Hosted tables

[JPH814]

Does Seabourn still offer  hosted tables?

We have enjoyed being part of a hosted table while on Seabourn cruises.  For those who do not know, it is an invitation to have dinner at a table for 6 or 8 people including one or more members of the crew.  In the past we have dined with the cruise director, ship doctor, the lecturer, the comedian, the featured singer and two singers/dancers from the show.  It is a great experience.  In the past, you would let the cruise director know of your interest and on one or more mornings there would be an invitation in your cabin for dinner that evening - which you could accept or decline.

I am hoping it is not a casualty of covid.

[twodjs]

Hosted tables were still around in Oct. 2021 but gone for our January cruise because of Omicron. I'm sure they'll be back before you cruise in October. Those tables were a highlight of our dinners in the Restaurant as well!

Edited February 15, 2022 by twodjs

[Mauzac]

Just got back from a cruise, no hosted tables, a bit disappointing.

 

They will come back I'm sure, just not sure when!

 

What is ironic is... there were groups of people on tables, arranged in advance.  But at the moment, you enter the MDR and unless you find someone as you walk to the desk, you're on a table for 2.

Then you chat with the table next to you if you and they want!

[rkacruiser]

9 hours ago, JPH814 said:

We have enjoyed being part of a hosted table

 

I have had that experience as well and have found such occasions to be interesting and informative.  Plus, the service can be a bit "extra special" if it's a Senior Officer being the host.  

 

Difficult for me to understand, but I have heard of some who have made comments such as "I have no interest in dining with the "help".  Their loss, I have always thought.  

[cruiseej]

18 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

Difficult for me to understand, but I have heard of some who have made comments such as "I have no interest in dining with the "help".  Their loss, I have always thought.  

 

It may be different if you're invited to dine with the Hotel Director or the Chief Engineer! 😉 (Yes, we had dinner with the Chief Engineer once.)

 

As someone who's a bit introverted in a setting where I know no one, I do feel dining at a hosted table requires some effort to be outgoing and engage in conversation with people you don't know for two hours.  Usually we accept such invitations, but sometimes we just prefer to have dinner by ourselves and decline. We've had dinners with entertainers, assistant cruise directors, a staff captain and a captain, and the aforementioned chief engineer, and have found all to be interesting and worthwhile experiences. 

[WNcruiser]

There were hosted tables on Ovation on our cruise in December. In fact we had an invitation in our suite when we boarded for the first night. 

[cruiseej]

16 minutes ago, WNcruiser said:

There were hosted tables on Ovation on our cruise in December.

 

From onboard reports, Omicron brought hosted tables to a fast halt. You can dine alone, or you can arrange with others onboard to meet at the entrance of the restaurant in order to be seated together, but there haven't been crew-hosted tables nor ad hoc group tables put together by the maitre d' as people arrive for diner.

 

With Omicron cases declining, it seems only a matter of time until these restrictions are lifted, but it's impossible to know when Seabourn will decide that time has arrived. If I were to guess, barring new Covid developments, I'd think by sometime this spring.

[Mauzac]

We have another cruise in the Autumn... I have high hopes hosted tables will be back by then. 

[Catlover54]

On 2/16/2022 at 8:16 AM, Mauzac said:

We have another cruise in the Autumn... I have high hopes hosted tables will be back by then. 

 

They can be interested, and I also hope they are back by then (assuming we do not have visitations by rho, sigma, tau etc.)

[Dunnedg]

On 2/15/2022 at 9:50 PM,  rkacruiser said: 

Difficult for me to understand, but I have heard of some who have made comments such as "I have no interest in dining with the "help".  Their loss, I have always thought.  
 

Been invited on numerous occasions but declined every time. Firstly because the invitations are always for a very early time (we prefer a late dinner) and secondly I want to enjoy my meal without making small talk with people I have never met and may not really like. Its an individual choice. Its not the ‘help’ I don't want to eat with but the boring cruisers telling how many cruises they have been on.

[DJBRWN]

I’m on board now and yes hosted tables are on

[gwesq]

On 2/15/2022 at 4:50 PM, rkacruiser said:

 

 

 

Difficult for me to understand, but I have heard of some who have made comments such as "I have no interest in dining with the "help".  Their loss, I have always thought.  

