Tales about table mates

[sailingrose]

Can't say I've had awful tablemates. Many have become friends thru the years. On our last trip they sat my husband and I at a table for 6. 4 single women and us. They requested a table change which was fine with us as we really didn't have anything in common.

There were some people in June I would have hated as tablemates. They reminded me of the stiff old people in the Titanic movie! They were all prim and proper and gave our table the eye the entire week because we were laughing and joking. These are the same people who came into late seating dinner nights an hour late!

[sailingrose]

Can't say I've had awful tablemates. Many have become friends thru the years. On our last trip they sat my husband and I at a table for 6. 4 single women and us. They requested a table change which was fine with us as we really didn't have anything in common.

There were some people in June I would have hated as tablemates. They reminded me of the stiff old people in the Titanic movie! They were all prim and proper and gave our table the eye the entire week because we were laughing and joking. These are the same people who came into late seating dinner nights an hour late!

[dreamer]

Gotta Cruz, why did you assume that the reason they didn't come to dinner that night was to avoid tipping. The one time we cruised with our kids( and yes the staff were great) we didn't dine in the dining room on the last night as the kids were tired and we had so much packing to do , knowing that we had a LONG flight the next day we ordered in and stayed in that night. We just gave the staff their tips in the morning. We would have been rather taken aback if we thought that just because we didn't go to dinner everyone thought we were stiffing the staff.

[dreamer]

Gotta Cruz, why did you assume that the reason they didn't come to dinner that night was to avoid tipping. The one time we cruised with our kids( and yes the staff were great) we didn't dine in the dining room on the last night as the kids were tired and we had so much packing to do , knowing that we had a LONG flight the next day we ordered in and stayed in that night. We just gave the staff their tips in the morning. We would have been rather taken aback if we thought that just because we didn't go to dinner everyone thought we were stiffing the staff.

[GottaCruz]

dreamer, You're right in saying that we shouldn't have assumed they didn't come to dinner so they didn't have to tip. But knowing how much the wait staff depends upon those tips, we figured , and maybe we shouldn't have, that even if their youngest, who was 8 years old, was tired, one of them would have come in to the dining room, even if just for a few minutes, to say goodbye to us and give the tip. These were people who ate every single meal in the dining room. After all, why even put the thought in the waiter's mind that they weren't getting that tip. I know that everyone thinks differently and I can't expect everyone to think the way that I do, but if it were me, I wouldn't want that wait staff to go through the evening, as they did, wondering if they would be out the money from a family of four. I would have gone myself or sent my husband if I couldn't go , or even the teenage daughter could have been sent to present the tip just so their servers wouldn't have to worry about whether or not they were getting it. But that's just me and I'm a worrier. I'm sure there are people who leave the tipping to the last morning and it works out just fine but there's always the chance that things could be too hectic to get to breakfast or maybe the same wait staff won't be there but, as I said, I'm just a worrier and wouldn't take a chance on something like that happening at the last minute and end up not being able to tip them. Maybe the staff is used to people tipping at breakfast before they get off the ship but in this case, the staff seemed very concerned that the other family wasn't with us for dinner. If they had seemed unconcerned about it, maybe we wouldn't have been so worried and jumped to the conclusion that we did. Anyway, as I mentioned , it was our first cruise and we just assumed that the last dinner was when you gave the tips. But , I agree with you dreamer, that we shouldn't have made any assumptions. Now that we are veteran cruisers, we know that there is no set rule or standard for how things are done.

We did find out the next morning at breakfast that they never showed up and we felt terrible for our wait staff.

[GottaCruz]

dreamer, You're right in saying that we shouldn't have assumed they didn't come to dinner so they didn't have to tip. But knowing how much the wait staff depends upon those tips, we figured , and maybe we shouldn't have, that even if their youngest, who was 8 years old, was tired, one of them would have come in to the dining room, even if just for a few minutes, to say goodbye to us and give the tip. These were people who ate every single meal in the dining room. After all, why even put the thought in the waiter's mind that they weren't getting that tip. I know that everyone thinks differently and I can't expect everyone to think the way that I do, but if it were me, I wouldn't want that wait staff to go through the evening, as they did, wondering if they would be out the money from a family of four. I would have gone myself or sent my husband if I couldn't go , or even the teenage daughter could have been sent to present the tip just so their servers wouldn't have to worry about whether or not they were getting it. But that's just me and I'm a worrier. I'm sure there are people who leave the tipping to the last morning and it works out just fine but there's always the chance that things could be too hectic to get to breakfast or maybe the same wait staff won't be there but, as I said, I'm just a worrier and wouldn't take a chance on something like that happening at the last minute and end up not being able to tip them. Maybe the staff is used to people tipping at breakfast before they get off the ship but in this case, the staff seemed very concerned that the other family wasn't with us for dinner. If they had seemed unconcerned about it, maybe we wouldn't have been so worried and jumped to the conclusion that we did. Anyway, as I mentioned , it was our first cruise and we just assumed that the last dinner was when you gave the tips. But , I agree with you dreamer, that we shouldn't have made any assumptions. Now that we are veteran cruisers, we know that there is no set rule or standard for how things are done.

