How does the whole dinner thingy works? We chose the late seating when we booked our cruise but how do we get confirmation on table and the size of the table and so on...? Lets say we want to have dinner by a window, is this possible? Thanks!!

You will get your seat assignment when you check in and it will be printed on your sign&sail card as well. You can immediately see the maitre'd upon boarding with your request, but if the ship is full and all cards have been printed it would be tough. Call your travel agent or Carnival planner now and make your request known.

The try to accomodate requests and usually if you ask for late or early seating, you will get it. But as tn notes, it won't be confirmed until you actually check-in. And you really won't know where the table is without going to the dining room and looking. You can ask to be moved, but this is, as tn again noted, up to what the maitre'd has to work with. They will move you if they can.

They tend not to take table "requests" (i.e. we want a table by a window) If you have cruised often with CCL, sometimes they will "make a note to the maitre'd for a window table but I'm not sure if that isn't just a lip service thing the vacation planners do.

As far as the table size, it depends on the size of your party. If you can fill a table they will sit you together. If you are a party of two, you can sometimes request to dine alone but we enjoy meeting new people. If you can not fill a whole table they will put you with other parties to fill the tables. Most of the time, the people you meet at you table you end up seeing all over the ship and yo ubecome good friends by the end of the cruise.

You sit at the same table for the whole cruise. For dinner only. Breakfast and lunch is a first come first seated and the tables can be anywhere. If you wish to eat by a window, you can normally do this at a lunch service (just tell the maitre'd when you arrive that you would like a window seating and that can hold off seatign you until they have one.)

The time you eat is also the same through out the whole cruise. The late seating starts at 8PM and you get done eating about 9:30 or so. If that is too late for you, try to get it changed now. Call your agent. Don't worry about the shows times. they have 2 show times so both dinner seatings can see the shows.

A point about wanting a window table for late seating....what are you going to see anyway? It will be dark outside or close to it.

Wow Dave.. your right.. never thought about that. At the late seating, there wouldn't be much to see. We had a window on the Victory.. cent aft. But we had an early seating. It was great sailing out of Miami with the sky line drifting from view... but after the first day... about all we got to see was the ship's wake.. so, not much to look at. On CCL, the wait staff does little shows during dinner (not much, so dancing etc..) which we couldn;t see from our window table. So, you may be better off with a more central table anyway.

On the other hand, in Alaska and other Northern climates in summer there is a lot to see at 8:00 p.m.
One of the biggest kicks in Alaska in late June is watching the sun come down to the horizon, hover a while, then go back up!