Exactly. You are just as deserving of a table to eat your meal as anyone else. However, you are not MORE deserving of a table to sit, relax, regroup, etc with your preschooler while one spouse gets the food than someone who already has food and wants to eat while their food is still hot.
First of all, everyone will be pleased to know that A) We're not visiting during a busy time and B) We rarely plan on eating quick service when we do. I would never, EVER wait in a long line for sub-par food. Period. (We're also staying a monorail resort, without the dining plan and will have a car, so hopping back there for lunch or even going outside the parks, is a lot more appealing than the options laid out here.) Therefore, the likelihood that you'll ever run into me at a counter service restaurant is pretty slim. But, if you do, it's likely that my husband and son will be the only ones eating and if someone tells them I can't sit with them while they do, I will be more than upset.
Second, if I want to "rest and regroup" prior to eating my restaurant-purchased meal, I think that's a perfectly fair use of a table I found EMPTY. (Never advocated tossing someone else out or even hovering while someone else finishes their meal and leaping upon it while elbowing others out of the way ... Now that's what I'd say is rude.) The same as it's a perfectly fair use AFTER your meal. Do you advocate timers on everyone's table? Oops, you've been sitting too long, gotta go, done or not. Or the food police watching you and as soon as you take the last bite you're shoved out of the place? Or tables only for those who order "enough" food?
The idea that I can't select my own table (as another poster here described), even if one I'd prefer is also open, is just silly. As is having to justify my every action to an attendant, be it getting an additional soda or washing my hands. That sounds like jailhouse rules, not a vacation. And if that's my experience then, yes, I will leave the park and likely not return again.
Sitting on a bench is NOTHING like sitting at a table inside a CS restaurants. ... Do you care that while you're waiting, a parent who is alone with their children is wandering, with their food getting cold because there's no table for that patron who already has his/her food, just because you don't want to wait outside while your spouse is in line for another 20 minutes? That family could be done eating before your spouse even arrives with his food, if they had a table. In your scenario, that table is unavailble for people WITH FOOD the entire time your spouse is in line.
I disagree completely. The tables are for ALL restaurant patrons, the same way benches are for ALL park patrons. I've only advocated using them as a restaurant patron. There is no situation on earth in which I'm going to choke down my expensive food in 20 minutes ... Or that I'd expect anyone else to either. (Nor would I judge them if they did. To each their own ... Kind of my overall point here.) The same way that sitting on a bench for 3 minutes or 3 hours is OK, as everyone else had the same chance to sit down as you did and there shouldn't be a time limit on your stay.
I would never purposely set out to inconvenience someone else but, again, it's a first-come, first-served situation, not "rudeness," as was repeatedly suggested here. I wouldn't expect someone else to give up their table to my family either, any more than I'd expect someone to give up their place in line so I can avoid a 20 minute wait.
Also if I was ever lucky enough to find a table, some family would ask me to give it up since I was solo and they needed that table. Back before Tusker House changed to a TS, I actually had a lady yell at me and threaten to get a manager because I was sitting by myself at the only table available (a four seater) and wouldn't give it up for her family. She said that since I was solo, I could just take my food outside and eat it. I offered to share the table with them, but she still demanded that I give it up. An elderly couple was walking by about that time looking for a table, so I offered to share my table with them. They took me up on it, I had a very nice meal, met a couple of new friends from New York, and the rude lady stalked off muttering about how rude I was to not give up my table and how WDW was for families and I shouldn't even be there.
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