Great Table-mate Experiences

[wilkeliza]

So I noticed we really only have threads dedicated to bad table-mate experiences. I believe this scares people away from giving the shared eating a try even though it is apart of cruising. So instead of focusing on the bad experiences lets share our great table-mate experiences!


My fiance and I are pretty introverted and keep to ourselves type people in real life but have met so many awesome people on our cruises. Sometimes it is through being table-mates and others just having small conversation at the adult pool or bingo.

On our second Disney Cruise we met a wonderful couple. They are probably the exact opposite of us (we are pretty liberal young Jewish couple and they are a pretty conservative young Christian couple) but we really hit it off. They were on their honeymoon and had saved everything to be able to go on this cruise. The boys realized they are both massive movie fans and the wife and I bonded over crafts and baking. Now several years later we are still Facebook friends and chat here and there. It was nice to put any differences aside (nobody said anything scandalous or made anyone feel weird) and found things to bond over.

While not our table-mates we also met another couple on the same cruise that have become very close friends. They live in Canada and us in the US but thanks to Facebook we have kept in touch and even went to their wedding and hope they can come to ours. We bonded over our love of Disney, Harry Potter, and hockey. Again it was amazing to find a couple that had similar interests to bond over.

So what are your great table-mate stories? Anyone become friend or their kids meet someone who became their long distance BFF? Share your great table-mate stories so people have some positive experiences to out weight the negative.

 

[DizMagic]

Over 8 Disney cruises, we have never had a BAD experience. One cruise, we (an adult couple) were sat with a young family. They were not very engaging, but by no means was it bad. Our other 7 times, we have had Fabulous table mates. It really always amazes us how Disney pairs people. It seems like they know us and pair us with people similar. We never hesitate to share a table.

 

[scrappinginontario]

The first cruise we went on it was myself, DD (then 4) and Nana. We were seated with a family that were also multi-generational and the little boy was also 4. Although we had different lifestyles and interests we became fast friends and even chose to do our Port Adventures together. We attempted to book another cruise together but unfortunately the timing of that did not work out but we have remained FB friends.

Disney does an amazing job of matching people up for dining!

 

[MUN]

I guess I will let people who have had the pleasure of dining with me answer this question.

On our 5 cruises, we have dined alone 3 times and had table mates twice. We liked our second set of tablemates well enough, but were indifferent to our first. At this time, we are requesting that our family of 5 dine alone. Perhaps that will change in the future.

 

[CurtisB]

6 cruises with other table mates and we've enjoyed it every time. We keep in touch with people from all the cruises and see some of them from time to time too.

 

[SyracuseWolvrine]

Last time we cruised, my wife and I didn't request a table to ourselves, but we ended up at a 4 top with nobody else. We ended up talking with the couple next to us, who were about our age, with a 6 or 7 year old daughter, and nobody else at their table either. It worked out pretty well.

 

[dragynally]

I've "cheated" both of my cruises and made arrangements in cruise groups before the cruise. Even though it was still sitting with strangers we had a chance to chat a bit before hand and I could tell them about my husband's and my different medical issues ahead of time.

 

[wilkeliza]

I've "cheated" both of my cruises and made arrangements in cruise groups before the cruise. Even though it was still sitting with strangers we had a chance to chat a bit before hand and I could tell them about my husband's and my different medical issues ahead of time.

I don't consider that cheating! So awesome that you can do that now though so you can still enjoy the group dinning aspect of cruising with out having to spend the first night explaining everything or being nervous the entire time.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

12 of our 17 cruises (not all DCL), we've been seated a large tables with "strangers". We've never had a bad tablemate. We've had a couple that were more challenging (language issues, mostly) than others, but that's part of what world travel is all about.

I have no problem with requesting a 6 or 8 top on those cruise lines that give the option. And I've never requested to be seated alone.

 

[OKW Lover]

Thanks for starting this thread @wilkeliza. We've completed 14 DCL cruises (and also cruised on NCL, RCL & Princess) and have never had a "bad" experience with our table mates. We did have one DCL cruise that our table mates weren't a good fit with us, but still OK diner companions.

