Has anyone been "kicked out" of their dining table?

[imsulin]

I was once on a HAL cruise (courtesy of good TA rate...great cruise, BTW!), and had been previously asked if I would like to be seated with other travel agents. I said, "No", as I like to meet all kinds of people, and was cruising solo. Well, guess what? I ended up at a table for 10 - all travel agents except for one very nice couple. The next night, only the couple and I were at the table, and it remained this way for the rest of the cruise. I noticed the other TAs sitting at another table together (on our first night together, none of them knew each other). (So...what??? I have BO or something???) Anyway, the young couple and I had a blast at this table by ourselves! I found out later that these TAs all worked for the same natiional well-known company. Sheesh!! Anyway...so much for "birds of a feather"...

[sandbag7]

Some may not agree, but I think this incident and the many others described illustrate the benefits of open dining employed on Windstar, Princess, Oceania and other lines. I've had generally good table mates on past cruises where we had a seating (on RC, Carnival, Costa) and a great group table on an Orient Lines cruise, but the ability to pick your table mates, take your chances with a 2, 4 or 6 other people or eat alone can't be beat. While cruising on Windstar my daughter and I ate with 5 different groups of people, two of whom we met at dinner, and the other three we knew pre-dinner. The other nights at my daughters suggestion, we ate alone. If freedom of choice in dining is important to you consider alternate restaurants or laternate cuise lines.

[WeLuvVacation]

It is really amazing how some people are on these boards. This woman and her husband had no right to be upset? They had no right to feel humiliated? They were left to stand there out in the open in front of others at an empty table for 8. Nooo noone was looking at them. RCCL handled this entire episode in a totally rude fashion. They treated 2 of thier guests like trash, PERIOD! These 2 people without even knowing them could not have done anything to deserve that kind of treatment. And the 6 others did not even have the class to be present to explain thier side of it. RCCL should have contacted them privately and should have already had thier new table assignment ready. And there is no point to debate here.

[Erie Dave]

Some of the words being used here; humiliated, mortified, enraged, are a little over the top. Irritating, maybe embarrising, or unjustified, but this doesn't seem to be such an event of earthshattering consequences. Yeah, I would be upset, maybe embarrassed and angry, but it isn't really the end of the world is it? As some one else posted earlier, I too wonder what lies were told? Sorry this happened to you, but you will live. If this is the worst you have to deal with, you are a lucky person.

[PhoenixCruiser]

Sorry this happened to you, but you will live. If this is the worst you have to deal with, you are a lucky person.

 

Thank you Dave!

 

The OP admitted being late for dinner that night. Perhaps if they were on time they would have been approached earlier and the situation could have been explained in a friendly manner before the staff got too busy.

 

My comment was justified, we ARE only hearing one side. If you don't feel comfortable with your table mates you have the right to speak up and get the arrangement changed. In fact the earlier the better so everyone has a positive experience!

 

JMHO ;)

 

###

[WeLuvVacation]

It is really amazing how some people are on these boards. This woman and her husband had no right to be upset? They had no right to feel humiliated? They were left to stand there out in the open in front of others at an empty table for 8. Nooo noone was looking at them. RCCL handled this entire episode in a totally rude fashion. They treated 2 of thier guests like trash, PERIOD! These 2 people without even knowing them could not have done anything to deserve that kind of treatment. And the 6 others did not even have the class to be present to explain thier side of it. RCCL should have contacted them privately and should have already had thier new table assignment ready. And there is no point to debate here.

 

If the above had been followed the fact that they were a whole 10 minutes late would not have mattered!

[babyher]

I too think this was handled terribly by all the staff involved.

 

 

To be honest, until this incident, I never knew you could have someone else removed from your table. I have seen hundreds of posts about people themselves moving to other tables to get away from "unacceptable" tablemates, but never having someone removed from your table.

 

If these tablemates had such a problem with sitting with the OP and her husband then THEY should have moved to another table.

[TheHappyWanderer]

I posted abouot experience because I had never heard of something such as this hapening.....and we ARE seasoned cruisers. I have heard over and over about people asking to be moved to a different table....but never have heard of a head waiter allowing six passengers to kick out others. What is is, Survival, and we can be voted off?

 

It happened, it was handled badly, and no apology was received from the head waiter who caused the poor handling. She DID tell us that she had been approached by the six after dinner the night before, and asked that we be removed so that someone else they might hook up with could join them...someone not in their 50's. Later she told her superior that she had been told by the maitre'd to make the change.....and you should have seen the look on the maitre'd's face when he that.......he had no knowledge of the situation until AFTER we made a compalint. She told us that we COULD NOT sit at the table, but told her superior that we had been given the option of remaining.

