Kids in dining room?

[BarberGirl]

My husband just told me that dinner in the dining room lasts about 2 hours, we will be on Freedom. My question is how on earth do small children stay occupied & quite for 2 hours. We have a 4 year old boy and he is a good boy, but only for so long. What do other parents do about this situation? It's our first cruise and want to experience the dining room instead of the buffet every night and we do have the early dinner seating.

Thank you

[Langley Cruisers]

Hi there,

 

Dinner does not always take 2 hours. We have never had a two-hour dinner at the Main seating. The Main seating is usually faster because the staff need to set up for the second seating guests, and so dinner is usually faster the first seating. Our quickest time ever was about 50 minutes, seriously. You CAN take a leisurely 2 hour dinner, but the wait staff is excellent with families with small children and I'm sure they will tend to you quickly and efficiently.

 

Try it out for a few nights and see how you do. I agree, you should experience the dining room. It is wonderful. :)

[Merion_Mom]

Hi there,

 

Dinner does not always take 2 hours. We have never had a two-hour dinner at the Main seating. The Main seating is usually faster because the staff need to set up for the second seating guests, and so dinner is usually faster the first seating. Our quickest time ever was about 50 minutes, seriously. You CAN take a leisurely 2 hour dinner, but the wait staff is excellent with families with small children and I'm sure they will tend to you quickly and efficiently.

 

Try it out for a few nights and see how you do. I agree, you should experience the dining room. It is wonderful. :)

 

I agree completely.

 

Dinner sort of takes as long as you want it to take. The waitstaff is very good at following your cues in that direction.

[spirite]

We have taken young kids into the dining room. They are well "trained", that is, they know how they are expected to behave in a restaurant.

 

A bit of bribery helps - if they want dessert they need to behave duirng the mains. They enjoy being grown up and looking at (if not choosing from) the adult menu. They like the attention of the wait staff and order their own drinks etc. On our last trip the head waiter did napkin origami most nights - they soon knew he was only coming over if they were seated quietly.

 

We always take paper, crayons or even a magazine. Games like "I spy" or "find something beginning with A, B, C etc". If you can sit near a window or overlooking the balcony to the dining area below that helps give them something to look at. It can be fun!

[funfamilyfun]

Our dinners on the Mariner, main seating, lasted about 1 1/2 hours. We sat with another great family (that we met on these boards!.) Our kids ordered their dinner with our appetizer order. They would leave when our main course came. They all went to the kids program and had a blast.

 

When our kids were 4, we always bought simple toys to keep them entertained at dinner. We would bring markers and paper/activity book/sticker book, etc.

[vator90]

The waitstaff will let you have the next nights menu and you can order ahead. This way your childs food arrives quicker and when they are done you can take them upstairs to the Adventure Ocean, and return to finish the rest of your meal. This has worked for our 2 for several cruises. Just a sugestion.

[willysgrandma]

As someone else said, it doesn't always take 2 hours for dinner - it depends on how much you order. If you skip a course, you can have dinner finished faster. If you have tablemates that have children, the kids can end up having a good time together with each other.

 

Let your servers know your concerns, take a coloring book and crayons and relax and have a good time. If it becomes an issue, you can always try the Windjammer for dinner.

 

But I think you are worrying unneccessarily.

[ckrobyn]

Techincally dinner can last up to 2 hours - if you have early seating....then you get thrown out because the late seating folks are waiting! ;) On a more serious note - we have cruised with our DD since she was 7 and our waiters have always been amazing with her. She is a very well behaved child, but like any child she can get "antsy" (NOT mis-behaved) if there are no other children for her to interact with.

Basically, she is finished her dinner by 7pm - my DH runs her up to Adventure Ocean ( and she can't wait to get there!) and when he returns, we enjoy a nice dessert together knowing she is happy and where she wants to be.

Having said that - if we are seated with another family in the dining room (and we were blessed with a wonderful family on our AOS cruise 2 years ago that had 3 kids) the kids chatted amongst themselves and no-one even noticed what time it was!!!

[mckinna]

When our kids were younger, I always took a small bag with us to the dining room with books and crayons. This was only to be used in the dining room. They looked forward to finishing their pictures at dinner. Also, the wait staff we have had have always been wonderful. They would have fruit or other treats waiting for my girls when we arrived at the table! Even had chocolate covered strawberries one night.

 

As others have posted, the wait staff will make sure the kids get their food when they need it. Some nights, our kids ate in AO, or we took them there after they were through eating. My advice- go for it in the dining room. It is a good learning opportunity for children on behavior, and with our kids, they always got a reward for acting correctly (they couldn't go to AO if they acted up).

[BarberGirl]

Thank you all very much for your replies. We didn't know that one of us could take our little guy to the adventure ocean when it opens and return for dessert. That will probably work out great!

 

Thank you:D

[crusinmama06]

Thank you all very much for your replies. We didn't know that one of us could take our little guy to the adventure ocean when it opens and return for dessert. That will probably work out great!

 

Thank you:D

 

That is exactly what we did on Freedom in April. Our youngest had JUST turned 3. It was her bday cruise...lol.

 

We went to dinner at 6pm, the kids were at AO by 7pm (either me or my hubby would walk them up) and then we were having a nice quiet dessert by 7:05 :D

[CoronaCpl]

FWIW there are related threads in the Family Cruising board here on CC. One thread I was reading for a while was about DVD players for kids in the dining room. Interesting (and somewhat contentious) perspectives. Might be worth a read. It is found at http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=632324

 

We haven't had with tablemates with small children; young teens only. But the few kids we've seen at nearby tables were all well-behaved. Occasionaly you'd see mom or dad carry the child out for fresh air about mid-dinner and return with smiles on their faces.

 

I'm curious about this topic so when we take our grandchildren a few years from now we have an idea of what might happen.

 

Relax and have fun on your cruise - with your children!

[crusinmama06]

Yep, come on over to the Family Board. We have all kinds of tips for surviving a cruise with kids. ;)

[AMommyof2]

We take our portable DVD player for our 3 year old son. We keep the volume turned down low, and have never had a problem. It keeps him entertained and the rest of the family gets to enojoy a nice meal.

[BPWJR]

There are at least three nights you can check you child in at Johnny Rockets at dinner time by signing them up through the Advt Ocean program early in the mornring - by 6 PM they may be wanting to dump you :)