Stupid Cruiser Trick

There’s a limit to this pampering thing, of course – it doesn’t speed up our wait for a table at Parrot Cay. Forty-five minutes after we sign in, we're pretty hungry, and finally our names are called. We hear our family name, "party of six," and we go to the crew member with the waiting list, and she directs us to the restaurant. We walk up the hallway and then stand at the entrance to Parrot Cay for a couple of minutes waiting on a server to take us to a specific table.

There is a smaller group ahead of us, and one lone middle-aged guy milling around nearby. The smaller party is seated, and by the time a server comes for us, the lone guy has worked his way ahead of us.

"Party of six?" the server asks.

"Yes" I answer, but so does the other guy standing nearby! Color me confused.

Now, I have no idea what's going on, but the server is in a rush and doesn't notice anything out of place. He takes off at a brisk walk through the restaurant, with the seven of us in tow -- the six of us plus the other guy.

The server barely slows down to indicate a table for six and then moves on. And then… then the lone guy plops himself down in one of the chairs!

We stand there stunned. It finally dawns on me that this guy is cutting in line, stealing our table -- he heard "party of 6" and planted himself ahead of us.

We're almost too dumbfounded to say anything, but we protest to the guy that we were the party of six that was called. No, it was him, he smugly says. Where's your family, then? We ask.

"Oh, they're on their way," he replies -- as he pulls out his cell phone to call them.

We flag a nearby server and sputter out the situation. Thankfully, another table for six is open and we are seated in it immediately. I gather that the server considers this a solution to the issue and doesn't do anything to the other (balding, ugly) dude -- who to him is also a paying customer on the first day of his cruise, I'm sure.

Within a few minutes we've given our drink order and are headed for the buffet. The line-cutting idiot is still smugly sitting at the table alone, waiting for his family. So, apart from looks that could kill from each member of our family (which he studiously avoids meeting), he gets away with it.

So... we decide shake it off, let it go, and enjoy lunch and the rest of our cruise. But it bugs me that someone can act so selfish and inconsiderate and not suffer any consequences – apart from just having to be who he is. Which, now that I think about it, is a pretty severe punishment.