In the Grills or Club you will be served when you arrive.
If your table companions arrive at a similar time you may be served together but if not the waiting staff are used to dealing with people at different stages of a meal whether they are sharing a table or not. This applies for all 3 meals.
That's always been the case in the Grills and Britannia Club on Cunard. If you continue this discussion on the Cunard board regular posters will explain that it works well.
Thanks for the reports, we only had a week on a Fred Olsen ship but there were a lot of birthdays!
It was amusing the first night but we got really tired of waiting for food because our waiter spent so much time singing Happy Birthday.