travelgypsie

Every time I see your most helpful list I must chuckle. I used many of your "secrets" on our past cruise in February. As I truly enjoy the one or two anchovies found on my or my husband's Caesar salad, I asked my waiter to include them on my occasional salad. One of our dining partners in the MDR was a bit intrigued that I got them and he didn't. I then told him about the 'secrets' list on this forum. He then wondered if the escargot were also available upon request --he tried and failed.

 

I am curious, is there a secret way to deal with a self important Maitre'd who insisted that there was no other table available, yet for the first 4 nights in a row we saw several nearby empty tables? We had the worst table imaginable, it was against a very small partition(a corner pillar) which separated the entrance and exit doors of where many of the waitstaff pick up the platters initially(the kitchen??not the serving stations)When all 6 of us were seated, a few impatient waitstaff would scoot with full trays behind us (barely 12" space between us and the corner partition) rather than using the aisles that they were supposed to. As all three couples at our table were C.Club members, I suggested that the "Elite" couple( who also had shares in RCCL)go and speak with the CC rep....we were reassigned a table the last half of our cruise, but all received 'glares' by the Eclipse's maitre 'd for the remainder of the cruise even though some of us smiled sweetly. Thank goodness the assistant maitre 'd was more than civil to us. Was the Maitre'd expecting us to give him cash for a better table?

We have only been on a few cruises, but have always had problems with dining room. Our solution has been to show up early at the dining room on the day of arrival, check out our table and sort everything out before the first meal. Usually works if you are patient. :)