How are table mates assigned? Any truth to this?

My sister said she thinks that the cruise line makes an effort to put like people together as table mates... seems she had other honeymooners on her honeymoon cruise, parents with kids when she took her young son on a cruise, etc. Since it will be me and my 24 year old daughter I wondered if there is some truth to it and we might be assigned a table with others in the same situation.

I cant see RCI actually sitting around making seating arrangements in this manner... but would be awesome if they did. ( even awesomer if we ended up at a table full of moms with eligible 25 year old sons... )

 

Any thoughts?

I don't know how they match cruisers, but one time my family of four was seated with a lady from Seattle and her adult daughter. The only thing we had in common was that we were both suite guests. We still had a great time together and looked forward to have diner together every night.

I also agree with other posters; as suite guests we always get really good tables, don't think is a coincidence. ;)

so, it was just a coincidence.

...and not a big deal.

If RC tries to match tables up, they aren't saying. I'll have to ask that at the next Q and A.

In my own experience, on our honeymoon we were seated with two other couples also on their. However they never came back as they were buffet types.

One other cruise we were seated with other couple who, like DW were educators of some sort.

The rest were a total random grouping, but were never terrible. The worst might have been when were seated with a family of four, only one of which spoke English. The seating software might have grouped us together because we were all Canadian. I only spoke enough French to be able to talk with the kids.

On our first cruise, the pairing was great. My DW, Son, DDiL, & Daughter were tabled at a table for ten w/ another family of five in similar ages etc. The pairing was so nice that we all began to move around the table in different seats each night just to visit, exchange converstion about our day. Often we were the last to leave the MDR due to having such a nice time. Oddly, we seldom saw one another on the ship during the days or excursions. But as tablemates, we all enjoyed one another. I have found that the larget the table, the longer the dinner in terms of time.

It's been a long time since we've been assigned to a shared table in Traditional Dining (since the introduction of MTD). But, from the times we did share an assigned table, our table mates were a mixture of ages, marital status, room types and loyalty levels. We were never assigned to a table with children, so perhaps that factor does come in to play (thankfully!). That is just our limited experience.

I wouldn't be surprised if they stopped matching people up. Our last cruise (June 2014), was our first with table mates, as we usually traveled with a group of 7-10 and always had a table just for us. Our family of two 50ish year olds and a teen son were put with a late-20's/early 30's couple on their honeymoon... It was quite awkward, and to make it worse they tried to discuss their religious beliefs with us several nights... Not what I planned on talking about over my dinner.

 

And that's why we'll be requesting a table for just the 3 of us on our next cruise. :)

This might be true. On our cruise last summer DH and I asked to be at a large table. They sat us with 8 people who were 25-30 years younger than us, and in their own group. They women kept their phones on during dinner and one of the guys looked very uncomfortable that we were there. We did get our own table the next night.

In the future if it is just me and DH I will probably do MTD, otherwise, request a table for my own family.

On my first solo cruise they sat me at a table with 5 couples ranging in age from 21 to late 50s (I was 36). I thought it was going to be really awkward but by the end of the cruise we were like one big family and were going to the shows together. We took a "family photo" and still stay in touch on Facebook. One couple even skipped a prepaid dinner in a specialty restaurant because they didn't want to miss eating with our group.

Sometimes the "mismatch" turns out great.

I feel like, at one time, attempts were made to match up people, but not sure about recently...

We are a couple in our 40s and ask for tables of 6 to 10. over the years we have usually been seated with other couples, mainly in their 30s to 50s. We have made a ton of friends.... (Once we did change tables, but only because on the first night one lady screamed about her food allergy and called over the waiter, head waiter, hotel manager and eventually, the head chef....screamed at them all... It was a scene, so we moved! :eek:)

Our last cruise, though, we were seated with 2 couples traveling together...lord love them, they were all in their late 80s at least, and couldn't hear. They were very sweet, but after the first night of alternating between talking loudly for them to hear and awkward silence, we asked to be moved. There was only one spot left for late dining, and luckily, our table was excellent then...two young honeymooning couples and two middle aged couples, like us. All interesting and fun.

So, I am unsure if RCI is still matching diners. I do know that I like traditional seating.... Even with not so exciting table mates. On our one NCL cruise, with only anytime dining, we kept having to reintroduce ourselves, what we did for a living, where we are from, etc....it got repetitive. I would prefer to have several nights to really get to know people.

