Dining arrangements for 3 families & other ?'s

[mark290]

When we have cruised with just our family, three children, we enjoyed eating with them so we chose early seating. Our children enjoyed getting dressed up and the interaction with the wait staff.

 

 

I assume now that we are a party of 13 we will not be able to be seated together.

 

Is this correct ? I suppose we could chose late seating for the adults and feed the

 

children alternately. The down side to that is they miss out on the cruise dining

 

experience.

 

 

A table for all 13 would be ideal. My next choice would probably be to have the children with us a few nights and then the adults only a few nights. I don’t know that either of these is possible. Any other suggestion ?

 

 

We will be on Mariner for a five night cruise. We have cabins 1688, 1690, 1390 and 1677. The children are ages 3 through 11. We will have two sea days and stops in Cozumel and Grand Cayman. Any other tips, info or advice about the ship, cabins, ports or things not to be missed would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

Mark

[familycruzer]

I am not sure if a table for 13 exists but you should have your booking ids connected so that the cruise line knows you are all together. You may not all be at the same table but you should be able to sit next to each other.

[suzsummit]

Why not just ask for a table for 13? Explain that since there are kids involved the seating may be tight but you do not mind.

 

I would go for the keeping everyone together.

[mark290]

Both good ideas, thanks.

[ggrizzy]

what we did for our renions on cruises was to keep the booking id's together so that we get assigned to tables next to each other (we've always been a group of between 30 and 40 people) and what we did was to change table partners every night so that everyone gets a chance to sit with everyone else! only down side to this is the tipping for the staff - to solve that problem, we all paid the standard amounts to our designated wait staff and then we paid extra in cash on the last nite to the special few others who we feel deserved the extra $$.

 

also, since kids in our group started at 1.5yo, we always chose early seating so that they could dine with us too.

 

hope this helps!

[serene56]

Make sure your agent has all the cabins linked together-- even if you used other agencies. This way you can all eat together. There are not a lot of tables that hold 12 (the biggest table onboard) I think you will probably get two tables that hold 6 each next to each other.

If the cabins are not linked together you could find that you are all scattered throughout the dining room. It will be very hard to find a table for all of you once you get onbaord. That is why its important to take care of it now before yougo.