tablemates

[Faith&Hope]

We have been on 3 7-day DCL cruises and are getting ready for #4. We have NEVER had any tablemates. It has just been my husband, I and our 2 little kids. It would be great for us to have tablemates the same age as our kids. THe girls are very active and een though I take a bag of activities/homework to do, meals seem to last forever. It would be great to have other kids at the table! Is this something I could request upon getting on the ship?

What are the chances of not having tablemates?

 

[PizzieDuster]

We're just a couple, no kids, so on our first cruise, we requested a 4 top so we'd just be with another couple. Which woulda been okay except they were from Singapore and the wife didn't speak any English. The husband would speak with us, but didn't seem inclined to interpret anything for his wife, so she ended up just sitting there. There ended up being a lot of awkward quietness at the table.

Since then, we've either requested larger tables so we'll have a better chance of meeting more people to hit it off with or linked reservations with others that we already knew through the DIS.

Julie

On our first Royal Car. cruise we (party of 5) were seated with a couple with DS 6. They were from --- I completely forgot --- but they spoke NO ENGLISH! They looked painfully unhappy. We could not communicate. The worse was my poor DS12 at the time - was seated next to the Dad. I was crushed watching him feel so uncomfortable. We changed to a table for ourselves.

After 3 Disney cruises - we've never experienced any problems with table mates. First DCL cruise we had wonderful tablemates from PA and they had a DD same age as my eldest DS. So he was more than happy to go to dinner. They also had a small DD with special needs and it was wonderful to see how great the staff dealed with this. We even saw a chef come out to speak to the parents. They were so endeared when he brought out her meal and she gobbled it up. They were very sweet, they were so worried their DD would not eat on the cruise.

They next times we were sitted alone as a family.

I will say the following Royal Car. cruise on The Freedom my eldest DS was yet again delighted to be sailing with TWINS the same age as he. We had a blast.

Has this every happened to you? We made very good friends by the adult pool and we tried to get our tables together but it didn't work out. Oh well, it made after dinner activities very fun!

 

[jbuckent]

Our first cruise, Carnival, was with our bestest friends and his sister (who we had only met once) and her boyfriend (who we never met). There were also two empty chairs at our table. This was the best cruise ever! We had so much fun at dinners.

Second cruise, Royal Caribbean, we were at a table for 8 with my ILs, and two other couples. Once couple was very friendly and fun to talk with. The other couple was a young gal, and her very old DH, they were both neurosurgeons, that is all we got out of them. They very much kept to themselves and didn't care to chat with us. That was a little awkward having 6 people at the table talking together and 2 not.

Third cruise, DCL, we now had a 12 month old with us, we were seated with a couple and their maybe 5 year old dd. They told us they would likely not be dining with us after this night as they were trying to get early seating. They got it. We never saw them again. So it was just the 3 of us. This was nice, our servers spent a lot of time with us and dotting over our DD.

Fourth cruise, DCL, the 3 of us sat at a table for 9. The 5 others were a DH and wife about our age, their children maybe 4 and 6, one of their mothers/grandmothers and her friend. The mother/grandmother and friend were fun. They were a little complainy but it was the kind of complainy that DH and I could go back to our room and laugh at. The kids were way too tired to get to know, the younger one usually fell asleep in the stroller before eating and the older one would lay down on two chairs and go to sleep after eating. Their parents usually spent their time trying to keep the kids awake to eat so we didn't get to know them very well at all.

Our upcoming cruise I hope we are seated with a family similar to ours. I much prefer having tablemates than just us.

 

[orlandothebeagle]

Ok, let me first say that statistically speaking, we're doing great.

We've been on 11 cruises and only once had tablemates we didn't get along with. We asked for our server specifically and got him, we've had him on 9 of the 11 we've been on. I will protect the names of the innocent and not so innocent for moralities sake here. Our first night, this couples in their early 50's were complaining that on their last DCL cruise they had lousy service and had to wait forever. We assured them that our server was top notch and that the cruiseline even uses him to train new people. He came over and introduced himself to the table and she sat straight up stiffly and said OUT LOUD, "Yeah, but he's black!" in front of us, another retired couple and our server. We were mortified!!!!!!! We sat there speechless. To say that our 7 day cruise was awkward was an understatement. We were on a holiday cruise and could not be moved anywhere and still have our friend as server so we toughed it out. Amazingly, that couple also did not asked to be moved either. The possibility of having someone of another race as a server should have occured to them especially after cruising before. They were not so overt the rest of the time but just awful giving our server and head server the roughest of times ever evening. It seemed like a sick game to them. Our server and head server bent over backwards to be nice and provided excellent service and to this day, I still do not know if they got tipped. I know that they stiffed the head server for sure but am not sure about our friend. We hardly spoke to them the entire trip and had several empty chairs between us and them. Apparently the other couple had no trouble with their attitude and occasionally joined in on the trouble. We took it as a personal affront unto us and our server. We love him dearly and have even been invited to his wedding in the past. I don't want people to freak out after this story but keep it in mind that it still happens in this day and age. We just had a very unusual circumstance not being able to be moved. I think the experience has actually brought us closer as friends with our server and head server, which is our silver lining!

