Trying to discourage kids in the main dining room?

[kendon]

Twincruisermom, beautifully said!! We do the same and as a result, I can take my teenage boys anywhere.

[junglejane]

I said sorry for thinking you could not bring children. I said I looked it up. What a waste of time it is to aplologize on these boards:mad:

 

Tinkr2, I was just confused about what you were saying sorry for, since I didn't think you'd said anything offensive. I certainly wasn't offended, and I definitely didn't mean to offend you! I'm sorry if I did unintentionally.:)

 

--Junglejane

[nomars_girl]

On our 12-night cruise, our DD (who turned 12 during the trip) ate dinner with us in the dining room exactly 3 times. The first night of the cruise, we sat with another couple we had met at sailaway. While we all tried to include her in the conversation as much as possible, dinner did take a long time and she was bored. Most other nights, we took her up to the buffet and let her get what she wanted and then dropped her at the kids club when she was finished eating. She had a much better time spending time with kids her own age after being with us all day in the ports.

 

She did dine with us on her birthday, but we just got a table for 3 so it could be a real family meal. She enjoyed the wait staff making a fuss and singing Happy Birthday (in her choice of language) and bringing her a little cake. And even then, she was hoping to finish early so she could still spend some time with her friends before the kids club closed for the night.

 

Each night, we let her decide whether she wanted to eat with us, or do the Kids Club thing. She would look at the menu in the dining room each night before deciding. (I think she was looking to see if they had her favorite food - chicken marsala - they never did). Because we left the choice up to her, she never felt like we didn't want her with us. If she wanted to be there, we were happy to have her join us. She is well-behaved and has good table manners. She never ended up wearing a lot of the clothes she brought since we had planned on her dining with us each night and that wasn't how it worked out.

 

The flexibility of Anytime Dining was perfect for us. A larger family traveling together who want to eat dinner together every night would probably be better off with Traditional.

[Seven_Of_Nine]

The problem is that unfortunately there are kids out there who do not know how to behave in a restaurant setting and their parents either don't know themselves how to behave in that setting or see the waiting staff as temporary childminders.

 

There are many children who are well mannered and you would not know they are there. Whereas I have to say I went into a restaurant not too long ago (not on a ship) and 3 children were running around screaming their heads off, bugging the other diners, getting in the way of waiting staff and making a general nuscience of themselves while the parents ate and chatted happliy blissfully ignorant of their children's behaviour. A minority spoil it for the well mannered children.