MDR question

[PugM0m]

Hello, 

I am hoping someone can answer some questions for  me. I have a group of 8 adults that vacation together. We have taken several cruises together and have always opted for traditional dining with the late seating. Our thinking has always been, that people cruising with their children would be using the early seating, so the dining room would be pretty much adult only during the late seating. We don't hate kids, it is just that all of us are childfree, so we prefer a more adult environment. We are on the Oasis on 4/10/22 and have signed up for the late seating again. However, I noticed from one of the cruise compass' posted, that several of the shows only have times when we would be eating. So now I am wondering, anyone that normally does the early seating in the MDR, are there a lot of children and a lot of noise associated with the children or is it fairly quiet?  Then I guess also, if you opt for my time, can you go to the dining room when you get on board and ask to have your party always have say a 7pm seating? Does anyone know if I would have any problem changing our dining from the traditional late to either traditional early or MTD if I called Royal Caribbean, with less than 2 weeks to embarkation?

Thank you for any assistance you can provide. 

[smokeybandit]

You'd never be able to tell the number of children in the MDR merely by listening.  Don't let that be a factor in deciding to move to the earlier seating.

Edited March 29, 2022 by smokeybandit

[Canadianmama3]

Every cruise will be different as far as number of kids.  
 

If you choose my time dining you are able to make reservations for your preferred time in the cruise planner before you sale.  That’s what we do when we can’t get early dining.   

[Biker19]

4 minutes ago, PugM0m said:

  Then I guess also, if you opt for my time, can you go to the dining room when you get on board and ask to have your party always have say a 7pm seating?

Yes, but a better approach is to do that ahead of time in the planner - 7PM is quite popular and if you wait till on board, you may not get it, especially with such a large party. Trying to change to MTD this close to sailing may not be possible - they may accommodate you on board, but again, asking for 7PM may not work.

 

The other option is to do something else for dinner on the one or two nights where the show times don't work with late seating. 

[PugM0m]

18 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

You'd never be able to tell the number of children in the MDR merely by listening.  Don't let that be a factor in deciding to move to the earlier seating.

How about kids running around?? Do you see much of that? Can not tell you the number of times we have been out to eat and someone let their kids just run around bothering people at other tables. 

thank you

[PugM0m]

15 minutes ago, Canadianmama3 said:

Every cruise will be different as far as number of kids.  

I am aware, I was not asking how many kids on this cruise. Am just trying to decide if our experience will be completely different if we go with early dining or just stick with what we know. 

thank you

[MellowMel]

As someone suggested above, reserve a dinner reservation time for everyone in your group on the cruise planner for My Time. You will just need their reservation number to do this. We had My Time on our spring break cruise with a 7 p.m. seating each night. There were several little kids dining at tables around us and they were amazing! We would have never known they were there if we didn't actually see them. But each cruise experience can be different.

[PugM0m]

31 minutes ago, Biker19 said:

Yes, but a better approach is to do that ahead of time in the planner - 7PM is quite popular and if you wait till on board, you may not get it, especially with such a large party. Trying to change to MTD this close to sailing may not be possible - they may accommodate you on board, but again, asking for 7PM may not work.

 

The other option is to do something else for dinner on the one or two nights where the show times don't work with late seating. 

Thank you, I guess my next concern is if I change to MTD and then there are no "good" times left even in the planner. Any idea if I call will the CSR be able to tell me if the time I want is available? 

I have considered we might have to do the Windjammer if we want to go to one the shows playing during our dinner time. We just really like having the same waiter and assistant every night. 

thank you 

[Biker19]

Just now, PugM0m said:

Any idea if I call will the CSR be able to tell me if the time I want is available? 

Not sure, but someone in the Roll Call thread in MTD can tell you.

[Mrcar09]

As a parent who cruises with my kids, I personally have not noticed kids, including ours, running amuck or being overly loud. Dinner in the MDR is a long, drawn out affair for kids and personally I won’t set them up for failure like that if they are in less than the best mood. I realize others may treat that differently, but frankly I probably want to sit through that even less than you, and will walk out with my kids if need be. 😁

 

As for the MTD, I recently called to change to MTD. Once the change was made I opened the cruise planner and the earliest reservation was 7:30 most nights, so I called back and switched back to the early seating. While 5pm is less than ideal, 7:30 was a little late for our kids.

