To the PPs who were poked..holy crap. PP with the tattoos, I say "Bravo" (yes I'm using an italian word on purpose) I like the way you handled this. PP with the scar, just holy crap again. I guess with a tiny tiny kid, I would let it slide for a second, then tell the parent "Get this kid off me", anything over 5, maybe even 4...I would have had a really hard time not poking the kid back or even physically grabbing their hand and laying into them. Certainly old enough to know better by then, curiosity is one thing, touching is another.
I guess I'll throw this story into the mix, I'm copying it from my trip report so if there's any odd references in it, I probably said something in an earlier post. I don't consider it strange so much as incredibly rude:
I've said it in I think 2 other posts that I really tried to stay open minded about the South American families and tour groups, but this experience takes the cake. The other things I've mentioned in other posts are things that I knew I'd forget about eventually, things that could have happened be it an American tourist or foreign tourist. This wasn't.
We were seated in 50's Prime Time by a door to the kitchen. There were 2 tables against the wall, with seats on one side and banquette seats on the other, Annie and my table, and 2 tables behind us. In the seats that had the chairs and banquettes where some folks from Brazil, 2 seperate parties. One one side was an older couple, and additional older lady and a CM who was speaking to them in Portugese (I'm not sure if this was a family member or a tour guide type thing). On the other side was 3 women, in their 30's and 3 kids, 2 boys about 10 and 8, and a little girl about 6.
These kids were the most obnoxious, ill behaved little brats I've ever seen. They were loud, they were throwing food at each other, they were running around the tables and bumping into the servers coming in and out, most of them with plates in their hands. The mothers never stopped their conversation to deal with it. The servers would loudly say "excuse me!!" and try to walk around them, but the kids never paid any attention. They knocked into Annie's chair several times, and other people's chairs at the other tables too. They started running around the different kitchens and the mothers just sat and jabbered away. The older folks next to them watched a bit of this but didn't say anything, so I don't know if this is just something they're used to at home or if they just didn't want to get involved. I'd seen them talk to the moms so I know they spoke a common language. There was another cousin serving the other tables behind us, and the table closest to use asked her "Isn't there anything you can do? Can't someone say something to them?" She said "They just say "No english" and start talking again". This went on for a good half hour until their dessert came, and that's when one of the moms decided she had to go find them to bring them back to the table. They barely touched dessert, deciding to keep running around and playing instead. The younger 2 had a large bouncy ball (about the size small orange) they were tossing back and forth, which rolled under our table. The little boy pushed right past Annie's legs and crawled under to get it and they resumed playing. The moms are still talking, and not paying any attention to this. Then the kids are running around playing tag, and decided to use our table as homebase. They were smacking on the top of the table, leaning on it, half laying on it...then the boy dropped the ball on our table. I was just a split second too slow to grab it, even though he reached right over me and my dessert to get it. It was ridiculous. An English speaking family would never get away with this and no one really should. I get the whole "oh the kids are just having fun thing", but this was WAY over the line. The other cousin in our area saw this and asked quietly asked the CM sitting with the older party if the moms were speaking Portugese (the CM was not sitting down, I believe she was coming back from the bathroom) She said they were and this cousin asked another staff member to go and get someone (they were mentioned by name but I don't remember it)
This new server came over and had a very short conversation with the moms and all we heard was a lot of rapid fire angry sounding stuff coming from the one mom and then they quickly packed up and left.
I just can't understand how it took a good hour at this point for anyone to step in. I can't understand how anyone can let their kids behave that way and think its ok. I can get the cultural differences but where is throwing food at each other normal? Where is leaning on someone else's table normal? Where is letting your kids run around people with hot food and plates in a small space ok? I would have been just as angry about it with any race, creed, ethnicity but this was just that much more frustrating because of the language barrier. Had this happened elsewhere, I wouldn't have hesitated to approach the parents about it. I honestly probably could have gone up to their table and pointed to the kids and shook my head no, but I don't think it would have made a difference. I wanted to get that ball when it was on our table so bad, and almost force the moms to notice what was going on.
I don't really blame the restaurant, particularly because it's Disney and of course they're going to try to make everyone happy, but this was coming at the expensive of at least 2 other tables unhappiness, and lord knows what the other "kitchens" thought about it since those kids were running through them too. I also don't blame the CM sitting with the older people because if she was a family member just eating with her family, she wasn't really in a place to ask the other table to stop and if she was a tour guide, it's kind of the same thing, she probably didn't want to get involved and put the older people in an awkward position. What I do think is ridiculous is why it took so long for anyone to suggest getting the server that could speak the language.
So I write about it to vent, and because it was part of my experience. I wasn't going to bring it up to the restaurant because there wasn't really anything they could do about it, and I won't hold it against a nationality but maybe this is part of the reason why they get a bad rap.
You know, my Bubba was over-exaggerating his, er, "Bubba-ness" come to think of it. Who knows?
