Tell Us About Your Negative Experiences With Table Mates

[ahoys]

Years ago on the Celebration, we had two ladies at our table who spoke little English. The one who spoke the best English complained loudly to our waiter every night. The first night she complained that she had not gotten her luggage yet. The second night, she also complained that her luggage hadn't arrived. (She never told the purser or her steward, just the waiter)...Every night she complained that she wanted rice with every dinner, and the rice they served with the vegetarian meal wasn't enough. Even though the head waiter made up a special plate for her and her friend on the last 4 nights, the two of them still decided to tip them nothing and give them bad marks on their comment cards.

[dromMOM]

We took our son (15 years old at the time) on his first cruise. He was so worried he wouldn't meet anyone or have a good time. That first night we approached the table for 10 that we were at. There were two families. And three VERY ATTRACTIVE teen girls 14 and 15.............

 

2 minutes after the dessert was served the ladies grabbed my son and we never saw him again after dinner for the whole cruise.

 

Needless to say he is going on his 3rd cruise... his new favorite way to travel.

 

I have to say that there is some thought to table groupings on the part of the Staff. Last time there was a teen boy his age..

 

The last time we had a single gentleman. He told us he was on his 50th cruise or something like that.

He went on to tell us about the 3 heart attacks etc he has had on board. How he loves the medical staff on the Carnival fleet and how he always books a room down near the ship hospital. Then he told us of other illnesses etc.. that has caused him to be helicoptered to land etc.. Needless to say we kept an eye on him all week..

[caitlyn20]

Maybe we are the negative experience for our table. :rolleyes:

 

LOL...know what you mean. I'm reading these just waiting to recognize myself here somewhere. Hee hee.....

[terri23]

I'm delurking because we've booked our first Carnival Cruise, and I noticed this thread. I have a story to tell from the Disney Magic. It's no match for the boob-face puker, but we thought it was a little odd.

 

It was our first cruise, and we were looking forward to meeting our tablemates, imagining scintillating conversation to accompany our fine dining. 45 minutes after we sat down, with our server not taking our food order because that would be rude (this was the late seating), they finally arrived: a couple, older man, younger woman, and their 3 children. I'll bet you thought the children were going to be the problem, didn't you? Nope, little angels.

 

He sat down at the opposite end of the oval table from us. She had the seat between myself and him. She immediately scooched her chair over until it was touching his. They hid behind the wine menu and muttered. We finally got to order, after some delay with their deciding on their food.

 

When the appetizers arrived, she complained volubly that she had no fork. She had just moved away from her place setting. I pointed this out to her as kindly as I could, but she moved it over, and they continued ignoring us.

 

So much for the conversation. We tried, we were rejected.

 

The next night, our head server flagged us down and told us he had a better table for us. He took us to a private table. We asked if he had been asked to move us. He admitted it, and bought us a round of beer to ease our feelings of rejection.

 

It's funny, we never had any problems with the people we were seated with at open seating meals. We always really enjoyed them. Just this one couple decided they hated us on sight. Oh well, thanks for the free beer!

 

LOL maybe it was your name... ;)

[19snapshot]

This post has been lively and funny to read. Great idea for a topic. I just want to add my voice to the "We've always had good experiences" crowd. We have always had interesting table-mates and look forward to hearing their stories at dinner each night. We always request a bigger table so that we can meet other people. We are a family of 5 and, sadly, the kids rarely want to go to the dining room. We usually have 3 empty seats at our table. I didn't realize until I read this thread that can annoy some people, but I understand it. It is fun to meet new people.

[cruzn4life]

LOL...know what you mean. I'm reading these just waiting to recognize myself here somewhere. Hee hee.....

I wonder if anyone else is like me and was just reading to see if we were on "the list"... :eek:

 

Seriously, we've always had great table mates. Some were a little quirky, but it is nice to get to know other people and share cruise experiences. We still keep in touch with a few old table mates. Don't take time to get riled up if they don't behave as you would...it's YOUR vacation...make the most of it. If they're really that bad, ask to move to a different table. :rolleyes:

 

Or, maybe they don't like you as much as you don't like them and they'll ask to move. Then, you'll have more room for your extra appetizers & entrees! :p

[KruznKel]

Well our experience on our 2nd cruise which was a group cruise.. we had a table for 10. (yes we all knew each other)seems we showed up a couple minutes late to dinner and everyone had wine glasses and wine.. not us.. no worries I just thought it was rude of the person at our table to do that order wine for everyone but us!! (We weren't even asked.. so I guess we were on the list) So far that is our worst experience! Not with the other table mates! They were a blast all week!