So, our experience with DCL is that whatever system they use to assign table mates seems to work out pretty well.

 

[o&smom]

We have had great experiences with our tablemates! We actually always request to sit with others. I feel that we get to eat as a family every day, so why not share different experiences and learn more about ports that we visit. Disney has done a great job matching us with other families with kids about the same age. They become fast friends and head off to the kids clubs together at the end of dinner. We cannot wait for our next cruise and who Disney will let us share some amazing time together with!

 

[skylynx]

After playing tablemate roulette for our first ten cruises and having some good, some okay, but no bad experiences, we decided for our first west coast Mexican cruise to leverage Disboards to pre-select our tablemates. We decided to look for someone who seemed a kindred spirit based on their posts on our Dis cruise meet thread. We found another couple like us who had kids, but were traveling without them, and who were also DVC members. We decided mutually we were at least some protection against Terrible Tablemates and linked our reservations.

Six years later, we are about to take our sixth cruise together. After hitting it off so well the first time, we re-booked onboard our second cruise and every February since, we have cruised together! All four of us are into dressing up for dinner every night, going ultra-formal for Palo, and also sporting full pirate regalia for Pirate Night! During the long months in between cruises we keep our friendship going strong with emails and Facebook posts and occasional texts. Though originally we just met at the port Embarkation Day, for the last couple years we met a day earlier, stayed at the same DVC resort, enjoyed a night in Magic Kingdom and dinner at Be Our Guest, and then shared a limo ride to the port. And just last week we had the opportunity to rendezvous with our cruise buddies at Disney World and got to meet their kids that we have watched grow up through photos since 2011! Our week with them every February is one of our greatest joys of travel. This February, we are on a cruise with the Star Wars Day at Sea so in addition to formalwear and pirate costumes, we're ready to dress up as Star Wars characters, too!

So there's our happy, great tablemates story and here we are with our buddies!

[URL=http://s80.photobucket.com/user/skylynx11_photos/media/Disney%20Cruise%20Fantasy%202014/1507814_10202230507736793_1751352714_n_zpsdf10f47a.jpg.html][/URL]

 

[Sir William]

DW and I had a positive experience on all our cruises. I actually look forward to meeting our table mates.

On a recent cruise we were seated at an 8 top with 2 other couples, but one of the couples swapped to another MDR to be with friends. We saw another couple alone at a nearby 6 top and invited them to join us. We all had a great time.

 

[tink1970]

My favorite table mates were CMs from WDW- two were entertainers (dancers I believe), one was a character wrangler, and Bob was/is a server at Boma. We still look for Bob when we go to Boma (last time was in Dec '15) and it was good to see him after almost 7 years. We've had some hit/miss table mates so now just eat alone but my favorite was our Bob and the Boys dining

 

[Iamaplanner]

My family consists of me, my DH, and my twin daughters (then six yrs old). We were seated with another family - mom, dad, twins (age 6 too!). The craziest part is that my husband and the other dad worked in the same industry. Sooo much in common. It was truly a perfect match. Like others have mentioned, we are still connected via FB. It was a very positive experience for us.

 

[Sytrace]

Out of 10 cruises so far, we have had 2 good tablemate experiences, 1 not so good, and the rest where we dined as a family of four.

The two good experiences were as follows:
First cruise with another family of 4 from NC. They were on their 8th or such cruise and were very nice. Unfortunately, the first night was the only night we saw them. They had a younger child and the Mom told me the first night that it was much too late for him to sit thru the late dinner so they would end up at Cabanas the rest of the cruise. The brief time we did talk though, they were super friendly and helpful with tips, suggestions and just made us feel at ease.
Our most recent Dream cruise to celebrate my 50th birthday, we were lucky to be placed with a family of 4 from Canada who had teens close in age to ours and were on their FIRST cruise and we were on our 9th.
I think Disney DOES have a master plan, because they were brand new to DCL and we were able to answer their questions and give some tips to them. And they were friendly, kind and their kids were just wonderful too. It was a short cruise , but we did dine together every evening and became FB friends after the cruise. We still keep in touch too and hopefully, we will someday sail again together.

