Early dining vs later dining

[marshhawk]

Our first cruise was a wedding group cruise-we had late-second cruise we cruised with freinds who normally eat dinner around 4, so we chose early, next cruise with friends-early-next cruise with freinds-early-last cruise anytime.

Late is just too late for me, don't feel that I am missiing anything, just get lethargic and want to sleep-day in the sun, tummy full, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-but with early dining, we always seemed to feel rushed on port days, coming back from excursions, getting in the shower, running to dinner- or on sea days having and enjoying tea, but only a nibble-because dinner is in two hours. So we did try the anytime, and that worked out well, we never really had a wait because we were told through this site, when the best time to show up was (around 7:15) and it worked out just fine! Next cruise we are doing anytime-we are cruising with a group of friends-all of us are on different schedules for our land jobs-so on embarkation day, we may eat after 7, first sea day after 7:30, Nassau after 8, LSC, may eat early, then last day at sea-around 7- we love the freedom, now if we can just get everyone in the group to agree on a time...:rolleyes:

[skittl1321]

We used to prefer late dinner because it gives us a chance to relax when we get back from ports and lets us eat sushi. We were always able to go to the show and comedy.

 

However, MANY events were scheduled in the Fun Times (trivia, etc) that conflicted with late dining. We missed a lot of things. Late was also often TOO late- I would be starving by the time dinner came around. (But early we would have missed many nights due to ports)

 

We will never do a set dining time again. Our first cruise, dinner was leisurely, but our second cruise it was absurdly slow. Set dining just takes way too long. We did My Time Dining on the third cruise and it was perfect. We could go eat when we were hungry, not when we were told. We could plan around the activities we wanted to attend. We could eat late on port days but early on sea days. And dinner never took freaking 2 hours! Just like a restaraunt- in, order, eat the courses you want (and not wait around for table mates to eat a soup course that no one else ordered) and leave!