Has anyone ever not "connected" with their tablemates?

[DutchsMommy]

Our tablemates on our 4 night Wonder in Feb also did not match our personalities. We are two 30ish 'city' type people with a young 3yo DS who is quite rambunctious. The couple were older, he was a banker, and their daughter who was also about 3 was extremely quiet and well behaved. I felt like I had to constantly make sure DS was 'behaving' - but this could have just been me. We really had nothing in common to talk about. DH is into cars and the tablemate assumed he must love NASCAR, which he absolutely does NOT, so that was basically the theme of the cruise. Like others have said, nothing really bad, just totally different personalities. We are cruising a 7 night in Nov '06 (oh so far away) and I think I will try and link up with a DISer or two prior to going to see if we have better luck. I guess the only thing bad about that would be if we found we couldn't stand each other and then would read each other's posts about our lousy tablemates - lol. aw:

 

[lenshanem]

Maybe this has been mentioned...???

Our party is me, DH, DD7 and DD4. I'm assuming our travel agent linked our ressies with my parents? How many sit at a table? We would be 6 total.

Just curious if more people will be with us? And if we get there and we aren't with my parents will they move them so we can be together? Or is this all in the documents when we get them?

Thanks!

 

[CableKC]

My DW and I shared a table with 2 other couples on our honeymoon. I dont know if it was us...or that they were a little oder then us....we didn't seem to connect with them on a "friendly talk talk" level. I less then a week .... yippeee.......I will be going with other family members....so it should be better this time.

 

[KCCRUISER]

DH and I have been on five cruises with a variety of experiences with our tablemates. Since it's just us (no kids), we've sometime ended up at tables with no children. Those are the worst!! Maybe it's because we're just kids at heart, but I like the excited chatter of a kid that's met Mickey for the first time!! Too often our adult tablemates have been too busy trying to impress everyone with their extensive travel stories or how socially prominent they are back home. Our most enjoyable times were with a single mom and her 6 year old daughter at our table and another trip with a very nice couple of older ladies. The last trip we took we didn't even go down to dinner--we just had room service or went upstairs to the buffet thingie...(don't worry, tho, we still tipped the wait staff)

 

[bettemom]

Our 1st cruise almost became our last cruise.
The 2 of us adults ( Mom & Daughter) were seated with a husband & wife and their 5 yr old "precious" daughter Has anyone seen the movie the OMEN?? well we had the girl from the OMEN movie at our dinner table . We suspected that the girl was an only child. Come to find out the parents had 2 sons in their 20's.

Can we say Out of control, this kid wrote on the tablecloths with permanent markers and crayons. Climbed on top of the table while we were trying to eat dinner. Kick the table from underneath and make plates and glasses tumble, she would throw things and have hissy fits, her favorite torture was to go under the table and try and pull the tablecloth off the table, while the table was full of food. I always sat across from the little charmer and one night I had to hold on for dear life so she would not pull everything to the floor. Through-out all these antics the parents would be like " uzy" don't do _____ ( fill in the blank). Of course the little devil just ignored them or threw another fit. What could we expect, the parents had zero personality, almost never said a word to us.

If we had only known we could have changed tables, we would have left the 1st night. We did however find Topsiders and visited them a couple times.

Thankfully, we met sooo many wonderful people on these boards that many of us have cruised together for the past 4 years and always have dinner linked together.

 

[Johnnie Fedora]

Guess I'm in a minority here, but we would prefer to sit with just our family. We enjoy having a family meal together that mom or dad don't have to prepare. It's a rareity that we and are allowed to sit through the whole meal without getting up for more milk, spills, etc. Also, if something gets spilled, splashed, thrown or otherwise blopped, It will be on my suit and not that of some strangers.

I do not like forced conversation or the awkwardness of requesting to move. For those reasons before we set sail, we request a family table if possible. That way, if we make friends on the cruise, we could always request to put our parties togther...if it could be arranged.

 

[DoeWDW]

I really appreciate reading this thread. I'm getting ready to book our first cruise and would never have thought to request to be moved if our tablemates didn't work out.

Thanks for the info!

 

[Favorite Auntie]

I have always enjoyed out tablemates, when we got paired up. Twice we had tables for just our party, once DCL paired us up with two sisters that were great fun, and once we paired up with some new DIS friends, it was GREAT! I guess I don't care if we get paired up or not...I have had all good experiences though.

 

[Momeska]

We are a family of four and were seated alone on our cruise, however, another family of four was seated at the table right next to us. It was difficult to make conversation because apparently, the father didn't speak English at all, the mother spoke limited English and the two daughters whom I'd say were probably 7 and 10ish did speak English but obviously had a very strict upbringing and impeccable manners but didn't speak to us really until...

On Thursday evening of our 7-day cruise, DH & I went to Palo. DS17 wanted to dress (it was semi-formal night) and go to our regular rotation as he felt comfortable with our servers. DS13 blew off that idea and went to Pinocchio's thus leaving DS17 to go to dinner alone which was absolutely not a problem in his opinion. In fact, another young man from several tables over whom he had met up in the Stack saw that DS17 was dining along so decided to join him at our table. (We found all of this out when we stopped in at our regular rotation after we finished at Palo) Please make note...these boys are teenagers...see, there are some nice ones with manners!