 

If they knew they needed a new "home" for us, why approach us as we came to the table, and then leave us just standing around while the head waiter made phone calls to someone to find a place for us? The whole thing stinks, but could have been handled in a way that no one's feathers would have been ruffled.

 

The enire table was empty as we arrived that night, but as we were being lead down one floor to our new table, we watched the six come into the dining room and take the table. They were at the table evry night, six of them....no one hooked up with them. They simply did not want to share a table with us, which was their right.....but THEY should have been the ones to move, not us.

 

I had to chuckle when I read any of the responses here......no...we do not drool, chew and chat, pick our teeth or have BO. Heck.....we seldom even fart at the table ! Get a life and try understanding where someone is coming from before accusing a poster of all kinds of nefarious actions. We had the unfortunate experience of running into some y9ung people that personify "rude", and that was that. But we expected RCCL to have reacted to that rude behavior in a way that would not have uneccessarily distressed us. But that's OK......I vote with my $$$. I vote to spend hard-earned $$$ with companies that recognize when an injustice, a public relations, mistake has been nade....and then work to correct it. If RCCL does not respond to this complaint in lack of guest relations it is only their loss....there are other lines we have enjoyed that would be happy to have us cruise.

[beachguy]

(beachchick here)

 

Some thoughts. (Please don't "yell" at me for not going to grab a bunch of little quotes; I think, and hope, my responses will be clear.)

 

Hydrographic Traffic: It does kind of sound like you want a more detailed explanation. The OP has stated several times that the staff wouldn't give them any more information. She can't give us what she doesn't have.

 

OceanCruise: Reactions and emotions are personal. It doesn't really matter whether you would have reacted in a different way. The OP reacted the way she did. She doesn't have to justify it to us. You may think it was an overreaction, but we weren't there. I suspect she feels bad enough about crying in public. Was it necessary to possibly make her feel worse by suggesting that her crying caused the public problem? I would think that standing there in the middle of the dining room at an empty table and being told that you can't sit down while waiting for a staff member to bother to come explain might just cause other pax (especially those at the nearer tables) to stare and wonder what was going on. Most of us are interested in ourselves, but most of us are also people watchers who would probably have watched the situation.

 

PhoenixCruiser: Regardless of the reason or anything else, it should have been handled before dinner. Period. Also, we are justified in asking to be moved if we don't like our table mates; we are not justified in insisting that others be moved.

 

PhoenixCruiser/WeLuvTravel: True, they were 10 minutes late, but it takes that long sometimes to get everyone seated anyway. Also, any of us can be unexpectedly late occassionally. Last minute emergencies do happen. Ten minutes is really not that long--especially since it sounds like this is not their usual pattern.

 

Erie Dave: You may think some of the words used are "over the top" and that she should just forget the incident. I don't believe we have to justify our emotional responses to others. Emotions simply happen, and each of us has a different response to various situations. I seriously doubt that any problems we encounter on cruises will be the "worst" thing that happens to any of us, but this is a board relating to cruising and thus is likely to involve cruise problems from time to time.

 

Travelgrrl: Just curious as to why you didn't ask to move, rather than "dreading" dinner every night?

 

NYDee: I'm with you. I'd rather be moved than spend a week with jerks.

 

TheHappyWanderer: Thank you for explaining the lies you mentioned earlier. I also wondered what they were.

 

And one thing I do agree with is that a request for fee-waived specialty dining for the whole cruise was maybe a bit more than this warranted. One night would have been a nice apology though. An apology and either a bottle of wine or an invitation to one of the specialty restaurants seems about right to me.

 

In any case, this never should have been left until dinner time. It should have been taken care of well in advance.

 

beachchick

[Nliedel]

Well it just stinks for the OP and that is that. All six of those freaking morons should be ashamed of themselves! I am hoping that this mess is such a mess because the Head Wait person was just confused cause this does not happen much.

 

It is embarrassing to be standing bereft in the middle of the dining room. I would have been hurt but it sounds like the OP went on to have a good cruise. The OP also has a right to their feelings 100% even if others do not think they would have those feelings in the same situation. That said, no one can force humilition on you. In any situation when you are left out to dry, so to speak you can elect to hold your head high because the OP did nothing wrong. The ones who should be ashamed are the idiot tablemates.