I think they do try to match you up most of the time. One time they sat our family of 3 boys with another family of 3 similarly aged girls. That was impressive.

 

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a really weird brady bunch:eek:

We do MTD.

Each night you're asked if you want to sit with others so you still have that option and if you meet others you'd like to stick with then you can do that too, so it works out OK for us.

We do MTD.

Each night you're asked if you want to sit with others so you still have that option and if you meet others you'd like to stick with then you can do that too, so it works out OK for us.

Yes, we prefer my time/Select/Anytime or freestyle dining as it provides flexibility.:D

We generally ask for mid-size tables and have been quite happy 95% of the time. Once we were placed with two couples and 4 teenagers (couples did not know each other and teenagers not interested in knowing anyone. LOL). It was a bit tense at the table so we ate at the Windjammer for the place of the cruise. On our first cruise we booked late seating and it was a mistake for us, fortunately we were able to switch to early seating the next day.

Overall we have made some wonderful friends at the dinners. Definitely would say RCL makes an effort to achieve compatibility.

On our cruise in December, we were seated with three other couples, all of whom had won their cruise as we had we. Obviously we all had gambling in common. On the second last night we celebrated when one of the men won the slot tourney with another free cruise for 2015. Then on the last evening, my hubby and I were late arriving for dinner as he was in a Texas Hold'em Tourney --- which he won. Prize includes 7 nights on the Oasis. Carried trophy to table and they all cheered. Lots of fun.

On our Liberty Cruise in 2011, we were on our offical honeymoon and they sat us with a bunch of people who just got married as well. Then after that we always sat with people our parents age. *Nothing wrong with that either*

not sure how they pick anymore

On our Liberty Cruise in 2011, we were on our offical honeymoon and they sat us with a bunch of people who just got married as well. Then after that we always sat with people our parents age. *Nothing wrong with that either*

 

not sure how they pick anymore

This agrees with our experience. Only our first cruise (almost 20 years ago) seemed matched. since then we've been seated with couples a good 10 years younger than us, couples a good 30 years older than us and one middle-aged daughter taking her senior mother on her first cruise - and from what I could see - disliking every moment of it. Thankfully, they were always a good hour late for dinner we were leaving as they arrived. They were from our state though so I guess that's something?

Since then we've been quite happy with 2 or 4 person tables, depending on whether we bring our kids with us

My sister said she thinks that the cruise line makes an effort to put like people together as table mates... seems she had other honeymooners on her honeymoon cruise, parents with kids when she took her young son on a cruise, etc. Since it will be me and my 24 year old daughter I wondered if there is some truth to it and we might be assigned a table with others in the same situation.

I cant see RCI actually sitting around making seating arrangements in this manner... but would be awesome if they did. ( even awesomer if we ended up at a table full of moms with eligible 25 year old sons... )

 

Any thoughts?

The one time we decided to sit with random people at dinner we were placed with a family with a 20 year old son (I was 19 or so with my parents). My parents had no problem with me having a glass of wine at dinner, but when the server tried to give the 20 year old some wine the parents became very angry and were extremely rude for the rest of the cruise. Never again will we do that.

tl;dr version: we were placed with a family in a similar situation as my family.

Most times when we cruise its with family and friends. First Royal,cruising by ourselves, we sat at a table of people our own age. During the cruise we found out we all booked our cruise with the same TA. Wondering it that has anything to do with table arrangements.

Lately, I think it's a total crap shoot. This is the reason I'm doing MTD on my next two cruises.

For fun though, I decided to reminisce and list what sort of table I ended up at on previous cruises. Ah, memories :p Seriously, if you don't care, don't read.

7/1997 Carnival Jubilee. Traveled with a friend, both in our late 20s. Late traditional dining. Seated at a table with two married couples with teenagers :rolleyes: The families were very nice but dinners were kind of boring for me.

12/2004 Empress of the Seas. Traveled solo. Late traditional dining. Seated at a table with two empty seats and three others I had nothing in common with. I asked to switch. Night two I ended up at a table with three women in their fifties traveling together. This was before MTD. Night three I was depressed and wondering what to do when a nice couple I'd first met at a bus stop in San Juan said there was room at their table, so they brought me over, told the waiter I was their daughter who had been seated at the wrong table :D I had a great time the rest of the cruise.

