Main Dining vs Late Dining

[Kwami]

For the first couple of days, changing time that much for meals can be a challenge, especially with kids. The longer the trip, the better the timing gets to be. Then you've got to switch it back when going home. For some it's just easier to follow the physical needs then changing things twice within a short period of time.

But you can't really do that anyway. You can't sleep on "home time" and still enjoy most of the cruise activities. And if you aren't sleeping based on your home time zone, then you aren't eating based on your home time zone, either. It just doesn't work.

 

[AquaDame]

For us west coasters, a 5:30 dining time equates to 8:30 Pacific time. That's late for me for dinner.

Other way... 5:30 EST is 2:30 PST; they're 3 hours ahead of us. I still prefer early dining though - I like to have time to digest before bed, otherwise I wake up and don't want breakfast. Skipping breakfast usually means my eyes are bigger than my stomach at lunch... or worst case I get a bit hangry.

 

[cmph]

I personally think late is more relaxing, but I also think the point about not wanting to eat late is solid for many people.

Reality in my family is that early dining means my kids are going to have a late night snack! We're a bunch of night owls. If you had asked me 10 years ago, the thought of waiting that long to give my kids dinner would have reversed my answer, though. It would NOT have been relaxing to deal with that LOL.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Other way... 5:30 EST is 2:30 PST; they're 3 hours ahead of us. I still prefer early dining though - I like to have time to digest before bed, otherwise I wake up and don't want breakfast. Skipping breakfast usually means my eyes are bigger than my stomach at lunch... or worst case I get a bit hangry.

Right!

But I do agree about not eating a lot before bedtime.

 

[tvguy]

But you can't really do that anyway. You can't sleep on "home time" and still enjoy most of the cruise activities. And if you aren't sleeping based on your home time zone, then you aren't eating based on your home time zone, either. It just doesn't work.

Sure you can. We stay on West Coast time on East Coast cruises. Late seating for dinner. Breakfast about 10 am, We always have been able to get the late morning or early afternoon excursions. Same with ship activities like tastings and contests. Lunch either in port, or depending on when the excursions end, back on the ship about 3 or 4 pm. Has worked just fine for the 42 years I have been cruising.

 

[Kwami]

Sure you can. We stay on West Coast time on East Coast cruises. Late seating for dinner. Breakfast about 10 am, We always have been able to get the late morning or early afternoon excursions. Same with ship activities like tastings and contests. Lunch either in port, or depending on when the excursions end, back on the ship about 3 or 4 pm. Has worked just fine for the 42 years I have been cruising.

It doesn't work the same going the other way. If I normally have breakfast at 8am here, then I'd be eating at 4am in Alaska. If I went to bed at 11pm here, that's only 7pm in Alaska. It's just not practical.

 

[BadPinkTink]

I personally have found I prefer late dining because we eat later at home. However, we did early dining with my family and my parents on our June, 2019 cruise because my parents thought it would be better for the kids. (They were coming from the West Coast so I have no clue why they thought it was better, besides the kids...) For our Alaskan cruise we chose main since we are coming from the East Coast and 8pm is like midnight so that was way too late. We should be right around the correct time for dinner this way!

I never understood this thinking. When you're in Alaska, you're on Alaska time. You wake up on Alaska time, you have breakfast on Alaska time, and you have dinner on Alaska time. Dinner is at dinner time. It doesn't feel like midnight.

I never understand this either. I'm from Europe and go to Disneyland California. California is 8 hours behind my home timezone. As soon as I get off the plane I'm on California time. In January my flight landed at LAX at 8.30pm California time. As soon as I got to my hotel I went to bed, as it was "normal" bed time. Then I had a "normal " nights sleep and woke up adjusted to California time zone.

If I had stayed on my home time zone for meals and sleeping, I would not be out and about in the day time in California.

 

[Cheburashka]

Edited to add: true story, first time on CC, I actually learned (the hard way) that the drinking stations were not open until 11am. Too bad as I am diabetic, forgot my sugar on the ship and needed some.

Cabanas would have been open for breakfast, and you could have gotten a drink there.

 

[Lillebelle]

It's funny, my husband and I were just having the early vs late dining debate, specifically around the 'stay on west coast schedule' issue. I was trying to do the '8:30pm on the cruise is 5:30pm back home' reasoning, he took the 'but you eat breakfast in the morning so the time until dinner is still the same' reasoning. I still think we're going to try late dining on our upcoming cruise even with small kids, because on our last cruise it felt like we just barely finished afternoon snacks and it was already time for dinner. We've yet to attempt to do the shows with the kids, but if we did, we figure doing it pre-dinner will probably be more successful. We'll see!

 

[mullysisters]

When I was younger... I love the 2nd feeding (late dining).

• clothes stay cleaner for the show as you haven't eaten yet
• don't need to worry about going to bathroom mid show
• time for the 3pm afternoon tea to digest on some cruises
• extra time to explore the port before the dinner

Today I prefer main dining

• better sleep as the food has time to digest
• extra time to explore the buffet for a bonus feeding before the buffets close

It's been several years since I sailed DCL. I will add with other cruise lines in a post-Covid world, main dining is earlier and late dining is later. This allows extra time for staff to sanitize the restaurant between feedings. Shows may or may not have been adjusted for this schedule.

