Day 8 - Part 6 - Animator's Dinner, Dude!
When we returned to our room after the Welcome Aboard show, this is what we found...
Kira loved coming back to new towel animals every night!
Then it was time for our first dinner at Animator's Palate, my fave restaurant.
I guess this is a good place to talk about our servers.
UGH.
Our servers.
During my previous 5 cruises, I've had fantastic serving teams, good serving teams, okay serving teams, and one that was kinda terrible. Let me tell you, this team was the absolute WORST serving team I have ever had!!
We had a very large table (10 adults plus Kira) situated at the very rear of the restaurant. We were right at the second entrance, near the kitchen doors, which most people can't even see because it is tucked in a back corner away from the main part of the restaurant.
Our server was Okim and assistant server was Sergio. Okim was a very small quiet, pleasant man. Hard to understand but personable enough. And then there was Sergio. Ahhhh Sergio.
Have you ever met someone you instantly disliked after just a few minutes? Well, that was him for me. From that very first night, he crawled under my skin and stayed there the entire cruise just digging away. It wasn't just one or two things he did or said in particular, it was just everything he said and did combined, you know?
It really didn't help that we started off on the wrong foot.
I had done all of the linking for dinner. I had requested a table for the 11 of us and then a separate table for 4 nearby for Leisha's family. I had called THREE times to make sure that the request was noted properly.
I didn't know until we got to the restaurant that Leisha's family was put on a completely different rotation than ours. Apparently, they went to request the change to our rotation earlier in the day when they boarded and were told to simply show up at dinner with us and everything would be taken care of.
Yeah, ummm not so much!
When we got to dinner, the 4 of them were standing next to our table, waiting for things to be worked out. The rest of us sat down at our table or 12 but Leisha's family were just left standing there...for a VERY long time.
This caused a huge disruption in our service although it really shouldn't have. It took
forever to get a drink and I found out later on that Sergio had complained to Leisha that the reason things were slow for our table was because the table of 4 that showed up had really caused problems, not realizing that he was complaining about HER family!!
I felt terrible that they were just left there to stand in the middle of the restaurant for so long but then to hear that Sergio was complaining about them!!! OMG, I was livid when I found that out!!!
It's one thing to deal with some last minute stuff that throws your game off, it's a total different story to complain about it to your guests, umm, especially when they are related to them!!!
Of course, I felt terrible because I am the one who did the dining linking, so it probably bothered me the most.
Finally after what seemed like an eternity, everyone was seated and got some drinks and some bread.
Mike & Robin had brought little presents for everyone, so sweet! Thanks guys
They gave Kira Rainbow Loom, which she just loves now! And Leisha and Tommy brought her a cute little stuffed horse from Kentucky. Of course presents are the way to my little girls' heart and of course she loved all the attention from everyone! And boy did she LOVE that horse!!!
Okim took our orders and then we waited and waited and waited. Then came everyone's appetizers...
Everyone's but Kira's!
She had asked for Chicken Noodle soup but by the time we were all just about done our soups, she still had nothing. I did not see Okim so I asked Sergio if he could grab her soup. We had been there about an hour now and Kira had had only a little piece of bread. He said that it was coming and then left.
Five minutes later, he brought this...
I was a little confused because she did not order this, nor would she even eat this so I politely reminded him that she ordered the soup. He grumpily replied that he KNEW she ordered the soup but that he had brought this out for her to nibble on.
Ummm, instead of wasting your time on getting something my kid doesn't eat, why don't you just pop into the kitchen and grab a freaking bowl of chicken noodle soup for her??????????
Kira kept asking when she was going to get some food, not whining or anything, just a hungry kid looking for some food. I felt so bad for her. I tried giving her the rest of my soups but she didn't want them, she just wanted some chicken noodle.
About the same time as the adults' entrees were coming out, he finally brought Kira her soup.
And it was BOILING hot!!! It was so ironic because all of our food the entire night (and for the rest of the week) was either just barely warm or cold but the kids soup was freaking boiling hot!!
Great, so she finally got some food but she can't eat it! Heck, I couldn't eat it, it was that hot!
Thankfully 5 minutes later, her entree came...
I had wanted to take advantage of the Dine and Play but it was after 9:15 now and she had just started eating so that was out of the question.
We ate our dinner and tried to enjoy the show that was happening on the screens.
Getting drinks (at least for our end of the table) was like pulling teeth. I don't know what he was doing because I am pretty sure he only had our table and Leisha's family of 4. And then when we would remind him that we had asked for drinks 15 minutes ago, he copped such an attitude.
Dessert time!
I had completely forgotten that I had made a note on our reservation to celebrate Mike & Robin's anniversary tonight. They were married the day after we were (just a few years earlier
) and on our 2007 cruise, they were sneaky and had made sure our servers embarrassed us and brought out a cake to celebrate and the whole she-bang! So, I made sure to return the favour this time LOL!
What I didn't know was that it was actually Tommy's birthday that night. So, here we were celebrating M & R's anniversary but no one had even mentioned Tommy's birthday! When I found out later, I felt terrible!
Unfortunately, with a big table, it makes it hard to converse with everyone. And to make things worse, I have a hard time hearing someone unless they are right next to me and Rob, is partially deaf and has tinnitus. A few years back, he was DJing and was smacked in the head with a loading dock railing and ever since he's had horrible ringing in both ears. It gets worse in loud areas and now when we go out for dinner, he can't even hear our server so I always order for him.
Chuck and Nancy are pretty much the same, can't hear much unless you are right next to them so we agreed that it would be best if us four deaf people stuck close to each other since we all know we're deaf and won't think we are ignoring each other HAHAHAH!
It kind of worked out, although Rob couldn't hear
anything because the restaurant was so loud and Chuck speaks so softly, I kept saying WHAT? LOL!
By the time everyone was done, Rob was still eating. On a cruise, Rob really enjoys a huge variety of food and he eats slowly. He hadn't even started on his dessert by the time we were all done and apparently, this was bugging Sergio. So much so, that he decided to go sit with him and make him eat!!
He was joking around that he was going to spoon feed him like a baby.
It's a good thing Rob is a good sport because if he had tried that with me, I would have slapped him!
Yeah, I wasn't in the greatest mood. I know it was the first night and stuff happens but I was a little grumpy by the time we left.
Rob took Kira back to the room to get into jammies while I joined the gang in The Tube for Match your Mate. The only seats left were way in the back and since the bar is in the middle, we couldn't see anything. I just decided to leave and head back to the room. I was just in a bad mood by then.
I should tell you that when preparing for this cruise, Kira and I would often talk about all the great things we could do on the ship. Out of all of the amazing things, (and there are a lot!) the thing she was looking forward to the most was having milk & cookies every night before bed. I promised her that she could have it every night while in bed watching Disney cartoons.
So the second I walked in the room, she reminded me of my promise
So, I went up to deck 11 and grabbed the milk and chocolate chip cookies and she enjoyed some more old Mickey cartoons while snacking.
It had been a looooooooong day and we were all ready for some sleep!
That was about when the thunderous running footsteps from above began! Kira was too tired to care so she slept through it but boy was it irritating to Rob and I. Luckily it stopped around midnight, which is when Flo's closed I believe and we finally got some sleep!
Almost seems like I was never gonna make it 
I kept joking with Rob that it was like Mary Poppins bags...endless storage under there 
You know me, I hate the heat too but for some reason when you're in the Caribbean, it's ok. 