That is a famous line from one of my favorite TV shows - Keeping Up Appearances, where the slovenly brother. Onslow, wins a trip on the QE2 and is invited to dine with the Captain.   Anyone who cruises should definitely watch this episode.   The part re the ship begins at about the 26 min mark an they get on the ship around 38 mins:   

 

[rl787]

GWESQ.............Keeping Up Appearances.......what an episode! I agree it is a must watch.......especially the relevant ending!.......If you are ever going to meet a real Hyacinth I think you have a good chance of meeting one on one of the luxury cruise lines!

My own personal favourite episode was the one where she goes boating on the Thames in her sailor suit and of course it all goes horribly wrong.........I can't find or remember the episode name.

Thanks for your post...............

Edited February 20, 2022 by rl787

[gwesq]

1 hour ago, rl787 said:

GWESQ.............Keeping Up Appearances.......what an episode! I agree it is a must watch.......especially the relevant ending!.......If you are ever going to meet a real Hyacinth I think you have a good chance of meeting one on one of the luxury cruise lines!

My own personal favourite episode was the one where she goes boating on the Thames in her sailor suit and of course it all goes horribly wrong.........I can't find or remember the episode name.

Thanks for your post...............

EVERYTHING ALWAYS goes horribly wrong for Mrs BUCKET!  🙂  

[Isklaar]

1 hour ago, rl787 said:

GWESQ.............Keeping Up Appearances.......what an episode! I agree it is a must watch.......especially the relevant ending!.......If you are ever going to meet a real Hyacinth I think you have a good chance of meeting one on one of the luxury cruise lines!

My own personal favourite episode was the one where she goes boating on the Thames in her sailor suit and of course it all goes horribly wrong.........I can't find or remember the episode name.

Thanks for your post...............

 

It's Season 3 Episode 7, 'What to wear when yachting' - we've just finished watching that series on Britbox.

[Hlitner]

2 hours ago, gwesq said:

That is a famous line from one of my favorite TV shows - Keeping Up Appearances, where the slovenly brother. Onslow, wins a trip on the QE2 and is invited to dine with the Captain.   Anyone who cruises should definitely watch this episode.   The part re the ship begins at about the 26 min mark an they get on the ship around 38 mins:   

 

DW and I loved watching this show and I used to tell her that if there is reincarnation I want to come back as Onslow.   

 

As to hosted tables we love them and did many on our recent Ovation and Odyssey cruises.  In nearly all cases we met fascinating folks and the dinner conversation was always interesting (not surprising on Seabourn).  To us, socializing at a shared/hosted table is often the best social activity of the day and over the years we have developed many long-term friends from shared tables (on many lines).  In over 1300 days of cruising DW and I can only recall two less than good experiences with shared tables.  On SB we have also enjoyed meeting many of the senior Officers and entertainers and learning something about their fascinating lives.  

 

Hank

 

Hank

[JPH814]

7 hours ago, Dunnedg said:

 

On 2/15/2022 at 9:50 PM,  rkacruiser said: 

Difficult for me to understand, but I have heard of some who have made comments such as "I have no interest in dining with the "help".  Their loss, I have always thought.  
 

Been invited on numerous occasions but declined every time. Firstly because the invitations are always for a very early time (we prefer a late dinner) and secondly I want to enjoy my meal without making small talk with people I have never met and may not really like. Its an individual choice. Its not the ‘help’ I don't want to eat with but the boring cruisers telling how many cruises they have been on.

Interesting how you can be so sure you do not like something that you "declined every time"

[Cru Doll]

6 hours ago, gwesq said:

That is a famous line from one of my favorite TV shows - Keeping Up Appearances, where the slovenly brother. Onslow, wins a trip on the QE2 and is invited to dine with the Captain.   Anyone who cruises should definitely watch this episode.   The part re the ship begins at about the 26 min mark an they get on the ship around 38 mins:   

Thanks so much for posting this gwesq.  
It’s a great episode!  

[Cru Doll]

Thanks for posting this gwesq.  
It’a great episode. 