12/2007 Sovereign of the Seas. Sailed solo. Late traditional dining. Seated at a table with people who didn't speak any English. I ate at the Windjammer the next three nights (it was only a four nighter).

4/2008 Carnival Destiny. Sailed solo. Late traditional dining. Seated at a table with seven others also traveling solo. One of the best dining experiences. Everyone was so different, but we had a great time.

4/2010 Serenade of the Seas. Sailed solo. Late traditional dining. I affectionately call this the "two crazy ladies" dinner table. I was originally seated with eight or nine other solo travelers at a table for 10. The two crazy ladies at the table managed to drive away all but three of us after the first couple nights, leaving five for the majority of the cruise. One lady was recently divorced and cried into her napkin several times during the week. The other lady showed up drunk the first formal night and proceeded to start licking the face of the gentleman seated next to her (whom she had never met before). He was quite gracious about the whole ordeal, but still switched seats when the lady (using that term loosely) got up to use the restroom. I'm amazed he stuck around after that, but he did. The other person who stuck around for the nightly entertainment became a friend of mine, and we will be taking our third cruise together in a couple months.

9/2010 Majesty of the Seas. Sailed solo. Late traditional dining. Seated at a table for four with an older solo gentleman, and a man traveling with a female friend. It was an interesting group, but I'm glad it was only a three-nighter. It was obvious the man traveling with his friend was unhappy with the Majesty. He constantly complained about the food and compared the cruise to Crystal, or Seabourn, or some other luxury line. I found myself wishing he had just taken a different cruise - he was SO snobby.

1/2011 Ruby Princess. Sailed solo. Late traditional dining. Seated at a table for eight. Only two other people ever showed up all week. They were a very nice older couple and I would have felt bad abandoning them, so I just stuck with it. This was the first time I really felt like traditional dining wasn't working out for me.

2/2011 Navigator of the Seas. Sailed with a friend. Late traditional dining. Seated at a table for eight with one couple on their "babymoon", another young couple, and a much older couple who dressed to the nines on casual night (and then never returned). The younger couples didn't really seem to want to talk to anyone but each other so dinner was pretty boring.

8/2011 Star Princess. Traveled with Mom. Anytime dining. Worked great. Most nights we just got a table for two. The two times we opted to eat with others, dinner took over two hours so after that it was just us, and we were out of the dining room in 45 minutes.

4/2012 Jewel of the Seas. Traveled with a friend. Late traditional dining. Originally seated at a table for 10 with four married couples. One man was extremely boorish and wouldn't let anyone else get a word it. Thankfully, we met another couple gals traveling together who had space at their table so we switched. So we were with five single girls and one single guy the rest of the cruise. It was so much fun.

4/2012 Caribbean Princess. Traveled with a friend. We did anytime dining and it worked out fine. Most nights we opted to sit with others, and met some interesting people.

3/2013 Monarch of the Seas (farewell cruise). Late traditional dining. Traveled with a friend. Probably one of the best dining experiences ever. By pure coincidence, we ended up at a table for eight, with two couples from Cruise Critic, and one couple who were on their first ever cruise, had no idea it was the final cruise for Majesty, and whom we'd spent time talking to at the muster drill earlier. It was a pleasant shock when they showed up at our table for dinner. The poor newbies were bombarded with cruise tips & tricks from the six seasoned Cruise Critic experts :D :p

11/2013 Caribbean Princess. Sailed solo and did anytime dining. I'd met three couples from Cruise Critic at the hotel before even heading to the ship and I got along with them really well so I ended up eating with them three out of the seven nights. The other nights I at at the buffet, the Crown Grill, or had pizza. It was nice and relaxing to just do what I wanted most nights.

1/2014 Jewel of the Seas. Sailed with a friend. Late traditional dining. I wasn't too thrilled with our table mates the first night so we asked to switch, and ended up at a worse table. So, back to the original table we went. Yawn! There was a mother/daughter traveling together, a gay couple, and three Puerto Rican guys traveling together. The Puerto Ricans didn't speak English well enough to really participate in the conversation, and they ended up doing specialty dining a few times. The others were nice enough, but not very memorable. It didn't help that our waiter kept screwing up the orders, and the assistant waiter wasn't on top of his game either.

