Early or late dinner?

Question

my wife and I are going on out first cruise in May 08, and I have a question as to whether we should reserve the early dinner @ 6:00 or the late dinner @ 8:00?

Answer 1

I have been on many cruises (almost 20) and I always prefer the early seating because its more in line with our normal dinner time at home.  Plus if you are prone to get sleepy about 9:00 or 10:00 PM you will be going to bed almost right after dinner.  For the most part the early seating has never interfered with our on shore activities and tours.  Just one time did our tour bus (a ship's tour) get back late and make us miss the 6:00 PM dinner seating.  Most of the tours we take, or even if we go on our own, we leave the ship about 8:00 to 9:00 AM  and are back well before 5:00 PM so we have time to refresh ourselves for dinner.  Many times we are back in the early afternoon, like maybe 2-3:00 PM.  In addition, most cruise ships pull out of most ports about 6:00 PM and its rare that they stay later then that and give you more port time.  Take a look at how it will be done on your cruise; that information should be on the itinerary.

You may need to take a look at the tours and activities where you are cruising and decide whether you will likely be off the ship until after 6:00 PM or close to that.

Regardless of the ship, there is very little difference between the entertainment available to early and late seatings.  They almost always run two shows so each seating can go and the special stuff like adult comedy show and/or the disco and midnight deck parties do not interfere with either seating.

So just pick the one that is closest to your normal lifestyle.

Answer 2

On our last cruise the early seating was already booked so we were forced into the later seating. This ended up working ok for us. For one thing you can go to the entertainment before dinner, have a few mins. to strighten up then have dinner. yes it was late but we're from colorado so it didn't seem so late to us. (2 hours behind). The other great thing was that we didn't feel rushed at port to get back, shower etc. to make it to dinner. Also on the last day the later dining got to have breakfast later so we didn't have to get up so early to have breakfast. This was  Disney Cruise.

Answer 3

This is largely based on what you want out of your cruise.

The advantages to early dinner (which is my preference) is that the meals are better spaced, particularly when it comes to midnight buffets.  I prefer to eat, see the shows, and then retire for the night (possibly after the buffet).  The disadvantage is some cruise lines schedule one-time activities that conflict with early dinner, such as trivia.  This is outweighed by the production entertainment.

Late dinner has advantages in that you can often spend more time in port, as the need to get to the ship for dinner is delayed by a few hours.  If you wish to dine in port, that is also an advantage.  You also gain the extra activities, but you often lose one of the shows at night.

I prefer early dinner.