Pros and Cons of Dining Times?

[RhondaC]

We prefer early dining. We've done both, but found with late dining, there was no way we could enjoy the midnight buffet!!

 

With early dining, we're done early enough to still enjoy the activities on the ship. The hot tubs are usually empty during the late seating, so we have them to ourselves! And, by the time dancing starts, our food has digested enough that we can dance and have fun!

[WELSH WIZARDS]

I prefer to go to late dinners, but we normally go to early , and the reason.....DH sleeps through all the shows after his late dinner...not so bad you may say.. but you have not heard him snore !! :D

[usavvy2]

I guess it depends where we're sailing to and the ports of call. For the Caribbean we can handle late seating but for Europe we prefer early since we're typically docked and off the ship early each day.

 

Where are you sailing?

[goofysmom99]

We're just the opposite. When we know we'll be taking lots of shore excursions, like Europe and South America, we request late so we can take a nap after we get back to the ship. We don't do the Caribbean anymore, but when we used to, we'd do early seating because we'd been to all the ports so many times, we didn't take any shore excursions and usually just relaxed onboard our "private" ship for the day.;)

[Germancruiser]

Hi,

 

I always ask for the late seating- the reasons are all said or written allready. I was once booked for the late and got for what ever reason the first- the Maitre d´solved the problem and switched mit to the late seating. I love it to watch the sail away without any rushing to get ready for dinner. An if am ready an hour to early- hm then there is the Martini Bar or the Casino for pre- dinner luck- LOL.

Greetings

Michael

[rebeccalouise]

I always do the early seating. At home I eat at 6PM, so why would I dine at 8:30 on vacation? I don't like to drink alot before dinner on an empty stomach either.

 

What you can do is ask if there is a large table that has a few seats left at the early seating. That's what happened on one of our cruises. We had a huge table for ten with only five us at it. So this is bound to happen. And you do want to sit with others. It is nice to get to know new people on board.

[ATLfuzzy]

I hope you get the seating you want, regardless of popularity! Normally earlier seatings are occupied by folks with youngsters, perhaps your sailing has lots of families? Enjoy your sailing!

[lisiamc]

We recently did the 14-day Panama Canal cruise, and about half the shows were before dinner for late seating passengers. It kind of defeats the purpose of choosing the late seating. I want to be ordering a martini at 7:30, not watching a show. We missed several shows because of that. It was also very quiet after dinner on those nights. Several nights we were the only people in Michael's Club other than the staff and the piano player.

 

Lisa

[sexyaznboy]

We recently did the 14-day Panama Canal cruise, and about half the shows were before dinner for late seating passengers. It kind of defeats the purpose of choosing the late seating. I want to be ordering a martini at 7:30, not watching a show. We missed several shows because of that. It was also very quiet after dinner on those nights. Several nights we were the only people in Michael's Club other than the staff and the piano player.

 

Lisa

 

Hey Lisa thanks, we are doing the same cruise on Summit, so are these shows the same before and after dinner? I can't see myself going to a show after dinner at 10:30, I'm not an early sleeper, but I'll be exhausted! And even if I go to an earlier show, I'll still be too full at 10:30 and like an earlier posters said, you can't do the midnight buffet/bites if you are still full from dinner! It's maximizing your stomach volume to take in as much as possible! :D

[mii]

Same show

 

Marilyn

[lisiamc]

Hey Lisa thanks, we are doing the same cruise on Summit, so are these shows the same before and after dinner? I can't see myself going to a show after dinner at 10:30, I'm not an early sleeper, but I'll be exhausted! And even if I go to an earlier show, I'll still be too full at 10:30 and like an earlier posters said, you can't do the midnight buffet/bites if you are still full from dinner! It's maximizing your stomach volume to take in as much as possible! :D

 

As Marilyn says, it's the same show for both seatings. We never touched the buffets or the bites - like you said, it's just too soon after dinner! In our case, it was a good thing; we ate enough all day without adding snacks after dinner!:)

 

Lisa

[BrendaJ]

Put me down for early. We have had both early and late, and our schedule is much more attuned to early. When we had late seating on our Med cruise (8:45) we found we were always ready for dinner by early seating time and envied those heading into the dining room while we killed time. We only made it to one show since we had full day tours booked for nearly every day, meaning we were up at 6am or so. Since the ship usually leaves port by 5 or 6pm, and we don't like to cut it too close, we're always back in plenty of time. Not to mention, on a late fall Med cruise like ours, it was getting dark in port by 5pm - no use trying to squeeze in sightseeing at that point. I found by the end of late seating dinner, I was falling asleep in my dessert and there was no way I'd make it through the late show and then be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6am. We're early to bed, early to rise and early to eat at home, and keeping close to the same schedule on vacation seems most comfortable to me. I hate to waste daylight while on vacation and wouldn't dream of sleeping in while the sun is up and shining on a new and exciting place.

I also don't like to waste a lot of time getting ready for dinner in 190 square feet of space - I'd rather be out enjoying the ship. On our Galaxy cruise a few weeks ago, we never missed 5pm sailaway from on deck and always made it on time for early dinner. In fact, on our last formal night, we were on deck for sailaway at 5pm, then went down to the Future Cruise desk and booked another cruise, and were still ready for dinner at the Captain's table at 6pm.

We've booked the Quest for next February, and I can't wait to see how Celebrity handles open seating. One thing for sure - Dudley and I will probably be among those sitting in a chair at the Martini Bar listening for the dinner bell.