We did find out the next morning at breakfast that they never showed up and we felt terrible for our wait staff.

[Mebert]

My limited experience on the Carnival Destiny taught me that 99.9 percent of the table mates that one meets are going to be great. No problems occured during regular seating because we had a table for two. However, during open seating, I met a women who was traveling with her mother. I thought we would hit it off because the conversation started so gleefully. We decided that we would meet at other times during the trip and I was thinking about asking if there were two seats at her seating so that we could enjoy our meals together. After our first "date" I knew that I was not going to seek her company anywhere on the ship because she turned out to be a contrarian. The simpliest things that I liked, she didn't like and she would editorialize on my poor judgement.

Once I said I would hang a painting up and install some track lighting to highlight the piece. She replied, most disdainfully, "Track lighting! You'd never use track lighting for that! If you don't use recessed lighting you don't know what you're talking about!"

I said "Okay, maybe recessed lighting would be better." I was thinking this was an isolated attempt at banter. However, our conversations became a whole series on my poor taste because I liked paintings with buildings and houses.

Thank God for the vastness of the Destiny. There are so many places to escape and to hide. Even though my judgement and my taste were challenged she still sought my company. Meanwhile, I had become smitten by another, more agreeable, shipmate and wanted to avoid that first contact at all cost. If I saw the disagreeable women on the first level of the show lounge, I would sit in the balcony. If I saw her and she waved to catch my attention, I would cheerfully wave back and act as if I were in a great hurry to get to an unnamed event in some unknown part of the ship. I was also too embarrassed to let her see me with the other women.

I did not understand why this most disagreeable women sought my company. We did not seem to have anything in common and her prigish style was really irritating.

I thanked God for my table for two with my traveling companion and appreciated the fact that cruiseliners or like small cities or at least large buildings. There are so many great people to meet and so much fun to be had that you don't have to get stuck with someone who is going to assist in you're having a bad time.

Despite my dodging that pedantic women, I had a blast. There are people that I am still in touch with.

[Mebert]

My limited experience on the Carnival Destiny taught me that 99.9 percent of the table mates that one meets are going to be great. No problems occured during regular seating because we had a table for two. However, during open seating, I met a women who was traveling with her mother. I thought we would hit it off because the conversation started so gleefully. We decided that we would meet at other times during the trip and I was thinking about asking if there were two seats at her seating so that we could enjoy our meals together. After our first "date" I knew that I was not going to seek her company anywhere on the ship because she turned out to be a contrarian. The simpliest things that I liked, she didn't like and she would editorialize on my poor judgement.

Once I said I would hang a painting up and install some track lighting to highlight the piece. She replied, most disdainfully, "Track lighting! You'd never use track lighting for that! If you don't use recessed lighting you don't know what you're talking about!"

I said "Okay, maybe recessed lighting would be better." I was thinking this was an isolated attempt at banter. However, our conversations became a whole series on my poor taste because I liked paintings with buildings and houses.

Thank God for the vastness of the Destiny. There are so many places to escape and to hide. Even though my judgement and my taste were challenged she still sought my company. Meanwhile, I had become smitten by another, more agreeable, shipmate and wanted to avoid that first contact at all cost. If I saw the disagreeable women on the first level of the show lounge, I would sit in the balcony. If I saw her and she waved to catch my attention, I would cheerfully wave back and act as if I were in a great hurry to get to an unnamed event in some unknown part of the ship. I was also too embarrassed to let her see me with the other women.

I did not understand why this most disagreeable women sought my company. We did not seem to have anything in common and her prigish style was really irritating.

I thanked God for my table for two with my traveling companion and appreciated the fact that cruiseliners or like small cities or at least large buildings. There are so many great people to meet and so much fun to be had that you don't have to get stuck with someone who is going to assist in you're having a bad time.

Despite my dodging that pedantic women, I had a blast. There are people that I am still in touch with.

[GottaCruz]

How about our newer members? Do you have any tales about your table mates???

[rogue]

The most interesting tablemates that we had was a mother and son from Berlin, Germany. He was in his 60's and mother was in her 80's. She didn't speak one word of English and neither the other couple we sat with nor my wife and myself spoke any German. Luckily, the son spoke perfect English and translated the whole cruise.

He never married, and spent his life taking care of mom. He was a high school principal in Germany, and they took cruises on all of his vacations. He said that they never missed a year over the last 35 years, and most years they had 2 or 3 cruises. He wasn't sure exactly how many cruises they were on, but he figured that they were getting up toward the 100 mark.

We spent quite a few dinners on that cruise getting different cruise stories from him. They were all quite interesting and fun to listen to. It gave us another reason to look forward to dinner. :grin:

Howard