[yearnin4cruisin]

Wow. I do believe this is the first lengthy post I have read from start to finish. Lots of um...good conversation and great stories.

 

I was at a table for 10 on my last cruise and there was one gentleman who without fail wore more food on his shirt, collar, and chin, than ever reached his mouth. I had the good fortune, not!, to sit next to him one night and just like with the comedian Gallagher, you needed sheets of plastic to cover yourself, especially when he spoke. I couldn't wait to change my clothes. Nice guy, total slob.

[Sashalanda]

If you don't like it, you should move. Nobody is twisiting your arm to stay at a table with people you find to be rude. I would suspect your rude tablemates would appreciate it as well.:rolleyes:

 

I soooo agree with you!

[dotheyes]

Spent the last hour reading this post. I have been lucky with great tablemates so far. Only posting so I can keep up with the great thread

Dot

[Sashalanda]

We have always had decent dining experiences. On our second cruise, we had a delightful couple but the other chairs were empty. The next night, the third couple arrived. At first I thought uh oh cause they were complaining about the food choices, which I thought were excellent but as time went on..found out they were just umm odd lol but comical once they relaxed. My husband thought the husband reminded him of a quieter Red Buttons. This mans story of his wife rockin and rollin that night (their room was at very front of ship) had me laughing so much I couldn't eat.

As far as the waiters performing, our waiter on our last cruise was bit stressed by it because it put him behind in serving our desserts and other tables desserts. I think personally, that it would be much better if the entertaining was on the last night instead of everynight. I enjoy it, but often it interfers with our dinner. Being at early seating though I guess they rush it so we get out on time for next diners /shrug.

We have on occasion ordered extra entries or extra appetizers. Our waiters have never brought out the second dishes until we were done with the first so I don't understand the statements of it crowding other diners...maybe we just got lucky with better waiters.

Our last cruise was with our two sons and we ended up in a booth for 4. I was a bit disappointed as I enjoy meeting new ppl even if they are odd.

[MinnesotaCruiserz]

My wife and i went on our first cruise 10/05 Inspiration (awesome), and where we were assigned to sit, they were very high strung and not very social. The next night was the captains dinner (the night I proposed to my now wife {nervousness}), met this wonderful couple from Nebraska of all places, and they invited us to their table. All 8 of us kept in contact for awhile after the cruise. It was great, we were sure to make it to dinner every night (except for one that had a bit to much tequila in Cozumel) to tell our stories of the day. That is how it should be, everyone is different, but there to have a good time.

[rolex_26_99]

We went on our first cruise during spring break. My wife and I sat at a table for six with four lovely college girls on spring break!!

Oops, i'm sorry you said negative experience.

 

I hope this happens to me on my first cruise next week:)

[S.S.Oceanlover]

we sat with a family of 4. Grandma and grandpa and a teen boy and girl. Grandpa came drunk every night which we got through OK since he wasn't too obnoxiuos but the boy and girl were getting on my nerves bigtime. Every time we opened our mouths to talk to grandma or grandpa they would start laughing uncontrollably and wouldn't stop.

Grandpa and Grandma never said a word to them.

The topper was when the teen boy had prime rib with gravy and picked it up with his hands and started eating it.

That was priceless. I didn't know about switching tables back then unfortunately.

 

Bill

[Lib0007]

We have been very lucky on our past cruises and have had wonderful and entertaining tablemates. Especially on our first cruise - it was our honeymoon and we were sitting with three couples traveling together and one couple from England - we had so much fun.

 

Our worst experience was one that we still laugh about - on Celebrity, we had our two children with us - a toddler and a teenager - and we arrived at our first dinner to find that we were seated with two older couples - our toddler sat in his highchair and ate/behaved beautifully - we were so proud.

The next night, we arrived at dinner to find ourselves seated at that big table all alone - our tablemates ditched us! Oh well, we understood that many people don't want to sit with other people's small children - I probably wouldn't either if I was traveling without my own. But we still laugh about it.

 

On Carnival, we have always been sat with and near other families with children and that works out great.

[Attack Dog]

Did everyone run out of bad experiences? I was about to suggest to the monitor to make this thread it's own forum.