We do like our family time, but that recent experience has made me feel a bit better if we do end up having tablemates again.

 

[kiford]

We've had some OK experiences and some that were good and some that were really great. We met a couple from Florida who we had a great time with and the next year we did a 3/4 day B2B. On the second leg we were told that we could have a table to ourselves but said we'd prefer to share a table. We ended up sitting with that same couple who had made reservations at the last minute. Had a great time.

On our first Med cruise in 2010 we really had a great time with everyone at our table (10 top) and still correspond at least once per year with one of the couples.

On our second Med cruise in 2013 we were at an 8 top with two other couples and a pair of brothers. We really hit it off with everyone (they used to toss us out of the dining room late). The one couple was from Michigan and we were planning to visit with them (we live in southern Ontario) but then they ended up moving to Florida. Later that year, the two brothers visited them in Florida and did WDW together. Last year we did the Baltic cruise with them and the two brothers and another couple that they had met years earlier on another DCL cruise. They lived outside London and they stayed with them prior to the cruise. Had a blast. We even did Palo's all together. We then visited the Florida couple last year in December and did WDW with them. We decided to do a Caribbean cruise this year and then WDW and planned to spend a few days in WDW with them and now we'll also be doing the cruise together. Looking very much forward to spending time together.

You might have some bad or meh experiences but we've decided that it's really worth it when you do meet people who can become much more than a random one-time dining companion. If they're really bad, then it's time to talk to the Head Server or higher up, but we really like to take that chance.

 

[Lilylogan]

Several times we've been paired with people who buy wine packages but can't drink it all so we are happy to help them out!

 

[xiphoid76]

So I noticed we really only have threads dedicated to bad table-mate experiences. I believe this scares people away from giving the shared eating a try even though it is apart of cruising. So instead of focusing on the bad experiences lets share our great table-mate experiences!


My fiance and I are pretty introverted and keep to ourselves type people in real life but have met so many awesome people on our cruises. Sometimes it is through being table-mates and others just having small conversation at the adult pool or bingo.

On our second Disney Cruise we met a wonderful couple. They are probably the exact opposite of us (we are pretty liberal young Jewish couple and they are a pretty conservative young Christian couple) but we really hit it off. They were on their honeymoon and had saved everything to be able to go on this cruise. The boys realized they are both massive movie fans and the wife and I bonded over crafts and baking. Now several years later we are still Facebook friends and chat here and there. It was nice to put any differences aside (nobody said anything scandalous or made anyone feel weird) and found things to bond over.

While not our table-mates we also met another couple on the same cruise that have become very close friends. They live in Canada and us in the US but thanks to Facebook we have kept in touch and even went to their wedding and hope they can come to ours. We bonded over our love of Disney, Harry Potter, and hockey. Again it was amazing to find a couple that had similar interests to bond over.

So what are your great table-mate stories? Anyone become friend or their kids meet someone who became their long distance BFF? Share your great table-mate stories so people have some positive experiences to out weight the negative.

I was one of the posters who just posted a thread about a bad table mate experience. Sorry if that was bad, but I really wanted to emphasize 5 of our six cruises we had outstanding table mates (well, 4, as one we were seated alone). We have remained friends with many of our dinner partners and think that Disney does an amazing job!! I love the dinner experience and sharing it with like minded people who enjoy Disney as much as we do is one of the highlights of each cruise!

 

[wilkeliza]

I was one of the posters who just posted a thread about a bad table mate experience. Sorry if that was bad, but I really wanted to emphasize 5 of our six cruises we had outstanding table mates (well, 4, as one we were seated alone). We have remained friends with many of our dinner partners and think that Disney does an amazing job!! I love the dinner experience and sharing it with like minded people who enjoy Disney as much as we do is one of the highlights of each cruise!

I have no problem with having a bad thread there just use to be one where people shared their horror stories and then when you search table mates it is all negative so I figured I'd start a positive one. Just a nice balance. I have a bad story as well and have shared it but also have a great one so thought a space to share that would be nice.