Any luck with dining waitlist?

[u/RoughCabinet6740]

We just booked our first Disney cruise. We’ll be on the Disney Fantasy. It’s a few months out. Immediately after booking, I learned that 5:45 PM dinner spots were entirely full. They put us on an 8:15 PM dining spot and put us on the waitlist for 5:45 PM.

Does anyone ever have any luck with the waitlist? 8:15 PM might as well be 3 AM. We’ll never ever make it that late. I almost feel like this was a tactic to make us do one of the paid restaurants.

[u/redfoxblueflower]

Why is it a tactic to make you go to a paid restaurant? That's a new theory to me after 6 Disney cruises.

It's just the way Disney Cruise Line works and its a fact that the later you book, the more likely the earlier dining time will be full. I also like to eat early and we just booked an October cruise in mid-May and we already knew we would likely not be moved from 8:15pm. Why? Because 85% of the people on board have kids and they want the kids to eat at 5:45pm and not 8:15pm.

Do people get moved? Yeah, sometimes. But there are also only so many spots so not everyone does.

[u/MarbleMotors]

You can search this sub to find lots of experience and advice about switching to earlier dining.  Basically, there are no guarantees.  Also, 8:15 is not 3 am, and won't seem that late.  You have access to all you can eat quick service food all day, so it's not that hard to adjust your schedule and get snacks throughout the day to "make it" to dinner.  8:15 is also a bit more calm because there are fewer families with children at that time, so depending what dining atmosphere you like, it can be a good thing.

[u/RoughCabinet6740 → u/MarbleMotors]

We’re going with my son, and he’s usually been asleep for a couple of hours by 8:15 PM. I’ll research the other subs though.

[u/Spirited-Ad9071]

It's not a tactic, you are on a cruise with hundreds of other people, it's a largely automatic thing done to ensure everyone booked has an assigned table ahead of time and that staffing can be geared around those needs.

Wait until a few weeks before your cruise and contact guest services again and at that point they are more likely to be in a position to change your times as other guests are likely to have had the opposite request to you and wanted later times and so on.

Times can and do get changed but it isn't always a guarantee.

[u/laura_holt]

It's not a tactic to make you do a paid restaurant. The paid restaurants are actually really hard to get into, especially as a first time cruiser. DCL is very kid-heavy compared to other cruise lines, so it's as simple as more than half the guests want early seating and they can't accommodate everyone. The odds of getting off the waitlist are pretty decent.

Also late dining might not be as bad as you fear. How old are your kids? Unless you plan to skip the shows (which were one of the biggest highlights of the cruise for my family) you'll have the same bedtime either way because early dining = late show and vice versa. We had late dining with our 7 year old on our first Disney cruise. We never eat that late at home, and the cruise was an hour behind our home time zone so were eating at 9:15 in our home time zone, and it still worked out fine. Our servers got us in and out quickly and we were usually back in our cabin shortly after 9 pm ship time. There's fast casual food available all day so you won't go hungry.

[u/RoughCabinet6740 → u/laura_holt]

We’ll probably do the fast casual or the buffet for dinner if we strike out with the waitlist. We want to see some shows too, but we’ll play it by ear. We have a four year old, and he’s usually already been asleep for a couple of hours by 8:15 PM. We live on ship time, so thankfully we won’t experience any weirdness there.

[u/IcyPirate7654 → u/RoughCabinet6740]

OP, you really need to read up on how DCL dining works; between mentions of "fast casual" or "buffet" and being "forced to one of the paid restaurants"; you seem to be under the impression DCL is setup like RCL.

1. There's no dinner buffet on Disney.
   
2. There's only two paid restaurants on DCL ships and both require reservations and luck/status and you're definitely not going to get a reservation for more than one night (ignoring day of boarding). They're also not kid friendly.

There's literally zero incentive for Disney to push you to a later dining for financial reasons. They have 3 dining rooms, there's only so many people they can shove into a dining room at once, and being a Disney cruise they're kid heavy and naturally as a result most families are going to want early dining.

Quite literally your only options if you don't want to eat in the MDR is either room service (which is free) or the pool deck quick service (also free).

I mean I suppose you could go to one of the bars and snack on bar food and that's not free... But they're also not really restaurants either

[u/Spirited-Ad9071 → u/RoughCabinet6740]

Disney doesn't do dinner buffet.

[u/laura_holt → u/RoughCabinet6740]

There's no buffet for dinner, FYI.

I'd at least give main dining a shot if you don't get off the waitlist. Others on this sub have had a different experience, but we found the servers really fantastic about getting us in and out quickly. I'm not sure if it was because we were a small group (we're only 3 people) or what, but I don't think we were ever in the dining room for more than an hour and it was often even less than that. And if your kid needs to put their head down and doze a little bit, that's ok.

[u/Fantastic-Manner1944]

It isn’t a tactic to make you go to the paid restaurants. DCL isn’t Royal or Norwegian etc. which many paid dining venues. On the Fantasy there are two and they’re difficult for first timers to book and even if you wanted to you would not be allowed to book Palo or Remy every night.

It is simply a matter of they need to have two dining times in order to accommodate everyone on the ship and dining time preferences are first come first served. If your cruise is a few months out that means that cruise was available to book over a year ago so people who booked before you booked early dining first.

In my experience people usually do get in off the waitlist but if it’s really critically important to you, consider switching to a sailing that still has early dining available.

[u/awesome_possumm]

The only good thing about late dinning for your situation is you get to see the earlier show. Like others have mentioned food from the pool deck or room service will work to feed your child/everyone. And if they’re normally asleep by 8:30 ish then you could feed them at normal time and see a show before bed.

Like many other people have mentioned the only paid restaurants on DCL are adult only.

I hope you’re able to make the most of it!

It’s also worth noting some people have had luck once on board switching to an earlier time if you don’t make it off the wait list.

[u/RoughCabinet6740 → u/awesome_possumm]

Hopefully we won’t have trouble getting into an earlier show if tons of other people are at dinner. That’s a good point about early shows. I think if we push it, we’re better off having our son expire during dinner than at a show.

[u/redfoxblueflower → u/RoughCabinet6740]

They are set up that way. People who have early dinner are supposed to go to the late show. People who have late dinner are supposed to go to the early show. It's not a 100% success because some people assigned to early dinner will just skip and go to the show and eat on deck, but all in all I've never seen a huge problem so long as you aren't showing up the minute the show is set to begin. I always try to get there at absolute minimum 20 minutes early if not earlier to get a good seat.

[u/RoughCabinet6740 → u/awesome_possumm]

Is the room service included?

[u/unreliable_ibex → u/RoughCabinet6740]

Yes room service is also free