[Flcruiser78]

We just got off the Sensation Yesterday. For our dinner the three of us were assigned to a table of 9 with six other ladies. Anyhow our first night only 2 of them show up they sat down and said hello. Well after that they did not say another word to us that night. They kept chatting non stop to themselves the whole time. WE sat there in amazment about how they wen on and on. Even our server noticed this ,he thought it was as funny as we did. The next night was the same as well. On the third night I didnt go but our server apparently got my friend traveling with me his food as quickly as possible so he woulndt have to suffer again! The last night one of the Chatty kathys left earlier as she was not feeling well. The other one decided to stay and finally introduced her self. She showed no interest in us untill she found out one of us works for a major theme park in central Florida. Then she mentioned the fact that she accidently booked the wrong day for her flight out and that she wanted to know if there were any discounts that she could get . After that he went on and on about her son without letting us have a word in otherwise. Lets just say we didnt say another word to her tha night

[crusinpsychRN]

In the mid 90's on the Holiday we sat at a large table of 10. There were 4 of us, 2 adults, 2 young teens. The other family was from somewhere in West Virginia. They were always late to dinner or no shows. Their 8 y/o daughter only wanted peanut butter sandwiches every dinner and only moped throughout the whole meal. The mother practically held her in her lap and could barely eat her own food.

 

Grandma never spoke to anyone but daughter and granddaughter. No father or husband ever showed. They never did any shore excursions and didn't hold their knives properly to cut meat. It was like eating in someones kitchen at their home when I didn't know them. Extremely unpleasant. When we ordered wine you would think we broke every temperance rule ever! Meanwhile my kids were trying, and liking, escargot and all kinds of other fun foods. I was always so happy when they left the table.

 

Last cruise on the Miracle at the end of November my son and I had a table for two. We had a lot of fun watching what was happening at other tables. One woman got a deluxe hamburger every night! Another woman scowled at her table mates and waiter every night. Our server was a grump! He always made sure to disappear when they started the dancing and singing--he was so much above all that. We just enjoyed people watching and had a great time.

[MeLuvDaSea]

On my last cruise I was seated at a table for two, with my wife! She kept insisting I have another dinner roll, each time the waiter came by with them. She also forced me to have at least one dessert each and every evening! I requested to be moved but between my wife and the Maitre'D it was decided that this would be inappropriate.

 

Ok, I'm only joking! I have never been seated with anyone who could be considered nightmare. Infact, on each cruise when we did have other Pax present, they have always been a delight.

 

Sincerely,

Don

[sadiesue]

This is not a negative experience, but one worth posting, I think. My girlfriends and I look forward to a 4 day cruise each year to "get away from it all". I am a Kindergarten teacher. What a surprise it was when we went to the dining room the first night and found we were seated right next to a table of 8 of my students' parents! Now what are the chances of that?? We all took one look at each other, burst out laughing, and became good friends that week!

[smrn]

I tried to post yesterday but the boards were all messed up. So if they show up later sorry for the multiple posts.

Anyway I am from Blue Ridge too. And seems we are leaving the same day but different ships.

Do you work at the local hospital? I worked there for many years in the Nursery until 99.

Ok now back to our regularly scheduled program.

I do, and I figured out who you are. I am a labor and delivery RN and was there when you were there with a patient a couple of years ago. Like I said,

Small world...

[trout96]

At dinner on the one cruise I was on the tablemates were the best. However, we went to breakfast once and were seated with 4 other people. One was a couple from England. They asked if we traveled any outside the US. I said that I had. I didn't like Asia as much as Ireland. They asked why I would want to go to Ireland without going to England? I said because that is where I had relatives and where my great-grandparents came from. I guess I insulted them because they got up and left.:eek: Maybe someone here can tell me what I did wrong. I still don't know. :o

[flczr]

You did nothing the brits did some of them still think they control the world.

[Attack Dog]

There hasn't been a post here for more than a month. With over 12,000 views I'm glad to see the relativly small number of people who had negative experiences.

[cricket]

We once sat at a table with a newlywed couple. She was ok, but most of the time strait-laced without smiling. He acted like he was all that, yet he was a very plain , small rather dull looking person. We ordered wine a couple of nights and offered them some each time and they took it. They ordered wine EVERY night, and never asked us once if we would like some! We actually didn't like the type they ordered, but they didn't know that and it would have been nice to have been offered. One day he ordered bread and butter pudding for dessert and as a joke the waiter brought a slice of bread with a side of butter and this guy actually got mad and insulted and was furious with his wife when she started to laugh. We all laughed except for him. What a jerk he was! At the end of the cruise, he gave the waiter a tip envelope and said he was sorry, but that was all he could give. I am sure it wasn't the expected amount but he sure had enough money to have a balcony, get wine every night, go on ship tours etc.!!!