Dining Conventions

It is something that is so ingrained in you that you don’t notice.

Go out to eat anywhere, in almost any country and you interact with your table companions and the waitstaff. You certainly don’t talk to anyone and everyone around you. Except in a few countries you certainly are not expect to share a table with total strangers.

Now take your mind to a cruise ship. There is a casualness about most ships (short of the high end where you have to establish yourself in the pecking order first. Not the social pecking order of how many times you have cruised and your shipboard status {except how it applies to your grade of cabin} but your status at home of money, house, contacts, community and professional status.  On all the rest of the ships, where you fall in the loyalty program is much more important.

Oh dear, that was a diversion, wasn’t it? Anyway – on the average ship the mores allow you to talk to just about anyone in any circumstances. You can politely ask to join someone at a large table in the buffet and would be astonished if they said no. You, in traditional evening seating, are likely placed at a table with total strangers. Your job over the days of the cruise is, if not to turn them into friends with whom you would like to cruise again in the future, at least pleasant conversational companions for the evening meal.

Specialty restaurants are a bit more like a traditional evening out where most people are celebrating something significant and not expecting to have a lot of interaction with other diners. Blu – the specialty restaurant that Celebrity has created for the AquaClass cabins and suites falls somewhere in the middle but has an interaction completely of its own.

Unlike other resultants, Blu’s seating is more than 80% composed of tables for two. You are never, ever seated with someone else unless it is your choice. At the same time, since the tables are close together you find your self conversing with those at the next table across the 1/2 meter gap.  Since seating is open and without reservations, there technically are no reserved tables and you should be seated next to different people every night. In fact, since people are creatures of habit and fairly consistent about dining time – the same people show up in the same order at about the same time every evening. This results in a good chance that those at the next table are familiar faces even if you have no clue as to their names.

In consequence, the atmosphere  is fairly relaxed, introductions are common and you are just as likely to talk to those next to you as your own dining companion. The atmosphere is quite casual and almost everyone speaks English (secondary language on this leg is German). But it is more likely than not that it is completely expected to talk to those around you. In fact, if you want to be left completely alone, the hostess suggests a table well away from the other diners.

It may sound strange, but most  evenings I am perfectly happy eating by myself. It lets me eat at my own pace. The challenge with the main dining room is not just the noise level but the chance that there is going to be someone at the table eating everything on the menu while the rest of us wait for him/her to finish each course. By myself I can jus have soup & salad or soup & main or just a number of starters and leave when I have finished without being rude to tablemates.

I started on this whole conversation about ship dining a number of paragraphs ago and probably wandered a bit far a field. But if you are not a cruiser, you might not be comfortable with the idea of people at the next table inserting themselves into your conversation. But consider the following: it is a way not to talk to yourself or be concerned about the answers.

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One Response to Dining Conventions

  1. AlisonH says:

    Diners as knitters, if you think about it.

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