Table mates or no?

[dsdeleon]

This is exactly why I request a private 4 top. We walk on and off the boat with the kids and that's pretty much it! Every dinner has their little lone water cups with their names and empty seats. The wait staff never even meets them so it would be awkward to sit with another family with kids to never meet them.

 

[Footnotegirl]

Most of the cruises we've gone on have been with friends, but they could not go on our last one. We ended up getting seated at a table with another family and it was a pretty good experience. They matched us up with a couple of about the same age who had a child of the same age (hard to do, since we are older parents). The two kids did not get along extremely well, pretty much just ignored each other, but the other parents were quite nice. Dad was from Switzerland and mom was from Brazil. Neither spoke English as a first language, but Dad was fluent and mom was able to carry on a conversation (which makes them twice as smart as us ). They were very pleasant, and it was fun discussing all sorts of things with them.
If you end up getting put at a table with people you don't get on well with, you can always just ask to be moved.

 

[Ashlea Ramsey]

How do you request private dining? My DH is a very very shy person, and we like to use dinner as family catch up time. We will be traveling with my parents as a group of 5, how difficult would it be to get a private table?

 

[SuperLuckyMamaBear]

We're sailing in September (probably, I'm starting to stress about the money because of some other things that have come up) and both sets of parents are going. There will be 9 of us and of course I requested that we all sit together. It kind of made me laugh because the TA said they'd put the request in but that didn't guarantee that Disney would seat us all together. I figure if there's going to be 9-10 people at a table either way, I'd find it odd that we'd be seated with strangers. We requested to be seated alone during our last cruise (October 2015) and we weren't. I was bummed but honestly out of the 7 nights, the other family only went do dinner 3 or 4 nights, one night I got dinner and took it back to our room, and the other nights we just focused on our family and they focused on theirs. Life is hectic and chaotic, I wanted to just focus on our family.

 

[NewYorkcruiser]

This is exactly why I request a private 4 top. We walk on and off the boat with the kids and that's pretty much it! Every dinner has their little lone water cups with their names and empty seats. The wait staff never even meets them so it would be awkward to sit with another family with kids to never meet them.

Do you mean that your kids never come to the MDR's with you guys?

 

[dsdeleon]

Do you mean that your kids never come to the MDR's with you guys?

Yes, they actually never come to the MDRs for dinner. They also miss the shows. Maybe we're weird or spend too much time together at home, but this my DH's and my favorite part of DCL! My kids meet people, make their own plans and do their own thing. They aren't that old either, 8 and 11. Not to change the subject, but we also leave them on the boat for about half of the excursions and I know a lot of people aren't comfortable with that but we do enjoy that alone time too.

 

[snchpnz]

Disney does a great job at pairing families. On our first cruise when I sailed with just my partner they sat us at a table with another adult couple our age. On our next trip when my mother came along they sat us with another multi-generational family of adults traveling with their spouses and parents. Although both times we were seated with other families were fine we discovered that we prefer to have a table to ourselves. Even when the tables are so close together that you might as well be seated with the other family that tiny crack of space in between is a very nice thing to have.

 

[AquaDame]

I'm in the 'would rather have our own table' group. We have sat with others twice and did not enjoy it much. There was a lot of waiting while they had extra courses while we were twiddling our thumbs wanting to finish and get out of there and the second time we did not get on with the other couple at all. Polar opposites I'm afraid and the conversation was constantly shifted by them towards impolite topics such as our choice not to have kids and their views on government and guns. We actually skipped a dinner or two. If we have to do it again I'd prefer having a larger table at least... more people to chat with means a better chance of finding common ground with someone. I really enjoyed chatting with some older couples onboard RCCL when we were put at large 8 or 10 tops. Their kids were grown and gone so it was mostly sharing notes on other countries and TV shows, the weather - that sort of thing. I'll always ask if we can have our own though...

 

[NewYorkcruiser]

I was wondering too if we would get out faster if it's just us. We're doing the second seating and plan on doing the dine and play. I don't really want to spend more than an hour in the MDR's.

Off topic, but does anyone know if I can register my 11 y/o for the Oceaneers club just in case, but bring him to the tween room if we become comfortable with the freedom that would give him? Or does him having the kids band prevent him from going to the tween room?

 

[dsdeleon]

I was wondering too if we would get out faster if it's just us. We're doing the second seating and plan on doing the dine and play. I don't really want to spend more than an hour in the MDR's.

Off topic, but does anyone know if I can register my 11 y/o for the Oceaneers club just in case, but bring him to the tween room if we become comfortable with the freedom that would give him? Or does him having the kids band prevent him from going to the tween room?

