mind one or maybe two long drawn out dinners in a week long vacation, but seven is just a waste of time.

 

We will take YTD every chance we get. I don't care a fig whether I get the same wait staff. I don't always choose the same dinner roll, so I'm not really sure what the deal is with the waiter "knowing what I like". When I'm on a regular vacation, I don't go to the same restaurant every night. Very odd.

 

If I can't get YTD, I'll take early seating. If I was really stuck with late seating, we'd probably all just go to the buffet.

[LarCourt]

Anytime dining was the ticket for us. Never had more than a 5 minute wait..........

[Gma&Gpa]

We tried late once and all other cruises were early. Until this year. On the Dream we tried the Anytime dining and loved it.

My husband also likes the sushi - so not eating at exactly 6 works better for us. We don't eat late at home - so we weren't real happy with the late dinner and getting our food at 8:30 or later. I prefer to have the time after dinner, to wander the ship, catch a show, have a drink. And by the time I go to bed - the dinner has settled well.

 

And - depending on the port schedule, we really like to be either on the balcony watching the sail-away - or up on the decks.

 

On the Any Time dining this year - we usually went at approximately the same time - 6:45 - to 7:15 - and we were able to get the same waitstaff every night. Maybe a different table - but the same servers. It worked well for us and we never had more than a 5 minute wait. Of course, there was only 4 of us. If we had been a large group - we understand there likely could be a longer wait.

[larkz]

Last cruise we did late seating. We liked it for all the reasons others have mentioned; fewer kids, more time in port or for a nap, sushi or tea with time to digest, etc. Problem was that I was falling asleep in my Warm Chocolate Melting Cake every night. We made it to one late show and never to the comedy show or the movie because with getting up so early for excursions and then spending all day in the sun I was just wiped out. This time around we are trying early seating and we'll see how it goes.

 

Me too. I get sleepy after a meal. Early dinner lets me take a short nap afterwards and then enjoy a bit of night life.

 

Otherwise, the other pros and cons didn't matter to me.

[midwifejen]

We have always done early dining, but this last cruise we did late and LOVED it! We were able to sit out in the hot tub during sail away, take our time getting back onto the ship, enjoy tea time or sushi and not be too full by dinner to enjoy that. Granted, we may have gained a little more weight on this cruise :p

The only down side for us was that we weren't able to get to the not-R-rated comedy shows, but I think we'll stick with late dining from now on.