Seating in Dining Room

Hi! To all the experienced cruisers - I hope someone can help me with this problem.

We are sailing on Rhapsody of the Seas in May. Let me say that we sailed on Rhapsody two years ago, and had a wonderful time. The travel agent we used at that time managed to arrange for my husband's mother and us to be by ourselves at a table for four - and this was only about a month before sailing.

This time there will be three couples - six of us in all. Two couples booked at the same time, one about a month later, all through the same cruise agency.

In January or early February, I was told by the head of the cruise agency that it would not be a problem to get all of us at a table for six, especially this far ahead of time, and that they would take care of it. Now we are being told, by another person who is actually handling the booking, that the three couples are linked together and that is all they can do. They say we will just have to wait until we get on board ship to see what we get. We may not even be together - that there are no guarantees!

What do you think about this? Which person told us the truth? Is there anything else we can do?

Thanks so much for any help you can give us. This is one couple's (our niece and her husband) first cruise, and we want it to be a good one.

We do this all the time. We book here in Mass., others we sail with book with their TA in Florida. All you have to do is have your TA's reference all your booking numbers with the cruise line and you will end up at the same tables. We have been doing this for well over 6 years and never had a problem.

It's one of those things I would not worry about. Technically, the person handling the booking is correct. All requests for dining preferences are just requests--not guaranteed things. But on the other hand, cruise lines like to keep passengers happy and try to honor all the requests that it can.

A table for six shouldn't be a problem. And if it turns out you aren't assigned to the same table, see the maitre d' the afternoon you get on the ship to have it changed.

Since your TA has already linked your bookings, there's nothing else to do now (except start packing [img]http://messages.cruisecritic.com/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]).