 

On the other hand I have had a really bad tablemate situation that I have posted about before so I will not go into it. The infamous lap sitting husband hussy. Now that I know I could have had her removed I feel better. That was a three day cruise and I handled it but on a seven day she would have been in danger of being forced to walk the plank! (in my defense I think there would have been a lot of people at her send off). If someone is offensivly drunk or obnoxious it is nice to know that the table can speak up. If you are merely whiny cause someone is not in your demographic listen and learn and find common ground. Too many times, and this is my opinion, these days we shrug off those who we deem "not in our circle" and the art of conversation gets lost.

 

I have made lifelong friends on cruises by sitting at large tables. People I would never have hooked up with in real life. People who are older, younger, of a vastly differing religious outlook etc because we found common ground and did not talk polotics, religion or the s word. We got beyond differences of appearance and made nice and found out that we had a lot to share with one another. I still e-mail old tablemates almost weekly. Again these are people I would never have had the joy of knowing without jumping into a cruise table foray and coming up a winner. There are far more winners than losers overall.

[BobBeaSea]

RCI's actions (or lack of) in this matter...totally unacceptable! End of story. This couple deserves an explanation although how RCI can explain this one away is beyond me. Absolutely outrageous behaviour by dining room staff.

[Schplinky]

I would think that if the other diners at the table wanted to change arrangements, they would be the ones to move. I would also expect the head-waiter to call you before the seating. That was poor service and likely affected the rest of your cruise. I have no idea how RCL chooses their head waiters. Ours on our last cruise stopped our waiter from switching a bottle of wine that had been a gift to us (bought via the net from RCL) for another of equal value. It seemed an easy thing to do but he explained it throws of their stores and inventory. Fine. He hovered for about 5 minutes restating this to the point where I asked him to leave because we understood his point and would like to just get on with dinner.

 

The next night, he came over and asked how we were "tonight" as though he was hoping we'd got over some tantrum the night before. Ugh. Our assistant waiter told us earlier in the cruise that he was a jerk and now we were believing her.

[kcagg16]

HappyWanderer are you who I think you are? We met on this cruise. I was with my husband and my daughter and son and my sister and her husband. We met on the shuttle from Avis and saw you throughout the cruise. For everyone who responded this couple (if they are who I think they are) were great and a lot of fun. I wished we had them sitting with us.

[longandfosterjames]

I wonder if the wait lines at the Cheesecake Factory would dwindle if the busy restaurant chain started to randomly assign table mates for everyone too... For those that love to socialize with complete strangers, is this something you would like? Just curious, James:)

[Jeanne S]

We sailed on the QM2 soon after it arrived in NYC to begin its inaugural season in 2004 on a 3 day cruise to nowhere and were assigned a lovely table for 6 and seated with a family of four (parents, daughter and young granddaughter). Cunard had assigned them to late seating (8:45) and they informed us they were going to see if they could get an earlier seating as the child fell asleep in her chair.

 

The next night we arrived 20 min after the start of late seating as it took that long for everyone to get out of the Captain’s Cocktail Party. Sitting at our table were 6 passengers. We politely informed them this was our table to which we were told “too bad.” I had had wine reserved for the table and mentioned this to which I was told they enjoyed it. We immediately went to find the Maitre d”hotel and could only locate an asst who begged us not to “make a scene – let me seat you elsewhere.” At this point we did not want to be seated with any of these people and said OK and were seated near the kitchen.

 

This was rectified the last night and the maitre d”hotel apologized profusely to me, saying that he had never had so made rude and misbehaving passengers on a Cunard Ship and at one point had been threatened by a different group of passengers. In our case, four of these passengers had been assigned to our table and they apparently wanted to others they had met on the ship that day to join them. I can identity with the original poster’s feeling of total humiliation (and later anger). We were just stunned that anyone would sit at an assigned table.

 

When we sailed on a 10 day Caribbean Cruise the same Maitre d”hotel gave us the best table in the dining room and catered to our every whim. Cunard gave us a nice credit on a future cruise after I wrote to the CEO.

[Schplinky]

We met a couple on our last cruise at lunch one day. We mentioned that for dinner, we were on the third tier and the wife asked how it was. turns out they were suppose to dine there but when they got to the table, the whole table had been commandeered by a family tht thought it was going to be their table and refused to move.