3 minutes ago, Cru Doll said:

6 hours ago, gwesq said:

That is a famous line from one of my favorite TV shows - Keeping Up Appearances, where the slovenly brother. Onslow, wins a trip on the QE2 and is invited to dine with the Captain.   Anyone who cruises should definitely watch this episode.   The part re the ship begins at about the 26 min mark an they get on the ship around 38 mins:   

Thanks so much for posting this gwesq.  
It’s a great episode!  

Expand  

 

[rkacruiser]

3 hours ago, JPH814 said:

Interesting how you can be so sure you do not like something that you "declined every time"

 

Please understand that the part in very black print was a post in support of hosted tables which I have enjoyed.  The paragraph under that very black print was posted by the person responding to my post who has a different view.  

[rkacruiser]

11 hours ago, Dunnedg said:

Its not the ‘help’ I don't want to eat with but the boring cruisers telling how many cruises they have been on.

 

This has not been my experience when I have been invited to dine with a Senior Officer.  All of us, I suppose, were invited because of our status with the cruise line's loyalty program.  Thus, there is no need to try to "make an impression" on others.  We know whom we are!  

 

4 hours ago, Hlitner said:

On SB we have also enjoyed meeting many of the senior Officers and entertainers and learning something about their fascinating lives.  

 

Precisely!  And, the opportunity to learn about the challenges and the operation of the ship:  always very interesting.  

[Hlitner]

24 minutes ago, rkacruiser said:

 

This has not been my experience when I have been invited to dine with a Senior Officer.  All of us, I suppose, were invited because of our status with the cruise line's loyalty program.  Thus, there is no need to try to "make an impression" on others.  We know whom we are!  

 

Sorry to disappoint but we do not think this is the case.  We are relative SB newbies (only been on 3 cruises for a total of 42 days) and on our first cruise (Ovation) we simply told the hostess that we would be interested in hosted tables.  From that time we have consistently been invited to multiple hosted tables.  In fact, on our recent Odyssey cruise we were invited (along with one other couple) to dine with the Captain in the TK Grill.   On that same cruise we also dined with the Chief Engineer, Staff Captain, Cruise Director, Lead Dancer/Singer, and a few others.  We have little status and were in a normal low category cabin.   

 

But I do agree that on SB there are few, if any, folks that try to impress others with their status, experience, wealth, etc.  On SB we have met nothing but wonderful folks most of whom were friendly and sociable.  Along with the fantastic crew this is one of the reasons that has led us to book more SB cruises.  We also have no issues with folks that prefer to be left by themselves and have no desire to socialize at dinner (or elsewhere).   Loners tend to stick out and we politely avoid infringing on their privacy.

 

Hank

[ernieb]

Hank, once again I appreciate your post. We will be on our first SB cruise in April and have been wondering if we would be invited to any hotel tables. While we normally are not very outgoing in trying to arrange groups or actively pursuing new friends, we would appreciate the opportunity to meet folks through the hosted table program.

[Hlitner]

42 minutes ago, ernieb said:

Hank, once again I appreciate your post. We will be on our first SB cruise in April and have been wondering if we would be invited to any hotel tables. While we normally are not very outgoing in trying to arrange groups or actively pursuing new friends, we would appreciate the opportunity to meet folks through the hosted table program.

My suggestion would be that the first time you are greeted by the hostess (be it as you enter the Colannade or Restaurant, simply introduce yourselves and mention that you are interested in attending hosted tables.   Invites do not happen every night and we have politely turned down a few invites always mentioning to the hostess that we have other plans that evening but are still interested in the future.   We think the SB staff are amazing and they simply want to do whatever makes the passengers happy.  The word "no" is not in their vocabulary.

 

Hank

[marazul]

45 minutes ago, ernieb said:

Hank, once again I appreciate your post. We will be on our first SB cruise in April and have been wondering if we would be invited to any hotel tables. While we normally are not very outgoing in trying to arrange groups or actively pursuing new friends, we would appreciate the opportunity to meet folks through the hosted table program.

On your first day aboard go to Seabourn Square and tell them you are you would like to be invited to hosted tables.  You will probably get nightly invitations.