We are very interested in scheduling a dinner upgrade for ourselves one night of the cruise, but I don’t want to miss out on any fun entertainment/theming the regular dinner would have to offer. Is there a best time to schedule an adults’ dinner where we wouldn’t miss out on something neat? We only have four nights aboard. I thought I read something about how there’s entertainment scheduled during dinners as they are planned out for you, but if you shift dinners around you wouldn’t get the same entertainment, it would be a ‘normal’ dinner that night?
Hello @TarzansMama
I love TouringPlans forums to the moon and back, but I think you might get more answers, more quickly, on cruise critic. We just don’t have the cruising population on this forum.
Disney Cruise Line: Ask a Question - Cruise Critic Message Board Forums
Please do NOT think I am suggesting that you shouldn’t ask here. I just feel badly that you might not get what you are looking for here. DCL is expensive, and I want you to have as much info as possible to make good decisions for your party. 
I love cruising and can’t wait to get back on a stinking ship again. (Stupid Covid.)
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(1) Disney Cruise Line Forum | The DIS Disney Discussion Forums - DISboards.com
Even Disboards is way more active for cruising that we are.
I guess we are more landlubbers here. 
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You can get an idea of the schedule by looking at past cruise planners . I believe I found the best info (better than any other source) on the Disney Cruise Line Blog.
I did miss a show while eating at Remy, sometimes you have to make choices.
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Also, once you know your ship/date you should find a Facebook group by searching the name of the ship and date. For example: Disney Dream August 23,2022
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Thank you! I wouldn’t have noticed… I’m more of a landlubber too. If I had my druthers, I’d just pack up my wife and son and spend a week at the parks. But we are accommodating my MIL’s desire to try a cruise. (And I’m still getting my park days.) So here we are. I’ll check other spots!
Here’s how it worked for us (from my very limited one cruise ever point of view)- we went on a 3 night cruise in May 2019 on the Dream. We were assigned the later dinner, so ate around 8:00 PM each night. The nightly shows in the theater did an early and late show too, so we went to the first performances each night. I think they started at 6:00, and then we’d have about a half hour in between the show’s end and the start of dinner. If we had the early dinner seating, we would have reversed this. Other than our servers doing magic tricks for the kids, there wasn’t entertainment during dinner itself in any of the dinning rooms so we wouldn’t have missed anything by doing one of the special restaurants. But since there were three dining rooms and we only had three nights, we did not do any of the special dining as we wanted to try each of the “regular” ones. If I ever cruise on the Dream again, I’d skip Animator’s Palate, and try Remy or Palo. However, we didn’t find out our dining rotation until we checked in at the port, so that would have been hard to book beforehand.
Hope this helps! Of course, this may all be junk info now post-Covid or on a different ship! (Or with someone who knows more tips and tricks as an experienced cruise-goer!)
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On my four night cruise I was able to book my Remy night for my second Animators Palate night so l was still able to visit all three restaurants. However, I messed up because the night we did Animator’s Palate was pirates night so I didn’t get to see the drawings change.
I am in a similar boat(pun intended) on my upcoming three nights on the wish (all I could get for concierge but I wanted the four nights). I plan to ask my concierge to book my Enchante dinner night on whatever night is my 1923 night since they were able to see my dining rotation schedule last time. This way I don’t miss the Frozen dinner show or the Ant Man shrinking dinner game. I am also going to ask my concierge to book Enchante so that I can still see whatever the theater show is at that time. If you don’t have concierge I’d try calling the cruise line customer service to see what time the shows are and what is your repeat restaurant and on what night does it repeat. On that night I’d book the upscale dining experience
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Thanks! This helps. I think I was a little confused by what exactly happens at dinner. I was wondering that too. It would be nice if you knew your ‘order’ beforehand, so you could plan out which one you’d rather skip and try to book (in our case) Enchante’… I think we’ll be on the Wish.
Another question I have that’s related - we have a toddler who is in bed by 7/7:30. Can you request the early dinner slot before arrival? A dinner at 8 PM is never going to work for us. 
This is super helpful - I didn’t even know there was a repeat dining experience! (I’m such a noob.) I will definitely do this. I’m sure my TA knows a lot of this too but I also try to be reasonably low maintenance and do my own research. Going to get the DCL UG for 2022 when it comes out as well.
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It’s out…I just got it this week.
Also yes, each boat has three main dining rooms you visit on your rotation so on a 3 night cruise, no repeats but on the longer cruise you’ll repeat at least one of them. It varies which one you’ll repeat but if your repeat is on the Dream/Fantasy and it’s Animator’s Palate, only on the non-pirates night do the animations change while you eat. I had booked the Remy night on the non-pirates night thinking I want to dress up for Remy but not as a pirate since I did also dress up as a pirate on pirates night. I wasn’t thinking about missing the wall/animation show and my concierge didn’t inform me I’d miss this. But for you this may not be an issue, but ask!
Oh, cool! Amazon was telling me not til 3/22.
Maybe they sold out and are waiting for a 2nd batch? I pre-ordered mine and got it this week.
Yes, you can request the earlier dinner. We didn’t care either way, so I can’t remember for sure when to make the request, but I know you can do it even once on board.
Thanks for this. I hadn’t thought about checking out a different forum. I guess it shows my loyalty?? 
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I mentioned it above but this site had some of the best resources in one place
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Thanks!
I love looking at recent Navigators to see what to expect for shows/entertainment.
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How did you know that? Do you know your rotation before your cruise now?