The following evening, this very well-mannered 10 year old
young lady at the next table asked me where we were the previous night, that our son was there alone. She then proceeded to tell me that they both had lobster for dinner and that they both really like seafood and was just a little chatterbox, making goo-goo eyes at him the entire time. I listened to her very attentively, watching DS17 turn 20 shades of red throughout. It's one of those, "You had to be there" stories but it was so precious.

 

[Liz]

Momeska, that's such a cute story. Thanks for sharing. I'm so impressed that your son would go to the dining room alone! Way to go raising him to be so independent!!!

 

[airtime247]

Our first two cruises were on Princess and we did the "Personal Choice" dining where we just showed up when we wanted to eat and got seated with other people showing up at the same time. The nice part was the few times we had people we didn't gel with, we never had to see again. The bad part was not really getting to know anyone for longer than one meal. It was also annoying having to repeat the "what's your name/where are you from/what do you do/how many cruises have you been on" questions every single night.

Our next cruise was Disney and we dined with two friends we travelled with so naturally, we had great conversation.

Our most recent Disney cruise through the Panama Canal was by far the best. We linked our dining with a few (okay 70) fantastic people from Disboards. DW and I started communicating with six other people who we were going to be seated with.

These were truly some of the nicest people we've ever met! We really got lucky in how well we got along and how much fun we had each night. If you can believe it, we actually dreaded going to Palo because we had to miss our new friends for one night! We still email each other almost daily and are even planning a reunion trip for the eight of us at WDW next year.

I highly recommend reading the Cruise Meets thread for your next cruise and suggest linking your dining with some people on there. You have the advantage of getting to know their personalities ahead of time on here so by the time the cruise arrives, you feel like you've known each other for years!

-steve

 

[yazee1]

We had very pleasant tablemates. There was a four year old girl, her mother and her mother's aunt. Dinner was something to look forward to with them.

 

[crisi]

Even if they aren't DISers, there is a good chance you are cruising with Disneyphiles. Ask if they've ever been to WDW. If you both have, you now have a few nights of dinner conversation without mentioning religion, politics or sex.

 

[woody73]

We have always had a good time with our tablemates, especially the repeat cruisers.

On one cruise, a family with two teenagers joined us. We saw the kids at dinner the first night, but did not see them again until the embarkation breakfast. So it was just the adults at dinner. The kids were just having too much fun with their new friends to bother with dinner with the folks. And the parents seemed to enjoy the break as well.

Woody

 

[calmom]

Maybe this has been mentioned...???

Our party is me, DH, DD7 and DD4. I'm assuming our travel agent linked our ressies with my parents? How many sit at a table? We would be 6 total.

Just curious if more people will be with us? And if we get there and we aren't with my parents will they move them so we can be together? Or is this all in the documents when we get them?

Thanks!

Call DCL or your TA and ask if your reservations are linked. Also request a table for 6. When you get on board, go to Dining Changes and check in with them to see if you got a table for 6 and that you are all together. I'm sure you will be, but if not they can fix it them. Have fun!

 

[LK03]

Our first and only cruise we showed up to Tritons on the first night and sat down at a four person table and it was just me and DH. Well, two seats remained empty the first night, second night empty again. DH and I thought hah they know we're on our honeymoon and we'll get the table to ourselves for good, hahahah. Third night, Parrot Cay, Pirates in the Carribean we get the old meanies. The wife sat down and had this horrid look on her face, her eyes were pierced and glaring at us and I thought oyyy, the husband tried to be polite but she would just complain and complain about everything in the restaurant and towards the end her husband got like that too. Thank goodness we had Palo ressies the next night because our server told us they showed up, and it was the most uncomfortable meal ever. I tried to eat while I was glared at for no reason. Personally, I think she was jealous of the "it's our honeymoon" buttons we had on, hahahahaha

 

[leanne2255]

I honestly would have liked to connect with our tablemates on our first 4 day cruise. Since it was just DH and I, we were seated at a table with 2 other couples. One very young couple on their honeymoon who hardly said two words and another couple who only spoke between themselves. I was happy the night we went to Palo and did not have to try and have forced conversation. We spoke to lots of other tables in Palo and wondered why we couldn't have had those people at our regular rotations.

7 day coming up in November. I HOPE we have a fun table then.

 

[Angelgirl13202]

I am still trying to figure out what DCL uses to pair i have read that its whose in your party but, I dont think so becasue I traveled with my grandma so it was her who was in her mid 50's we were celebrating her birthday but for the life of me I cant remember how old she turned. and me who was 19 at the time we were seated with a single mom and her 10 maybe 11 year old daughter. we talked yes but conversation seemed very forced. it was still fun anyway. but like i said i was wondering what disney was using when they paired us

 

[lillygator]

we didn't connect that much...our tablemates consisted of a mom, college age daughter and 4 year old son. The mom wouldn't let the son watch Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter etc for the imaginative implications.

She must have thought we were heathens...my DD's fav movie at that time was HP and she was 18 months!