Not Showing Up for Dinner

[modes]

On 2/13/2020 at 6:28 AM, 57eric said:

My wife and I use traditional dining.  Occasionally, we don’t make it to dinner for one reason or another.  When we know the evening before, we always inform our dinner companions and/or the wait staff so they know not to look for us the next night.  However, more often we do not know we’re going to miss until later.

What are our options for notifying the dining room?  I know we could get our tablemates’ cabin numbers and leave messages, but this would not be my preference.  Or am I overthinking this?

Thanks.

You are over thinking it , just dont show.

[lahlah57]

This is why we do anytime with anyone....any size table. I despise having to answer to tablemates and alot of the times it's a last minute decision to not show up for dinner at all. I want to do what I want, when I want and if I want! 

Its also nice to not know who you will   dine with regardless of good, bad or indifferent, heck, it's only once! 

Its our vacation to do as we wish! 

[lahlah57]

On 2/13/2020 at 8:43 AM, thinfool said:

Let the floggings begin!

 

Seriously, we sit down at our assigned table, wait politely for 10 minutes max...then ask the waiter to take our order and start the process.

If someone comes late, that is their business...they can order late, eat late, have appetizers while everyone else has dessert.

Got no problem with this!

[satxdiver]

Waiting 10 minutes for everyone to show up is very reasonable.  If someone comes later they can order their meal but will not get it when the rest of us are served.  Maybe they will come on time the next day.

[suzyed]

On 2/13/2020 at 9:35 AM, Tak8 said:

You may be overthinking it.  When I know the night before I let the wait staff know.  I don't worry about it for last minute changes.

Don't worry about it.   They probably will be ok with you not showing up.

 

[suzyed]

On 2/13/2020 at 10:26 AM, jhannah said:

I appreciate your courtesy toward your table mates and servers. I agree that a phone call will be fine once you know you won't be attending.

 

Alternately, you might announce to your table early in the cruise that if you're not there five minutes after the scheduled time to just go ahead.

Good idea!

 

[RMMariner]

Never had a TD time, but if I did - no problem. As others have said, I would wait 10 minutes and then start. Its a vacation; plans change. Relax and go with the flow.

 

I would say this though, if you are going to miss a lot of nights, you would be much better off going ATD.

Edited February 15, 2020 by RMMariner

[OzKiwiJJ]

22 hours ago, MissP22 said:

You definitely have more patience than myself. 

After many years of having the same thing happen we just gave up on trying to train the newbies how the system is suppose to work.

 

After the night where we all went to the show the waiters just treated the table as a table of six plus a table of two. Although I did notice on a couple of nights that the tardy couple were served some courses so fast they barely had time to eat them.  The rest of us got on really well and enjoyed our dinners together.

[MissP22]

7 hours ago, satxdiver said:

Waiting 10 minutes for everyone to show up is very reasonable.  If someone comes later they can order their meal but will not get it when the rest of us are served.  Maybe they will come on time the next day.

If all the waiters would serve in that fashion it might work but most of them try to make thing easier for themselves by grouping the courses together.

Hence the table delays.

[suzyed]

We have solved the problem for the most part by having a table for our group...if we're not showing up and we know it the day before we tell our servers.  If we do a spur of the moment skip, we usually all do it together.  And if we don't all do it together...say two of us are on tour and not back in time, we have already alerted our friends not to wait for us.
 Works for us.

[Ombud]

I stopped doing TD and started ATD last year. Because I preorder, I always let the Head Waiter & Waiter know if I would be off ship or in Alfredos / Sabatinis for dinner the followingevening. Those 2 places make food as I wait so don't need to know ahead of time