Is it possible you are a couple of years older My DSis and I just realized, not only are we eating two hours after our regular (retiree early) dinner but…. coming from Ontario we are also 4 hours behind! Yikes! We will be having dessert after our bedtime! LOL

 

[nancipants]

My toddler goes to bed between 7:30 and 8, so we are definitely stuck with main dining for the foreseeable future.

 

[anricat]

Cabanas would have been open for breakfast, and you could have gotten a drink there.

I think they were already off the ship when the realization came that nothing would be open until 11.

 

[PsylockeSmythe]

We prefer the early dining. My wife has problems sleeping if she eats a heavy meal past 7pm. We have never felt rushed when we have had early dinning.

Psy

 

[Lynes88]

Right!

But I do agree about not eating a lot before bedtime.

This has always been tough for us...but while on vacation we tend to throw "typical" out the window. I generally prefer the later seating so I don't feel rushed, but we do the main seating. Our teens prefer so they can get back to their friends, we like the later shows and Tube entertainment and like the time for the food to settle. But then we find ourselves grabbing pizza just before midnight for our midnight munchies and tv time.... oh well.

 

[jlynch924]

We've done late dining every cruise except our very first one. Late is preferred for all the reasons mentioned... you don't feel rushed, it seems a little quieter, there's so much food throughout the day that we aren't ready to eat at early dining time. If we do happen to get hungry, a room service cheese tray can tide us over. At home, we are fairly early eaters most of the time (530p central), but on vacation, it doesn't seem like a weird to dine so late.

 

[tvguy]

It doesn't work the same going the other way. If I normally have breakfast at 8am here, then I'd be eating at 4am in Alaska. If I went to bed at 11pm here, that's only 7pm in Alaska. It's just not practical.

Correct. But I'm a west coaster so no schedule change was needed for our two Alaska cruises or our Pacific Coast cruise. But we stayed with late seating for dinner.
For our Hawaii cruise it was an NCL Freestyle cruise with no set dining time, but the ship (Pride of America) had a 24 hour restaurant (with a Denny's type menu) and we frequently got a light meal about midnight or 1 am Hawaii time, (9 to 10 pm home time).
My wife and I are pretty flexible on eating and sleeping times, Came with 42 years of working about every shift you can think of and having to sleep according to our work schedule. I worked 11 pm to 7 am for 25 years and slept 9 am to 5 pm then. Last 14 years we both worked 3 am to 11:30 am and bed time was about 7 pm then.

 

[Disneygirlxo91]

I think we might try late dining one time. Always have done early dining. We loved it this time as the nights there wasn’t a show we went to the rainforest room after dinner for hours and no one was there.

 

[Happy100]

We did late as a family when our son was younger and I did really like it however as myself and husband have aged we do not care to go to bed on a full stomach so do main now.
Going to bed on a full stomach trumps every benefit that second seating offers.

 

[lovingeire]

For us west coasters, a 5:30 dining time equates to 8:30 Pacific time. That's late for me for dinner.

Yes, I was surprised as that seemed super late for them. But they were in Orlando a few days before the cruise so I guess it worked for them. They never seemed to complain.

For the first couple of days, changing time that much for meals can be a challenge, especially with kids. The longer the trip, the better the timing gets to be. Then you've got to switch it back when going home. For some it's just easier to follow the physical needs then changing things twice within a short period of time.

Yes, we had originally planned to be in Vancouver for 3 days prior to the cruise, but due to some commitments here we have to move our Vancouver portion (we have family we definitely plan to see) to after our cruise. I still think that this time will work better for us for this cruise. I do plan to try late dining for our next cruise out of the East Coast ports, but for this one I think main is the way to go. No one wants cranky kids at dinner. (As a teacher and parent, if kids are going to be cranky, it's going to be a sit down meal when they're overtired, and potentially waiting around a lot...even on a Disney cruise!)

 

[Husker Mike]

I never understand this either. I'm from Europe and go to Disneyland California. California is 8 hours behind my home timezone. As soon as I get off the plane I'm on California time. In January my flight landed at LAX at 8.30pm California time. As soon as I got to my hotel I went to bed, as it was "normal" bed time. Then I had a "normal " nights sleep and woke up adjusted to California time zone.

If I had stayed on my home time zone for meals and sleeping, I would not be out and about in the day time in California.

I've been to Hawai'i a dozen times, and it just doesn't work that way for time switches of a few hours. I might try to stay up a bit the first night, but I'm "sleeping in" until 4:30 am. (Which would be 8:30 am in the midwest.)

That being said, when I return, I usually take the red eye, which means that at best I get a couple hours of snoozing, so I'm completely wiped when I arrive home mid afternoon. If I can manage to stay up until mid evening, it's a hard reset that typically resets my body clock.

So someone from Europe who takes a Caribbean cruise... well, that's a 5-6 hours time shift and you might as well bite the bullet and adjust to the new time zone. Someone from the central or mountain time zone who normally gets up at 6 am...why mess with it? Stay on your home time, eat late...and you can still get up at 8 am to do activities on the cruise.