Early or Late? What do you like and Why?

[theriac]

You do know that you can request the same waitstaff every nite with anytime dining. We did that on the last 2 cruises and had no problems. We do anytime dining every cruise now.

 

I didn't even request the same servers on my last two cruises, but I still got them including the same table regardless of what time I showed up to the dining room and all the surrounding tables were the same people as well. I always do anytime as I never know when I'm going to be hungry and I also skip the dining room a lot and would feel bad making people wait to see if I'm showing up or not. Those are ny main reasons

[VASOXFANN]

We prefer early. It would feel weird to do shows before dinner.

[tkportersat]

I've heard that but we were just going with the flow, we really weren't in a huge hurry. The worst night was the first when we had our 4 year old with us and why we took him to Camp Carnival for dinner for the rest of the cruise. Just too long for him to sit after a long day at beaches and waterworks, etc. I want to be able to enjoy dinner and those around us to enjoy dinner as well. I would still do anytime dining next time for the flexibility.

 

You do know that you can request the same waitstaff every nite with anytime dining. We did that on the last 2 cruises and had no problems. We do anytime dining every cruise now.

[KatPem]

When we went with our kids and in-laws two years ago we did early dining. I loved every bit of it, except missing sunsets which bummed me out.

 

A few months later my hubby and I went and did YTD. We did not care for it at all. Service was a lot slower and a lot less attentive, every night. It was nice to be able to watch the sunsets but we didn't even do that but one or two nights.

 

We go in less than 2 weeks and are doing the early dinner again. The kids loved that the waiters knew them by name and all their little quirks....that added to the experience for them (and us). Also, they always had a club event they wanted to do and it seemed most started right after we finished with dinner so we could eat together and then head off to do what everyone wanted.

 

None of us take very long to get ready so we got back on the ship, showered real quick and then went to dinner. We tend to not eat off the ship if we can help it so we are usually starving by then.

[RaiderCruiser]

We always did late dining for the same reasons, but 2 cruises ago we tried anytime and it has worked perfectly for us.

On the Magic this fall we requested and received the same wait staff for every meal in the MDR and never waited more than a minute or two for the table.

Although, we aren't in a hurry when we dine, we appreciated that the anytime dining was at least 30 minutes faster than early/late dining.

[BigB0882]

After just one cruise I know that My Time Dining is for me. We had early dining on the last cruise so we wouldn't miss the shows and comedy clubs but the problem is we felt like we were on too strict of a schedule. Part of the fun of a cruise is you can do anything you want at your own pace but with a dinner time set, it kind of puts a schedule on your entire day. For example, we always felt pressured to eat lunch at a certain time or we wouldn't be hungry for dinner. What if we slept in late? What if there was an activity we wanted to do at lunch? It just meant I had to think way too much about when to eat.

 

If we had done late dining I am sure the issue would have been similar but we would have been worried about missing shows and comedy club acts and also worried about eating lunch too early and then starving by the time dinner came.

 

I want to eat when I want to eat!

 

I could see why you would want the same wait staff but to me that is not a big deal, I enjoy meeting new servers throughout the trip. If we really love our wait staff on the next cruise from night one then we will just ask for them every night, seems a lot of people have had success with this and have not had long waits.

Edited March 24, 2015 by BigB0882

[Swampbaby]

We've done the late assigned time and enjoyed it. Not having to worry about getting back and rushing to get ready made it nice. Now, all of a sudden hubby decides he would like early dining saying he didn't want to eat so late and then go to bed. Odd, cause especially this last cruise, we were out and about until at least midnight every day. But, will make him happy as I've marked early dining for our next cruise.