Disney Cruise Dining Time selection
Dining times are your choice, either 11:45 or 1:30 for lunch and 5:45 or 8:15 for dinner. You select either the early or later slot, and they become your dining times for the entire cruise. Take into account your child’s ability to stay up late after running around all day and playing all day. Our daughter has the ability to stay up late, to 11:00 on weekends and is in bed by 8:00 on weekdays. But she was tanked out at 8:30 every night!
I picked the later time because you see the shows first, then enjoy dinner and the Oceaneer Lab / Club will pick up children at 9:00 from the dining rooms and take them to the clubs! Sounds perfect. My Mother and I could spend the rest of dinner with adult conversation and sneak in a dessert that our daughter could not eat, due to her dairy allergy. But, she didn’t even make it to her meal. We were able to take someone else’s table at 5:45 when the had reservations at Palo (the adult-only restaurant) and this helped out tremendously. She ate, refueled, and was able to last until 10:00 PM to see the shows and characters in the lobby!
After discovering this, I asked if the chef could make her hummus and pita, guacamole and extra pitas for lunch, that we took back to the room with us. She ate this in the afternoon and lasted until just after finishing her dinner. On the day of the beach excursions, she actually napped in the afternoon, woke up at 5:30 and made it through the last meal time, and saw the characters afterwards. But this was the only time I was able to get an 8-year-old to nap! The early dinner slot fills up quickly and guests have their times changed from the later to the earlier slots and this fills up right away!
