On most cruise lines’ ships, dinner in the main dining rooms is divided into two seatings—an early dinner option and a late one.
For parents with young children, getting assigned the late dinner seating time can be a cause for concern. Sitting down to eat dinner at your child’s normal bedtime can put a bit of a damper on your vacation.
Related: Video: Free dining at Royal Caribbean’s Perfect Day at CocoCay
When assigned a late dinner seating on a cruise, some families will choose to feed their kids a quick casual meal earlier in the evening instead of taking them to the main dining room later. If they wish, those parents can then choose to drop their kids off at the ship’s kids’ club and enjoy an adults-only meal.
This isn’t an ideal option for those who want to eat dinner together as a family, however.
For families sailing on Royal Caribbean cruise ships, parents can find some help through My Family Time Dining, a program designed to streamline the dining process for families. This dining option allows kids to leave the table early after eating their dinner within 45 minutes and head to Royal Caribbean’s Adventure Ocean kids’ club with youth staff waiting at the dining room entrance. Parents can then finish dinner at their leisure while their kids play.
Disney Cruise Line offered a similar program pre-pandemic, but the family cruise line had yet to bring it back, until now.
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Disney offers rotational dining where you keep the same service staff at dinner.
Image source: Disney Cruises.
Dine and Play returns to Disney Cruise Line ships
Disney Cruise Line is making dining with young children easier for parents by bringing back Dine and Play for families assigned to the cruise line’s 8:15 p.m. dinner seating, according to DisneyCruiseLineBlog.com.
Like Royal Caribbean’s My Family Time Dining, Disney Cruise Line’s Dine and Play allows kids ages 3-10 who are registered in the kids’ club to leave dinner early to head to the kids’ club with their youth activities counselors while adults remain at dinner.
Youth activities counselors will be stationed at the entrance of the dining room from 9 – 9:15 p.m. to check kids in for Dine and Play and then escort them to the kids’ club. To participate, children must be registered in the Disney Cruise Line Oceaneer Club/Oceaneer Lab Kids’ Club.
Related: 4 things parents wish they knew before their first Disney cruise
When arriving at dinner, parents will also need to let their dining room servers know that the kids at the table will be participating in Dine and Play. Servers need a heads-up so they can expedite the process of serving food to the kids who will be leaving early.
Families who wish to participate in the program should also be aware that if they’re dining at one of the cruise line’s restaurants that includes a show with dinner such as Arendelle: A Frozen Dining Adventure or Plaza de Coco, kids may miss the end of the show if they leave early for Dine and Play.
Parents are excited that Dine and Play is back
On a post about Dine and Play’s return on Disney Cruise Line Blog’s Facebook page, parents expressed excitement about the dining option. Those whose kids participated in the program in the past also shared their experiences.
“My daughter loved this,” commented Stephanie Bryant Audain. “My fav perk of second dining!”
Related: Disney Cruise Line raises key onboard fee
“Glad to see this is back!! This was available pre-COVID and our daughter loved it,” echoed Tracey Capehart. “She’d wait for them and be glad to be free of us when they came. She loved OC. She’s still sad that she aged out.”
One passenger confirmed that the cruise line quietly started rolling the program out in late January prior to the notification that Dine and Play would return starting Feb. 1.
“They were doing a soft roll-out/practice run of this on the Magic this past week,” shared Kathy Rennhack. “I was on from the 24th-29th and there was a youth activities person stationed in the MDR each evening around 9:00.”
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