[smokeybandit]

1 hour ago, PugM0m said:

How about kids running around?? Do you see much of that? Can not tell you the number of times we have been out to eat and someone let their kids just run around bothering people at other tables. 

thank you

I've never noticed any kids running around. Remember plenty of families just go to the windjammer for dinner.

[SG65CB]

6 minutes ago, smokeybandit said:

I've never noticed any kids running around. Remember plenty of families just go to the windjammer for dinner.

 

I have never seen kids running around the MDR either. Even on Christmas cruises with hundreds of children on board. 

[PugM0m]

Thank you everyone for help and input. I am going to talk to the rest of my group and see what they all think. Really 5pm is very early for all us, as we are usually "Kirby" dining when we are together on vacation, so we may just stick with the late seating and decide if we need to go to the Windjammer on nights we want to see a show. I do appreciate all of the responses. 😁

[PugM0m]

Just thought I would give an update. So...we stayed with the late dinner seating. I am not sure if it is because we were on Oasis (the largest ship we have been on so far) or if it was because of the timing (week before Easter) but the late seating in the main dining room was FULL of kids. We ended up with two tables of a multi family group right next to us. The parents sat at one table and there were 12-14 tweens/teens sitting at the other. The kids were so loud we could barely have a conversation at our table. They would start talking and then just get louder and louder until they were practically screaming. The parents did nothing to curb their behavior.

Our Waiter, Asst Waiter and Head waiter (Aimen, Daniel and Antonio) were so awesome, we didn't want to lose them, so while I know I have could have asked to have us moved we just muddled thru.

We also had two other tables with very young children right next to us as well. One table was fine, the kids stayed in their seats and were very well behaved. the other table, however, let their 6-7 year old boy run around the table, running into our chairs. Finally after a couple of nights of this, when the boy ran up and slammed both of his hands on the back of my chair, one of my friends turned around pointed at the kid and said "you need to sit down and stop it." The next night that family was not there, assume they asked to be moved, that was okay; with us. Another family was put there the rest of the week but their kids were well behaved.  

I was really shocked by how many people opted for that late dining with kids. Can anyone who cruises more then I do, tell me if this is "normal" for the larger ships or just bad timing on my part? 

We are trying to decide if we need to avoid the larger ships in the future to avoid this type of situation. 

We did all talk about the fact that with 3 floors of dining room, it would be nice if Royal would "carve" out an area in the Main Dining for an adult only area. 

 

[PTC DAWG]

I think you may want to cruise other lines. 

[la_croisiere_s'amuse]

41 minutes ago, PugM0m said:

Can anyone who cruises more then I do, tell me if this is "normal" for the larger ships or just bad timing on my part? 

We are trying to decide if we need to avoid the larger ships in the future to avoid this type of situation. 

Sounds to me like it's a combination of bad timing and just plain bad luck. 😉 Granted, we do tend to avoid spring break and summer cruises for that very reason ... but I've done a handful of them, on ships of a variety of sizes, and never encountered a dining room scene like what you described. 😳

[lifes-a-beach]

If it’s not kids, it’s drunk adults. Our dinner last night on Adventure was spent listening to a table for 4 next to us with drunk profanity and barroom loud voices. There’s trash on other cruise lines though.  Most of the time it’s bearable but not always. 

[PugM0m]

On 4/24/2022 at 5:37 PM, la_croisiere_s'amuse said:

Sounds to me like it's a combination of bad timing and just plain bad luck. 😉 Granted, we do tend to avoid spring break and summer cruises for that very reason ... but I've done a handful of them, on ships of a variety of sizes, and never encountered a dining room scene like what you described. 😳

Yeah I did a lift and shift and didn`t check for spring break/Easter. Normally I am very anal about that kind of thing, lesson learned.😝

[PugM0m]

On 4/24/2022 at 5:31 PM, PTC DAWG said:

I think you may want to cruise other lines. 

We are thinking about trying a different line.

[Merion_Mom]

On 4/24/2022 at 6:37 PM, la_croisiere_s'amuse said:

Sounds to me like it's a combination of bad timing and just plain bad luck. 😉 Granted, we do tend to avoid spring break and summer cruises for that very reason ... but I've done a handful of them, on ships of a variety of sizes, and never encountered a dining room scene like what you described. 😳

 

We encountered the same situation on a New Year's Eve cruise a decade ago.  I am that deadly combination - mother AND teacher.  Much to the embarrassment of my own (teenage) children, I spoke to the rambunctious children and got them to stay at their own table.  Adults never even looked over to see what was going on.