Lisa Marie

You are a hero, I am not sure i could have shared a table with these "people"
It is really scary though isnt it, we were lucky the last time, we are going with our parents next time, not sure what we will do

 

[BethC1952]

We've been very lucky with our tablemates.

Our first DCL cruise was our second honeymoon, and we were seated with three other honeymoon couples, all on their first honeymoons and all younger than our son. It was OK, not too bad, we did chat a bit.

On our second cruise, we had my DFIL with us, and were seated with a couple with a daughter who turned 17 on the cruise. The daughter wouldn't eat ANYTHING!!! Finally the parents gave up and just let her sit there. The parents were fun.

On our next cruise, we had family with us. There were 9 of us with a table to ourselves.

On our next cruise, we were seated with a couple from England, and they were wonderful tablemates. They loved American TV, we love British mysteries and dramas, so had plenty of conversation. There were two empty seats at our table, and on the last night a mother showed up with her young son. They took one look at us and left!

I don't remember our tablemates on our next cruise, which was the first half of a back-to-back. On the second half, we requested the same serving team, and got a 4-top all to ourselves.

On our most recent cruise, we linked with a bunch of DIS'ers (Cruise, who posted somewhere up the thread was one of them) and we had a blast! We all still keep in touch.

I can't wait to see what kind of tablemates we get in May. This time it will be just a friend and me, since DH is saving his very limited vacation time for our big "grandparents, parents and grandkids" WDW/DCL trip in December (we're the grandparents).

Beth

 

[WishingMom]

JOEY DOESN'T SHARE FOOD!!!

hee hee

I love it!!!!

 

[ShootingStarMom2]

We've done one DCL and the first night we sat down to dinner at a huge table with a young woman, her mother, her mother's mother, and her 4 kids. They just sat down and started talking amongst themselves. They never said hi, or nice to meet you, nothing. We polietly ate our dinner and then asked to be moved for the next meal service.

We were moved to a totally different dining rotation, which was fine with us because we got 2 nights in Lumiere's, and sat with the nicest couple that was our age. They said their tablemates had never even showed up and they were nervous they would get some wacko couple (well, in some instances we are wackos but not THAT kind) Later on the cruise we saw the family we left behind and they totally stared us down with the evil eye. Even the kids were staring!

Our second cruise was on Carnival. We sat at a table with 4 other couples our age (20's - 30's). When my husband asked what the couple to his right what kind of work they did said he was a pharmacist and his wife was a surgeon. He didn't ask what do you do or anything else about us. He just sat there and drank his wine staring straight ahead. Later in the conversation I asked his wife what type of surgery she did and she glanced at her husband and didn't answer. She finished her mouthful of food and said she worked for an animal hospital as a animal surgeon. I was a little surprised when she said that because her husband made no attempts to clarify that she was a vet. I could have cared less because I couldn't do either. I still wonder why he didn't just say so in the first place. Neither of them spoke to us again after that. My DH would meow when they would walk by us on the boat.

 

[PrincessBelle39]

How many people are usually seated at a table? There are four of us - DH, myself and dd's 7 and 4(nearly 5). DH is hoping that we are seated with other people like ourselves - ie: with children. Mind you I feel sorry for any potential table mates. DH and dd7 can talk with a mouthful of marbles underwater.

 

[tmli]

I have cruised a few times and I may be in the minority but we prefer our own table. Both DH and I are not extremely "social" people and we both work in jobs where we deal with the public constantly. When I am away I want it to be just us!! We did have a table for the three of us on our last cruise and we LOVED it!!

 

[LUVMICKEY]

We have only had tablemates one time, which was our last cruise. We have always cruised with other family members. We were concerned about it a little, but we had great tablemates and were glad that we met them. We had a great time all week with them and would not be concerned about doing it again.

 

[lg3]

We have always been lucky to have wonderful tablemates on DCL.

On a Celebrity cruise we had some real strange birds. One older couple especially, who were rather loud and obnoxious. They were from New Jersey (nothing against New Jersey!) but he would talk as if everyone were deaf and say at least every ten minutes of the meal "Eat up! You paid for it - hey, get some more!" It got old very fast.

 

[jrabbit]

On our last cruise the family we sat with ended up not comming to rotational dinning 2 nights in a row (Palo on night and topsiders another). We decided that we were pretty boring without our tablemates - nothing new to talk about because we were together the whole time

We have enjoyed our tablemates on "All" of our cruises - we had a table with a family and a single person. The family was great, the single person was grumpy and gave the serving team a very hard time (they were the best we have had from Head Server to Server to Assistant Server). Another cruise we ate with a japaneese family that spoke limited english (we only speak english) It was a little hard to comunicate but we still had a great time with them. Then there was the time that we were at a table with 5 families (18) and none of the families knew each other before the cruise (and the "demographics" of the families didn't really match up either). I think that this was the most fun we had at dinner on all of our cruises.

Dinning with others will always be an adventure. But it is part of the cruise "experience" and this is something we always look forward to (and my family is pretty shy!!)

 

[plutojudy]

Dinning with others will always be an adventure. But it is part of the cruise "experience" and this is something we always look forward to (and my family is pretty shy!!)

My husband and I agree! One time we were at a table for four and the other two people never came to dinner. We missed having someone to talk to. We already knew what we did that day. We already knew what our plans were for the next day. We enjoy meeting new people.