Best and Worst Tablemate Stories..........

[princess_cruz]

another fandango table mate selection this time! well. just got back off the QE2 2 days ago and my table mates were brill. they were from yorkshire so not far from me and they had some realy funny stories to tell and loved a good gossip. it was a mother father and their 15 year old daughter. they were brill. thank heavens i've nver experienced bad tablemates. by the sounds of you lot its enough to never eat again! haha. so we'll see if next years will be just a great. fingers crossed!!

[Lover Of H2O]

Man... did they HAVE to say they were from Georgia?? Jeez... :o

I second that....couldn't they have said "Alabama"??? :p

 

(For those of you not from Georgia or Alabama, you may not understand the picking that goes on between the two states, it's alright, everyone KNOWS it is just in fun!)

[Amlee]

I second that....couldn't they have said "Alabama"??? :p

 

(For those of you not from Georgia or Alabama, you may not understand the picking that goes on between the two states, it's alright, everyone KNOWS it is just in fun!)

 

Of course they should have said Mississippi!! You know that Georgia and Alabama saying!? "Thank God, for Mississippi!":D

[cgerblick]

My partner Todd and I sail 3 times per year. So were sitting at this table with other couples and one couple just got married and are on their honeymoon. This guys wife is scared to death because our waiter is not white and does not speak perfect english..she is frieked out not to mention My partner and I are gay & she is not comfortable with this so she sits terrified and uncomfortable all night while her husband sits imbarrased about this new wife who just left her chicken coup for the 1st time in her life.

 

Diversity Training, it's not just for children. :D

[heatherandfred]

My partner Todd and I sail 3 times per year. So were sitting at this table with other couples and one couple just got married and are on their honeymoon. This guys wife is scared to death because our waiter is not white and does not speak perfect english..she is frieked out not to mention My partner and I are gay & she is not comfortable with this so she sits terrified and uncomfortable all night while her husband sits imbarrased about this new wife who just left her chicken coup for the 1st time in her life.

 

Diversity Training, it's not just for children. :D

 

I would have died laughing at her and her ignorance...sheesh...what a pathetic person.

[SDRR]

Well, we've got our first cruise coming up in about 114 days, and I hope we don't come off as a couple (or group) from that really hot place under the Earth's surface...:o

 

The reason I even mention this is that we'll be traveling with two other couples, of which 3 out of 4 of them tend to get a little loud, sometimes to the extreme of boisterous, with laughing, joking, and things of that nature.

 

Add in my wife and I, and now the perpetrators are increased to 4.5 out of 6 in favor of having a good time. My wife has been known to politely excuse herself from a potentially hilarious situation.

 

She may even publicly apologize for my behavior, but I doubt she'll make any ammends for the others. She may feign embarrassment, though...

 

Thank heavens no one has actually blown beer out of their nose yet.

 

Well, not that I've seen in person.

 

I can't predict what might happen with wine or champagne...

 

So be forewarned.

 

Should you be sailing on Carnival's Imagination on February 2nd, 2008, there will be mirth and frivolity... ;)

[Jeanie821]

On the first night of the cruise, we went down to the dining room and discovered we had a pretty pushy waiter. He kept pushing my wife and I to order wine with dinner. We politely told him 'no', and after he kept pressing the issue we told him that for religious reasons we do not drink alchohol. His reponse was that the guy who came up with that (religious) rule has been dead a long time and we shouldn't have to follow it while on vacation. I would expect the dining staff to be more sensitive to food preferences and especially religious beliefs of the passengers. I wonder if he would try and get Jews to eat pork or Hindis to eat beef as well?

 

This insensitivity made us really uncomfortable to be around him and we opted to avoid the dining room for the rest of the cruise. We ended up missing out on Lobster night, since that's not offered outside the dining room. We found the evening food in the windjammer pretty much matched the regular dining room menu, with the exception of Lobster. We bumped into our 1st night tablemates and found out that they booked Portofino for every other night of the cruise and hadn't returned to the dining room either.

 

What nerve! While I'm religious and have no problem with alcohol intake on that level, I'm allergic to alcohol, and I also am on several medications that cannot be mixed with alcohol. My response would have been, "And would you be willing to take responsibility for the consequences?"

 

BTW - never had bad tablemates. Ever. Of course, I probably just jinxed myself...

