Late Dining

[10th Anniversary]

We have been assigned late dining. We are 1st time cruisers. What are the pros and cons to having late dining. How can we switch to main dining? Thanks for sharing.

[suzeyQ]

Pros:

 

- fewer kids in the dining room

- don't have to rush back from shore excursions to get ready for dinner

- you don't feel like you're being rushed out of the dining room to get ready for the second seating

- if you have lunch late, you might have a chance at being hungry for dinner

 

Cons:

 

- you don't finish dinner till 10 or 10:30

- you're not hungry for the midnight buffets

 

That's about all I can think of. We much prefer second seating - we're used to eating dinner around 8 or so at home anyway.

[vjblk]

I have to agree with SuzeyQ. We always prefer Late Dining as it allows us to not have to rush after a day in ports. I agree with all of her pros and cons. You do get done late but we always stay up late anyway so it's never too much of a problem. We will usually have a snack after getting back from our time ashore and that tides us over until dinner. One thing too is that sometimes your shows are before dinner when you have late seating but they are usually at 7 so you are still not too rushed to get ready.

 

If you still want to try to switch to main you can always have your travel agent get you placed on the waitlist for main dining. Or usually on the first day the matre d has a table set up somewhere and you can see him if you want to get switched. The time and place is sometimes in your daily activities sheet. Or I'm sure you can as at the main desk where he is at.

[Genessa]

We have been assigned late dining. We are 1st time cruisers. What are the pros and cons to having late dining. How can we switch to main dining? Thanks for sharing.

 

the first two times we cruised we had first sitting based on recommendations from previous cruisers. Since then, we've purposely chosen second, or late seating.

 

Early - no problems catching the shows or getting good seats, but

you have to stop what you are doing to get dressed and go to dinner, come back early from shore excursions, sometimes there are more children, dinner can seem slightly rushed - you have to finish so the later diners can eat

 

Late - sometimes you have to go to an early show if you want to see the show (so you lose on not having to get ready early)

might be eating much later than you are used to - if you go to bed early, do you want to do so on a full stomach

 

we prefer late because we can relax as long as we want to on deck, have a pot of coffee before dinner on our balcony, take an afternoon nap, wake up later in the morning, have a late breakfast, late afternoon snack instead of lunch, then a leisurely dinner.

 

We normally get up very early in our "real" life, so we like to sleep late, eat late, relax, relax, relax...not feel rushed.

 

As for switching, you can ask your travel agent to switch it for you. If you booked directly, call the cruise line. Sometimes you will be put on a waiting list, then you will have to speak to the maitre'd when you board the ship.

 

Enjoy your cruise!

[10th Anniversary]

Thanks for all the great information. We, too, like to sleep late, eat a late breakfast, and relax on vacation. I'm kind of warming up to the idea of late dining. It could be a good thing. Not rushed at dinner. Not rushed in from ports. Since we are new to cruising, I didn't know if we would need to be up at the crack of dawn to get off the ship so we wouldn't miss anything.