Question about dining with just your family....

[godisneyboat]

Hi All....our family will be on the May 18th 4 day Dream Cruise. I have requested a a table for just our family. Not trying to be unsocial, we like a lot of families are very busy and with our oldest just graduating college this could be one of our last family trips with just us for a while. Dinner is our catch up time as we seldom get to dine as a family......do I need to do anything else when we get on the ship to follow up with this?

 

[Smeece]

I did the same thing not long ago as our 3 year old's attention span could cause other families at our table to lose their appetite's. I was told that you wont really know if it's been honored until that first night at the MDR so if that's wrong someone please share.

 

[plutos1fan]

Hi,

While my family has never been on the Disney Dream or Disney Fantasy, we have requested a table for just our family on the Disney Wonder. I would do two things, number one, a couple of days before your cruise I would call DCL and confirm that your family has a table alone. Second, if you want to confirm that your family will have a table yourselves, you might be able to talk to guest services onboard to see if they could verify your request. I have called DCL before our last cruise and confirmed that we had are own table and it worked. I have not tried to go to guest services to double check once we were on board, but it is worth a try if you want. Have a great cruise!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

a couple of days before your cruise I would call DCL and confirm that your family has a table alone. Second, if you want to confirm that your family will have a table yourselves, you might be able to talk to guest services to see if they could verify your request.

In our experience, you can't count on what the DCL representative will say over the phone. As long as the request is on the reservation, they are going to say "it's done". Unless you are Concierge, in that case, the default is for your party to have their own table, unless you request otherwise.

BUT, you can check with the dining changes desk once onboard to confirm that you are seated alone. The location will be noted in the Navigator you get in the terminal at check in.

 

[PHamrick]

How common is it for families to dine alone vs. with other people? On our Dream cruise, we didn't request it at all, but had a table all to our foursome. This time we are traveling with two other families and I suspect we will be seated together or near each other at least.

 

[jrabbit]

When we have had a table to ourselves .... we have hated it!! Here's our conversation.... "What did you do today?" ... "Same as You... stop asking that, we've been together this whole trip"

If we get assigned a table by ourselves again, we asked to be moved to be with other people. As it turns out we like dining with others on the ship. We have had language barriers (Japanese, German, and Spanish), but have always found a way to communicate. Our attitude has become ... we are dining with strangers for only a few minutes, then we start to get to know one another. At a minimum we usually have our love of Disney as a common starting point.

 

[bumbershoot]

How common is it for families to dine alone vs. with other people? On our Dream cruise, we didn't request it at all, but had a table all to our foursome. This time we are traveling with two other families and I suspect we will be seated together or near each other at least.

I would imagine you had a 4-top because another group of 3 or 4 wanted to be alone.

If you want to eat with the other families you need to link the reservations. Otherwise, if they were booked separately, Disney might not know that you are all together.

When we have had a table to ourselves .... we have hated it!! Here's our conversation.... "What did you do today?" ... "Same as You... stop asking that, we've been together this whole trip"

SAME! same same same. We are a family of 3, homeschooling, hubby gets a lot of vacation time and "time in lieu" from when he works over weekends on his trips (he travels half the year)...we have enough together time! We like the input of others.

As it turns out we like dining with others on the ship. We have had language barriers (Japanese, German, and Spanish), but have always found a way to communicate. Our attitude has become ... we are dining with strangers for only a few minutes, then we start to get to know one another.

Yep, same here. The one time we didn't enjoy it was our first cruise; our honeymoon, at an 8 top and only 2 others ever showed up, and they were 99.99% definitely a man and his mistress. Ick. Not what we needed. But that was a fluke.

 

[disneyairforceguy]

So I booked two concierge rooms for my family of 5 on Dream. Does that me we are automatically dining together alone, or each room dines alone? With my DS being autistic I just don't want to put anyone in an awkward situation.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

So I booked two concierge rooms for my family of 5 on Dream. Does that me we are automatically dining together alone, or each room dines alone? With my DS being autistic I just don't want to put anyone in an awkward situation.

I would think that, as long as your reservations are linked, you will be seated together (just your party of 5). But, if it makes you more comfortable, just call DCL and have the request noted on your reservation that you want to only be seated the 5 people in your group.

 

[lin7]

Vacation is our WE time so we prefer to socialize at dinner with family. We requested a table with just family members and had our request fulfilled. We booked only 2 months out if I remember correctly

 

[taymorel]

We requested a table alone on our January cruise and we got one. It worked out great and is best for our family. We are requesting it again on our next cruise.

 

[bumbershoot]

So I booked two concierge rooms for my family of 5 on Dream. Does that me we are automatically dining together alone, or each room dines alone? With my DS being autistic I just don't want to put anyone in an awkward situation.

Since you booked the rooms and it's YOUR family, almost certainly you'll be together.

The issue with the other family is that they said two *other* families. So they likely didn't book those rooms. On our first Disney cruise we went with my cousin and her family. We all booked separately. In OUR case we did not *want* to dine together. There was the feeling that the kids just wouldn't eat if together, and it would be best to have the families separated. That seemed fine, but later I realized that the kids eat just fine even at highly distracting places like Sweet Tomatoes and it would have been fine. But that was our situation on that trip. We had to actually have the reservations linked because we were different family groups.

 

[Club Disney Chandler]

On our 3 cruises, we've always had a 4 top for just the 4 of us. Never requested it and certainly aren't concierge. There are quite a few 4 top tables in the MDR's so I think most families of 4 sit by themselves. I didn't even realize there was a possibility of sitting with others until I read it on here after our second cruise.

 

[KristiMc]

For our first few cruises I put the request in for our family of 4 to sit alone. On our last cruise, I forgot to request and were seated with another family of 4.

 

[Dug720]

One thing to be aware of is that even "separate" tables are not necessarily far from another. On our first cruise we were seated alone (Dad went for concierge, and we didn't know we would be getting our own table), and I really remember in Royal Palace the table next to us (on the short, empty side) as so close the server couldn't even get between them. And the father at that table decided we should all talk for a bit.

So you might get a table to yourself, but odds are it won't be isolated.

 

[lizzyb]

We requested this on our two cruises by having our agent note it and it was honoured both times.

 

[bumbershoot]

One thing to be aware of is that even "separate" tables are not necessarily far from another. On our first cruise we were seated alone (Dad went for concierge, and we didn't know we would be getting our own table), and I really remember in Royal Palace the table next to us (on the short, empty side) as so close the server couldn't even get between them. And the father at that table decided we should all talk for a bit.

So you might get a table to yourself, but odds are it won't be isolated.

And I think they are that close because a 4-top can then be easily changed to a 6 or 8-top. So on one cruise (or day) you might walk in to see many 4-tops, but another day it'll look like all 8-tops, because the tables have been moved together.

 

[Dug720]

And I think they are that close because a 4-top can then be easily changed to a 6 or 8-top. So on one cruise (or day) you might walk in to see many 4-tops, but another day it'll look like all 8-tops, because the tables have been moved together.

Oh I agree. And I suspect that the dining rooms were constructed and set up based on the traditional cruise dining model of shared tables but as more and more people are demanding their own, Disney is doing their best within the previously determined floorplan of the MDRs.

 

[ptcbass]

Just got off the ship today. We requested a table for just our family and the first day I wanted to go to RP to verify that we got it and there was a long line so I didn't. We did end up with our own table . I noticed several others that also had their own tables. Didn't seem to be a big deal at all.

 

[just2girls1]

We have never requested a table and have always had our own table.