[sandy toes]

In 2002 at a table for 8, another nice couple and 2 very odd couples. The first night the 2 couples RAN into the DR (not late, just ran)made a lot of noise, found their seats, ordered, everything was LOUD, ate a few bites of the salad, were angry because they did not get all their meal at once and poured their water over the table and left. Very odd behavior. The 4 of us remaining were shocked. Our table was cleaned up and we finished dining. The 2nd night they came to the DR, again running in late. They talked loudly saying they expected better service this time around. The other man (nice guy) tried to explain fine dining, how all the food comes at different times. They would have none of it. They made a scene of themselves when the soup was bought to the table. They picked up the soup belonging to the other lady and poured it onto the floor. The maitre'd came by after they stormed out the 2nd night. They did not return. Never saw them again the rest of the cruise. On a side note, I know we read a lot about children in the DR but I have never seen anyone of any age act that poorly before or since. A young girl (not yet in school) at the table next to ours, asked her Daddy if those people had to grow up without a Mommy to teach them manners. Everyone all around, even the wait staff, laughed and laughed. She was given a special cake the last night for being such a good girl

[n2brad4d]

Last year my family cruised on the Conquest. It was my husband and son's(8 yrs) first cruise. On our first night we were seated with 2 women and 3 very loud and obnoxious children. During dessert one of the ladies commented that they were going to try to get later dinner seating. We thought "WHOO HOO" :p because we couldn't enjoy our dinner for the children screaming and arguing and their Mothers just ignoring them. Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse :eek: the next night when we arrived our table it had been seated with 6 non English speaking Chinese. And to make matters worse, the table was only suppose to seat 8. So for the rest of the cruise my son had to be squeezed in at the end of the table and we had to listen to non stop chatting and having a camera shoved at us so that we could take pictures of this group. We are now booked to go on the Freedom in 01/08 and my hubands only request is that if we are seated again with people that do not speak our language we change our dinner table/time or skip going to dinner.

[n2brad4d]

Oops. It posted twice. Sorry

[San Diego Ellie]

After reading these posts, I can see that our decision to get a table for two in the past (unless we were traveling with friends) was a good one! We will continue to do this. We have met lots of nice people by going to the cc get togethers, and by sitting with different people at lunch, so why take a chance on being stuck for days and days at dinner with people you do not like?

[Guest maler]

I love reading these great stories so I'll add mine.

 

Out of 7 cruises, we have had only one 'difficult' table mate.

This guy talked loud enough for everyone within 50 feet to hear him. His mousey wife never uttered a word.

He started off by saying that anyone that wasn't a democrat was a G*D*M fool and shouldn't be allowed to even vote!

And that was the first night! Before the main course was even delivered!

 

Then it was anyone not white and born in America.

 

Then we changed tables.

 

I couldn't imagine having to spend any more time with a guy like that.

We saw them later in the week but fortunately he didn't recognize us.

[ILoveScotland]

I've read and heard stories about the table mates and now have my own to tell.

 

DH and I just returned from a 2 week cruise on the Galaxy of the Eastern Med and Black Sea. We had late seating at what was supposed to be a table for 12, but there were only 10 of us--2 couples from the US and 3 from England.

 

Everyone was very pleasant the first night, but I did notice that the husband of Couple A from England sent his entree back because it wasn't warm enough. The second entree wasn't right, either. This escalated each night to the point when about half way through the cruise he sent back 5 entrees and still wasn't happy. His wife wasn't much better. And if they weren't complaining about the quality of their food they were complaining about the presentation of the food and suggesting that those of us who liked our food simply had bad taste.

 

They also said they'd talked with the Hotel Director about other problems on the ship and evidently told another couple at the table that they weren't leaving tips for anyone.

 

We had a wonderful waiter, but they didn't like him, either, and several of us talked to him privately. He said he'd never had such an experience. We assured him that he was doing a great job, and we told his supervisor the same thing.

 

So, what did all of the couple's complaining get them? A free bottle of wine one night and dinner at the Captain's Table on the last formal night. The rest of us had the best night of the cruise since they weren't with us, but we were all a bit perplexed that they got such royal treatment. As I put in my evaluation questionnaire: Complaining has its rewards!

[vicsjoy]

If you go to www.tickerfactory.com there's a form to fill in, where you select your date, background and 'ticker' images, and it puts it altogether for you, then just copy and paste the HTML code into your signature.

Hope that helps!!

 

 

 

I've not been on a cruise yet, but am off on my Honeymoon in November on RC' FotS. I'm hoping for some interesting tablemates, as I love to meet new people. However, my fiance is not so sociable, and would prefer that we don't meet anyone else as he wants me all to himself...... I'll apologise now if he starts talking about freezing cats on our cruise, and give a prior warning that we DON'T have any cats!!