11yo is the BEST age because he can freely go between Oceaneer's and Edge. The Edge is a sticker on the room key and the Oceaneer's band is like a magicband. One does not preclude the other. Also please note that you don't have to the Dine and Play for the 11 yo to go to the Oceaneers or Edge, he can just get up and go and actually has to do that for the Edge. Once you get comfortable with the Edge they have to be able to freely walk in and out, there is no way to sign them in and out even if you wanted to. The Oceaneer's will give you the option to not let him go out and only do drop offs and pick ups. For my youngest, we started with that level and then changed it mid way through the cruise. So you can give yourselves time to get comfortable as a family and all the contact options (the wave phone he can have to call you or even asking CMs at any club to assist him in calling you at any time on that Wave phone or a Club phone, or using the app to text, etc)

 

[Maddysdaddy]

We've experienced both. Prefer being paired off with another family - when we were by ourselves, it was very much a case of struggling for conversation, as the usual dinner conversation starter of "How was your day? Do anything interesting?" could only be met with the response of "My day was exactly the same as yours..."

Best case scenario is that you meet a great family and have interesting dinner conversations. Worst case scenario is that you just don't click and you end up just conversing with your family members.

 

[hkriw]

this will be our 3rd cruise. we have never made a request. One time we were alone (kids were 4 and 7 at time) and last time we were with a family with kids about 6 months older than ours (6&9 at the time) We got along well, kids had a ball together- they would all leave for the dine and play- we would finish dinner, have coffee and dessert and wander to the kids clubs together. And then part our separate ways. we have remained FB friends since then- 2 years ago.

We sail next week- we'll see what we get?!!?

 

[NewYorkcruiser]

I think I'm going to leave it to fate and see what happens. Maybe Disney should have everyone fill out an eHarmony type survey to help determine best fit for tablemates.

 

[Dug720]

I think I'm going to leave it to fate and see what happens. Maybe Disney should have everyone fill out an eHarmony type survey to help determine best fit for tablemates.

From most reports they seem to generally do pretty well on their own...

Unless it is a "solo cruisers dump table" like I had on my last DCL cruise... That was less than magical for one night (then I spoke up and got my own table and was much happier).

 

[AquaDame]

From most reports they seem to generally do pretty well on their own...

Unless it is a "solo cruisers dump table" like I had on my last DCL cruise... That was less than magical for one night (then I spoke up and got my own table and was much happier).

May I ask how you liked having your own table..? I may be cruising solo in January and was trying to decide between asking for one and just going up to Cabana's every night (its a B2B so I will have eaten in the MDRs already anyway).

 

[Dug720]

May I ask how you liked having your own table..? I may be cruising solo in January and was trying to decide between asking for one and just going up to Cabana's every night (its a B2B so I will have eaten in the MDRs already anyway).

I loved it! My servers were as attentive as I wanted them to be - leaving me alone when I wanted and talking when I wanted. I took my nook with me, but to be honest I never turned it on. (OTOH, I wished I had taken it with me for the first night when the two solo guys hit it off famously and I was left just sitting there trying to figure out how to gracefully leave.)

Night two I went to Palo - AMAZING solo experience both dinner and brunch.

Night three I figured I would try Cabanas, but it was like they took my least favorite things from the three menus and combined them. So I went and chatted with the MDR manager and got myself moved to my own table.

 

[richkaryn]

On each of our cruise DCL has done an amazing job of matching us. On our Alaskan cruise this past summer not only were our kids the same age, but DH and the wife of the other couple were both engineers, so there was more common ground. Most nights the kids would devour their supper, skip dessert, and take off together for the club/lab or a movie (We gave DS sign out privileges with some ground rules, and he did really well, so we were ok with him going off to a movie or interactive gameshow like that.) The night we went to Palo, DS even went down by himself and ate dinner because he didn't want to miss his buddy.

 

[Pooh2]

How do you request private dining? My DH is a very very shy person, and we like to use dinner as family catch up time. We will be traveling with my parents as a group of 5, how difficult would it be to get a private table?

We called DCL and they put the request on our reservation. The CM said we would receive an email confirmation request, we did not so here's hoping the request is actually there!

We requested and received a private table on our first cruise. There were 3 tables near us of a 4 top table with only one couple at each so maybe they are leaning more in that direction? We will find our on our next cruise!

 

[Neptune's Fork]

I loved it! My servers were as attentive as I wanted them to be - leaving me alone when I wanted and talking when I wanted. I took my nook with me, but to be honest I never turned it on. (OTOH, I wished I had taken it with me for the first night when the two solo guys hit it off famously and I was left just sitting there trying to figure out how to gracefully leave.)

Night two I went to Palo - AMAZING solo experience both dinner and brunch.

Night three I figured I would try Cabanas, but it was like they took my least favorite things from the three menus and combined them. So I went and chatted with the MDR manager and got myself moved to my own table.

So if you're a solo they try to match you up almost like in a dating setting? or am I misinterpreting that? That would be a new angle, Disney playing matchmaker.

 

[scrappinginontario]

We are traveling with friends in 3 weeks and have requested a table for 5 but I'd be quite happy if they sat us with others.

Our first cruise we were 3 generations and they sat us with another family who was also 3 generations (son the same age as my DD) and we had a wonderful time! We ended up going on one of our excursions together and even contemplated booking a cruise together in the future!