Dining with the captain

[cruisequeen]

Has anyone been invited to dine with the captain? I would love to surprise my husband by getting invited to the captains table! Have NO idea how to go about this.

Be a top category frequent cruiser, or buy the top level suite, or be a travel agent, or be a friend of somebody important at the line, or hustle the social hostess on the first day and tell her/him of your dream.

[Mike M]

Cruisequeen:
Getting to know the social hostess is the best way to make this happen. I wouldn't be pushy about it but it wouldn't hurt to let her know that it is something that your husband would love to do. Many times she is in the embarkation and check-in area when you board. Just know that she does get a number of requests and as AR said many VIP's are already pre-selected so there is not a great chance of this happening but there is a chance. I am proof of that.

Dinners with the Captain can be very enjoyable and sometimes it can be somewhat boring. The best thing is they serve the "good wine" with dinner. :-) I have actually enjoyed dinner with the Hotel Captain and the Chief Engineer more than with the Captain.

I hope you things work out.

Take care,
Mike

[Kuki]

Here's a link to a story I wrote on the subject of dining with the Captain.
http://www.cruisemates.com/articles/...ainDinning.cfm

Don't know if it will help you get the invitation, but might make you laugh if you do get the invitation, and then while dining recall some of the things it tells you not to do <G>

We didn't have dinner with the captain, but we did have dinner with an air conditioning officer on the Royal Princess. This man was an interesting person in his own right. But this dinner resulted in a tour of the ship's a/c area and a quick trip through the galley. I never saw so much pasta being boiled in my life! You don't haved to have dinner with the captain to have an interesting exerience on a cruise ship.

J.

[Ed]

Why would anyone wish to dine with the hired help ? (s)

[Laurie M]

I am the Cruisemates reader in my family but before our last cruise in July, I shared that article with my family and we got the biggest kick out of it..

Specifically this sentence:

""If you come off as a reasonably good conversationalist, and you don’t have spoons or other forms of cutlery hanging off the end of your nose, you’ve at least increased your chances of getting an invitation.""

My husband, two daughters (ages 19 & 24) and I have our little "tradition". It all started on our daughters' first cruise when they were 10 & 15. I don't know how it came about, but on formal night my youngest hung a spoon on her nose. Next cruise...she did it again. Now its become our little family joke about being all dressed up in formal attire with spoons hanging off our noses. She doesn't do it any other time, just on formal nights....

So on this last cruise every time we did something silly we would say ...."reason number 17 for not getting invited to the captain's table" By the end of the cruise, I think we got up to reason number 27 .... It was a running joke the whole cruise!

[Kuki]

Laurie..

That behavior may not get you an invitation to the Captain's table, but it would get you an invitation to mine <G>

Glad you enjoyed the article!

[Laurie M]

Kuki... I couldn't figure out how to send a picture in the message board so I hope you don't mind, but I sent you an email. I wanted to show you my daughter with the spoon on her nose. It will come from my email address name..Mszkitty@****. With a name like that I don't want you to think its spam or junk mail ...

[cruzwiz]

What cruise line will you be sailing?

My friends were on the Imagination back in March, and they were sat at the Captains table every night. SHe said he never came to dinner though. There were two other couples at the table. I think there were a few officers some nights.

[Cruz Crazy]

On my Celebrity Summit cruise, my husband and I received an invitation to sit at the Captains Table with the Hotel Manager.

Couldn't figure out how we had gotten chosen at first, since we were only on Celebrity twice and do inside cabins, but came to find out the Social Hostess came over to our check in person, since we were chatting with him and were laughing.

She must have been looking for people to sit at that table and I'm glad she chose us.

When you receive the invite, you should immediately respond YES, it's the proper thing to do.

Not only was the Hotel Manager very informative, the service at that table is superb.

Don't forget if you do get an invite, make sure you send a thank you note the next day to the Social Hostess and the Hotel Manger/Captain or whoever invited you thanking them. I brought mine to the purser's desk to give to them.

Hope you get an invite, it's a wonderful experience.

[cruisequeen]

Cuzwiz:
I'm sailing the Celebrity Summit 10/25/04

, Ed, didn't Lady Astor say that?

[Ed]

I'm not sure who said it but I've always thought it was very very funny !