1/2014 Allure of the Seas. Sailed with a friend. Worst.dining.experience.ever. We ate at Giovannis the first night which was fine. The second night we were seated at a table for six, by ourselves. Turned out the other two couples had asked to switch and so we were left alone. We asked to switch the next night and ended up at a table for six, by ourselves. We gave that same table a shot the next night and one other couple showed up. They were clueless and rude, and really made me want to never do traditional dining again. We stuck it out for the last couple nights (did one other night in Chops, which was just sort of "meh")

So, my next two cruises on the Serenade will be MTD. I just don't think they care about demographics when seating people together. On the Allure cruise, we found out that the two couples we were originally seated with were Spanish speaking. Not only do they not care about seating you with people close in age, they apparently don't care if you can even talk to the people you're eating with :rolleyes:

Wow, Cruisin-K, you've had some real adventures in the MDR huh!

If they truly are matching people, say 3000 people on a Voyager Class ship. what is the algorithm or process they would use?

Keep in mind they rarely get anything with regard to IT right on their website half the time. With suite guests/PNs/D+ emailing likely 100s of requests pre-cruise, last minute bookings, changed bookings, cabin upgrades, ordering food for 3000 passengers, providing the correct C&A gifts in each specific room, entertainment booking, dealing with any sick staff, dealing with different number of kids each cruise, different amount of C&A levels each cruise, shortage of a specific food (ie. escargot, limes), poor service in a specific area (ie. bartenders), etc etc etc etc etc etc.... I can add over a hundred more complex isssues here that Royal has to administer for each and every cruise that are so much more highly important than matching up dinner guests like a eHarmony date site!

Table guests are strictly luck lof the draw imo. Has anyone posting here asked the hotel manager on board, tweeted or emailed Adam Goldstein?

Wow, Cruisin-K, you've had some real adventures in the MDR huh!

Well, if I'd expanded the story about the two crazy ladies, it would really have been a :eek: :eek: :eek: post, but it was already way too long :p

The MDR has certainly been a mixed bag, and some of the "worst" experiences make for the best stories later ;)

On our first cruise, my husband and I (both mid 30s) were placed at a table with 4 other couples, all of whom were retired.

Made for interesting conversation. We had small children we'd left at home. They were all buying gifts for their grandkids.

It was quite awkward, and to make it worse they tried to discuss their religious beliefs with us several nights... Not what I planned on talking about over my dinner.

Since you brought it up, the last time we did Traditional Dining on the first night we were taken to a table for 6 and one elderly couple was already there. The very first words out of their mouth was a question, "So what church do you go to?" Really? I really don't expect to discuss religion or politics with strangers while on vacation. That was it...we changed tables and started doing MTD the next cruise!

My sister said she thinks that the cruise line makes an effort to put like people together as table mates... seems she had other honeymooners on her honeymoon cruise, parents with kids when she took her young son on a cruise, etc. Since it will be me and my 24 year old daughter I wondered if there is some truth to it and we might be assigned a table with others in the same situation.

I cant see RCI actually sitting around making seating arrangements in this manner... but would be awesome if they did. ( even awesomer if we ended up at a table full of moms with eligible 25 year old sons... )

 

Any thoughts?

The cruise lines will put your information; age, marital status, any kids, language spoken, cabin type, cabin location, where you live, income and cruise history, and put it all into a computer. Then you name is printed out on a little strip of paper. The waiter and waitresses then pull the names out of a hat for each table they work.

I do believe that there are some kind of matching going on, but I belive it is just a simple automatic system.

On our Last 11-12 cruises we have always been assigned to a table with other Norwegians.

Since number of Norwegians on a cruise is a tad smaller than Americans, we have had all kind of companies, from family with small kids to very senior.

DW and me normally have a discussion after the first night and this sometimes results in us asking to be moved to an English speaking tables

Many years ago on the Explorer, we were seated with 3 families from England with 7 boys total ranging in age from 3 to 16 yrs. We were all seated at 2 tables for 8 each (with 1 empty seat). They seated us with 6 of them........you would think we would have been seated with the adults, but no, we were seated with all the boys :eek:, except for the smallest one who was seated with his parents. Quite interesting eating with 6 English lads. The parents of the boys all sat together with the youngest boy. The kids weren't that bad, but boys will be boys. We felt like baby sitters. Eventually, the parents invited us to sit with them and the boys all sat together at the next table. Quite an experience, but we all got along well and had a good time. Still wondering who figured out that seating arrangement.:rolleyes:

Gwen :)