 

Lizzi xx

 

Liz you probably wont see this untill after your honeymoon. Hope you don't worry about freezing cats. My Dh is not people friendly either, but we are now going on our third cruise and other then an olive flying acrossed the table:o on formal night he has almost been on his best behavior. Sounds like your new husband would get a long well with mine.;) Hope that your day and cruise is magical, wonderful, and all that you hope it would be.

[karen&roy]

Well, we've got our first cruise coming up in about 114 days, and I hope we don't come off as a couple (or group) from that really hot place under the Earth's surface...:o

 

The reason I even mention this is that we'll be traveling with two other couples, of which 3 out of 4 of them tend to get a little loud, sometimes to the extreme of boisterous, with laughing, joking, and things of that nature.

 

Add in my wife and I, and now the perpetrators are increased to 4.5 out of 6 in favor of having a good time. My wife has been known to politely excuse herself from a potentially hilarious situation.

 

She may even publicly apologize for my behavior, but I doubt she'll make any ammends for the others. She may feign embarrassment, though...

 

Thank heavens no one has actually blown beer out of their nose yet.

 

Well, not that I've seen in person.

 

I can't predict what might happen with wine or champagne...

 

So be forewarned.

 

Should you be sailing on Carnival's Imagination on February 2nd, 2008, there will be mirth and frivolity... ;)

 

Oh how I wish you guys were coming on our Harley themed cruise. You are the kind of people us biker people love. Its on RCCL Mariner. Check it out! www.hogsonthehighseas.com

:D

[vicsjoy]

On the first night of the cruise, we went down to the dining room and discovered we had a pretty pushy waiter. He kept pushing my wife and I to order wine with dinner. We politely told him 'no', and after he kept pressing the issue we told him that for religious reasons we do not drink alchohol. His reponse was that the guy who came up with that (religious) rule has been dead a long time and we shouldn't have to follow it while on vacation. I would expect the dining staff to be more sensitive to food preferences and especially religious beliefs of the passengers. I wonder if he would try and get Jews to eat pork or Hindis to eat beef as well?

 

OMG was this on the Vision to Mexico? Was he a head waiter that had a handle bar mustach? Noticed you posted a while back but hope you read this just curious. If it was him, he did the same thing with my DH and I. The cruise was almost perfect but when I told him I did not drink he said even 1% champaign had alcohol in it. I am a recovering AA and it could have ruined our cruise. But the worse part was he refused to serve the rest of the family after that. How sad. Loved the assistant waiter and waiter we had on that cruise though. Sorry one waiter ruined your dinning pleasure. We did not see him much and don't remember his name but called him Snydley Whiplash. :p

[vicsjoy]

Ok like some one else in this post I have read the entire thing, and no one mentioned us.:o This was good. While reading here my first thought was OMG why do some people bother going on cruises or vacation? Is it because if they complain loud and often enough they get special deals, such as sitting at the Captains table, or is it because they are so miserable in their own skin that they need to make everyone around them miserable? Maybe both. I just want to have a good time and meet new interesting people and see new places. My DH and I thought the same thing on our first cruise. We heard as people called the "staff hey you boy" and threw garbage around the ship and just seemed miserable, we wondered why they bothered to spend so much money to annoy everyone around them.

 

We have only been on two cruises, and on both our cruises our table mates have been our family (Best and worst table mates) But anyhow on the first cruise (Snydley aside) Our assistant waiter is from Croatia and was new. The first night he accidently spilled a drop of coffee on my sister-laws plate. Although my sister in law told him it was ok he appologized profusly and insisted he had to get her an entirely new cup. He was so nervouse that I had my doubts about him. By the next night formal night I coaxed him into relaxing a bit and began to joke around with him. He began to relax and by the end of the cruise other assistant waiters were asking us if we would sit at their table, and the waiter on the last night told us he would hurry with others so he could come and laugh with us. The Assistant waiter proposed to his girl friend on this cruise and included us in their celebration when she said yes. To this day we keep in touch with them and now they are back in Croatia and married. They were the reason we continued to return to the dinning room every night and part of the reason our cruise was such a success. Next cruise is to Alaska with friends on NCL. never done free style cruising but hope table mates are not rude or obnoxious. Love people even if DH doesn't.

[ILoveScotland]

Joyce, what I'm about to say has nothing to do with the size of a person's bank account so I hope no flaming from anyone. But it was interesting to me that the complainers at our table who wound up at the captain's table were most likely nuevo riche given some of what I learned about them. They certainly fit all those stereotypes whether the stereotypes are deserved or not. At the same time we had another couple, also British, who live in a world where they hobnob with royalty on occasion. The latter couple was as down to earth and enjoyable as one could ever want in table mates.