 

What really irks me about all these instances is that the head waiters treat the table's assigned occupants like "they" are the potential problem if they have a reaction. What are you supposed to do? Treat dinner like it's musical chairs and just find someplace else to eat? I understand that the maitre d' is trying to avoid an even larger scene but it just tells these rude people they can do it on their next cruise, too.

[Blazerboy]

James, interesting question. At first I thought you were being snide, but re-read it, and thought about this situation. Certainly WOULD help at some of my favortie restaurants that are popular!:D

 

Cruising tradition and all information about the cruise lets us expect this situation of "dining with strangers." Some of us actual use this to our advantage in having a fun vacation. When I choose a restaurant on land, I don't expect to be seated with strangers, as that is neither the tradition or the expectation. Two very different situations.:)

 

That said, I have been to restaurants that have "family seating," and when I expected this, found it could be an enjoyable addition to an evening out.

Certainly would ask to be moved, land or sea, if the tablemates were objectionable, but also find that I seem to have a higher tolerance level when meeting strangers as to their foibles (hopefully they have the same increased tolerance for me!;) )

[hermang]

I'll bet this group of yahoos probably stiffed the maitre'D and head waiter and probably under tipped the waiter too

[londonlad35]

Similar happened to us on Galaxy a few weeks ago in the Med. We had a table for two, and it the same zone were a couple on another table for two who were getting on famously with a table to four next to them. On the second or third day, the couple on the table for two decided to change to the late sitting. Their table was then given to someone else who had swapped sittings. We then pitched up the following night to find the couple from the late sitting sitting at OUR TABLE, next to the table of four get got on so well with. Apparently, according to them, they returned to the early sitting and were just allocated our table! Most strange! We were then shepherded to one side, made to wait like naughty kids in the middle of the dining room, until the asst maire d found another table. He made some excuse about us having requested to change dinner seatings too, which we had not! I wasnt happy, and told him so, but got a curt apology and nothing more.... something smelt fishy and i cut that couple short for most of the remainder of the cruise. Some people think they can walk over anyone. Vacation is not for politics!

[Jeanne S]

On our QM2 3 night sailing there were approx 20 or so pasengers who just sat whereever they wanted to the Maitre d'hotel informed us. Some became very nasty when politely confronted with such behavior. We had never seen anything like it. Then there were many passenger who arrived for dinner an hour late, demanding to be served.

 

This carried over into other areas of the ship such as sneaking in the back doors or cutting in line at the Planetarium (I was almost knocked over by someone trying to save a row of seats), cutting in line in general and being rude to seniors who could not get off the elevators fast enough (If you sail on Cunard one should expect to have frequent encounters with the elderly). It was very sad.

[dei6360]

Sorry if I missed this quetion or it has already been answered. What reason did the 6 other people at the table give yoou when you asked them why they asked for you to be removed?

[negc]

We had a situation where someone actually went into the dining room prior to the first night's dinner and moved the table numbers so that his party had a window table. When confronted by the head waiter he refused to move and was so obnoxious that he reduced the female head waiter to tears. It turned out to have been our table that he had relocated but we assured the wait staff and the poor headwaiter that we were content to stay in our new location rather than escalate the situation. Boors like that person will eventually get their just desserts (and not the delicious ones served on a cruise ship) but we were determined not to let his actions spoil our enjoyment of our cruise.

[Schplinky]

I guess what lets these things happen is that there seems to be no ultimate authority except for the loudest passenger. Good grief.

[Travelgrrl]

Beachchick:

 

On that particular cruise, I was lecturing, in which case you are pretty much assigned whatever cabin is available (read: inner, low, steerage) and put at a table after sailaway. You're really not supposed to complain or ask to be switched or bother anyone for anything. And in this case, I wouldn't have anyway, even if I had been traveling as a regular passenger, because the people were perfectly nice but just soooo quiet! We tried to break the ice all week but each couple kind of kept to themselves.

 

So we ate one night in the Windjammer, a night at Portofinos, and it was really only the last night or two that was kinda painful.

 

As an aside, we have had some wonderful dinner partners of all ages. On a transatlantic, I had two eleven year old girls with me (40 at the time), and we were seated with a 30's couple with a two year old, and two couples that were in their 70's. One couple bowed out of our table after the first night (although the two little girls and even the baby were very well behaved, and I hardly drooled myself ;) ), but the other elderly couple stayed on and we all got on famously. So not everyone is "ageist"!

[mbisson]

This goes into my file of things I learn as I get older.

 

I was aware that you could ask to be moved yourself, but this is the first time I've heard "I don't like them so could you please move them?"

 

-Monte