Dinner on the Spirit

[livingston]

It is some time since we have been on the Spirit and I wondered what was the normal for dinner in the MDR. Do most passengers have set tables/ waiters arranged by them selves and waiters on the first night of the cruise ? If so what is the normal procedure when they go to the dining room and there is a queue? Do they wait in the queue and then go to their pre arranged table or do they queue jump and walk straight to 'their' table. This happened regularly on the Destiny even when there was a long queue and I think is extremely rude. I realise that the waiters like to have regulars as they will get tips but its the bit at the door that I am uncomfortable with.

[Tiggertastic]

I can only comment on a larger table as there were 7 of us, not sure if there are a couple of you. We did just as you state. It was given on the first night and the waiter asked us if we wanted to come to the same one every day and we suad yes. He'd ask what hike tomorrow so he knew to have it free and when we got to the door we'd say we were with Jay and were waved passed the queue

[davecttr]

I don't agree with this unofficial policy of reserving tables for some cruisers if they wish it. You either have traditional club dining or proper freedom dining where you turn up and ask for a table. There have been ocassions where passengers have turned up, queued and then be told there are no tables available but they COULD SEE UNOCCUPIED TABLES in the restaurant. Then someone else strolls past the queue and is shown to one of those tables. Thomson is tips included yet the waiters seem to scramble to be 'nice' to the passengers in the hope of getting extra tips.:mad::mad::mad:

 

Then there are the drinks scams where you are charged a lot less for your drinks or nothing at all. Again the idea is this friendly behaviour translates into extra tips. I wonder how much the mangement turns a blind eye to all this going on?

[CRUISIN LINDA]

I agree Dave. As you know this happened to us on the Majesty.

 

On the Spirit last year, we went to dinner on the second night and the waiter was asking us to go to him every night, but we just said that we sometimes go to the buffet (which we do) and TBH it put us off the dining room and we did use the buffet most nights.

 

Yes it should be open dining or club dining, unless there is a medical reason such as someone in a wheelchair needing to be near the door or someone who is hard of hearing preferring a table for two.

[livingston]

Sorry Got my ships mixed up It was the Majesty where there were queue jumpers and as already said loads of empty tables but still a long queue Destiny was fixed dining times and worked much better as there were no queues

[Jakanne1]

It definitely happened on the Dream too. Caribbean, 2 week cruise, 2014, we were 4 ladies and on the first night we were asked if we wanted to reserve the table and what time. We said 8.00pm. Unfortunately, we were 10 minutes late the next night and the table had gone and we sat at a different table. After that we made sure we were there on time and got to know our waiters and Ferdie the Head Wine Waiter well.

 

In September with DH, we unfortunately could not get a table in Ferdie's area because "most of the tables are already reserved from last week". It didn't matter as we met lots of lovely people and different waiters. We never had to queue long for a table. But it did highlight the fact that tables are definitely reserved.