[vicsjoy]

ILoveScotland,

Thanks for that remark. I was noticing on both of our cruises and by reading these posts the size of a persons wallet is irrelevent. It sounds like there are some rich people who have no class at all and the world is there servants, while some of the poor also seem to get revenge and treat others like dirt because they think they are entitled. But then have met the rich that you would not have a clue and they are just as sweet with no judgements and so down to earth, and the the middle class poor that just want to have a good time. My point although it seemed to be about the money, it wasn't meant to be that way. My point is it has been my experience in the past if I focus on the negative in my life the best of what ever is going on is missed. If I stay focused on the positive then I might have my head in the clouds but I am having a good time. Some of the people I have read about on here it seems they were not happy unless they were making others around them uncomfortable. In your case from what it sounds like I am sorry that you had that experience, but am happy that when they sat at the capt. table you had a good time and it sounds like you met others that were good. It also sounds like the jerks would not be happy with anything and forced their way to the Capt. Table so they could appear more important then they actually were.

[momofmeg]

We were on a cruise where my DH and I were at a table of 8, and 4 people never showed up for dinner, and the other couple only came 1/2 of the time (on a 10 day cruise). We felt a little ridiculous sitting at a large table just the 2 of us...

 

On that same cruise there was a table of 6 next to us, and we were on a tour with one of the fellows who for the life of me I don't know why he stayed at the table. He said that he was Jewish and at the table was an older German gentleman who intentionally went on about how the Holocaust (sp?) didn't happen... Not exactly your standard dinner conversation with strangers. I can't imagine anything as uncomfortable! But I think of that and figure I couldn't possibly complain about any of my tablemates...

 

Those german men need to visit the Holocast museum in Washington, DC. One part had horrific pictures and flim that was behind this thing that came above wait high so small children could not see it. I guess they would thinkthose pictures were faked???? I could only stomach to glance at a couple, so I was glad that had been done. the pioctures were bad but not gorry enough to be "hollywood" so they read real which is why they bothered me. I knew they were real.

[momofmeg]

That just shows your ignorance. The cruise with the drunks at my table was on Celebrity. Thank you - please keep your snobby self off my Carnival cruise.:D

 

I thought the same thing. The obnoxious drunk at a nearby table yelling at his SO and the waiters for me was on a RCI cruise and on another RCI cruise was another obnoxious drunk in the piano bar yelling at the piano player and making a fool of himself. This has never happened to me on carnival. and I don't blame RCI whenever know who else may have booked the same cruise as us-it is the luck of the draw I guess.

[momofmeg]

I second that....couldn't they have said "Alabama"??? :p

 

(For those of you not from Georgia or Alabama, you may not understand the picking that goes on between the two states, it's alright, everyone KNOWS it is just in fun!)

 

Well we southerners get picked on so much from those from other parts of the country we have to have someone else to pick on! I am from GA and we love to say AL doesn't know the correct time as we are in differant time zones! Just a silly joke, no harm.

[crsrock]

Different time zones? Florida has two (silly!!). Indiana is really confused....they have Indiana time, and then there's Gary Indiana time which is on Chicago time. I lived in TN for years, and they, too are split in half in time zones. I think there should be TWO: east of the Mississppi, and west of the Mississippi. But then, Louisiana would be a mess!

[DaytonGirl]

Any long-time cruisers here who've had good table mates on all of your cruises?

 

Absolutely! Every one of them! :)

 

(Knock wood :eek: )

[LambKnuckles]

Like others, I've enjoyed reading this thread. I look forward to meeting my tablemates, whoever they are. I'm a pretty easygoing person, so I make lemonade out of lemons...

 

I've only cruised twice. The first time, I swear, they book us on purpose hoping to start a romance. My daughter, Mom, and I were seated with a single man and his son and his son's friend. The man and I were of similar age, both widowed and his son and my daughter were the same age and had similar interests. Nothing came of the dinner seating -- but we always had a pleasant conversation and good company.

 

On the second cruise, we had two great mates and two complaining ones. This time we traveled with my sister, too. Of the four others at the table, the pleasant two were girlfriends who'd grown up together, but because one had moved away for a job, they were using this cruise as a girls time out. They were a hoot and involved all of us in their conversations and fun. They were in their late 20s, and were perfect tablemates. They other ones were a married couple and pretty much liked to complain or tell us what to do and what to order.

 

We cruise again in Feb, and I'm looking forward to making friends out of the strangers we meet...

LK