We Don’t Dine With The Help

Over the years, I’ve lost count of how many Captain’s tables I co-hosted during my 15 years at sea.  If I add in the Hotel Directors tables along with the vast number’s I hosted solo, the count would easily be in the triple digits.  I can assure you, I’ve witnessed humanity in all contexts of the word while sitting in the midst of a dining room on a cruise ship.  

But when it comes to a Captain and his tables, for as unique as a diamond is, that is how unique each Captain is.  None are cut from the same cloth and yet they can be utterly predictable. It takes a certain type of man* to be the Captain of a cruise ship! When it comes to the demands of his PR duties, I believe that some embrace hosting formal night dinners and some dread it.  As the Social Hostess, it was my job to co-host with the Captain or senior officer, keeping the guests engaged with one another and in some cases drawing the Captain out of his shell in order to keep the conversation flowing around the table.  

“That which chiefly causes the failure of a dinner-party, is the running short--not of meat, nor yet of drink, but of conversation.” – Lewis Carroll

Through it all, I witnessed guests who were thrilled to be there and those were intimidated by the formality of the Captain’s table, inspiring them to attend my Tradition of Excellence Etiquette classes which I held the same day as the formal night … teaching everyone how to eat properly with all of the silverware, what to do with your napkin if you leave the table to go to the restroom or leave the table at the end of dinner and what to do with each glass.  A fun and playful course designed to help people relax in an unfamiliar setting.  The majority of the guests treated the occasion as an honor … the equivalent, and I say this tongue in cheek, of dining with the Queen of England!

If you have never cruised before, let me describe the scenario.  It’s a formal night and all of the guests are dressed in their Sunday best.  The officers in crisp white jackets, so stiff they could stand up on their own.  Black trousers pressed neatly.  Patent leather shoes shined to a brilliance.  Black bowties hand tied the old-fashioned way or for those who are not quite so nimble fingered, electing the clip-on version.   The evening has a tendency to be quite festive, with costumes running the gamut of full-length gowns and feathers to short and sassy finery.  Hair done, nails trimmed and painted … like I said, Sunday best.  The bars are usually filled to capacity with people celebrating all sorts of occasions, but mainly to show off how good they look to “the Jones’s” across the room. 

“I can get a better grasp of what is going on in the world from one good Washington dinner party than from all the background information NBC piles on my desk. Barbara Walters

Now when you look closely, tucked away in a prominent but discreet corner of the most popular bar onboard, the Social Hostess is holding court for a small, intimate group of guests who have been invited to dine with the most senior officer onboard … the Captain.  Everyone is nervously awaiting his arrival.  As they slowly sip cocktails, they are silently wondering “why are we here” and “is this drink free or do I have to pay for it” and then there are those who are quite happy to loudly inform you about who they are and why they were invited.  Nothing humble in their stories of stature, how they first met the Captain on a previous cruise and in some cases making the others in the party feel like freshman in high school.  

The ss Seabreeze Anchored In Cozumel, Mexico

A ship bought originally bought from Premier Cruise Line.

It was my first contract as a Social Hostess on the ss Seabreeze, the flag ship of Dolphin Cruise Line.  A small but surprisingly elegant ship that was originally purchased from a cruise line that had painted the hull red, and yes, this was long before Disney put their bid into creating their own cruise line.  On a comical side note to this story, when the cruise line first bought the ship, they repainted the hull a bright white with blue “arcs” like waves crashing over the hull.  A beautiful contrast to the bright blue Caribbean waters we sailed in.  However, and this is a big however, when they painted it, they cut corners. Instead of scraping the hull clean of the original bright red, they painted over it.  What do you think happens to white when you paint over red and then have a hull subjected to marine weather?  Yes, you guessed it, the hull turned pink.  It was like a scene out of that 1959 movie starring Cary Grant “Operation Petticoat” where they put the base color on the submarine and had to leave port before its final color of grey! But back to my Captain’s table story.

By now you might be wondering what gets you invited to the Captain’s Table?  VIPs can be identified by the home office, lists arriving onboard at the start of the cruise or requests can be submitted by a Travel Agent, you could be a repeat cruiser, a Travel Writer or someone famous.  You could be friends with someone on the Board of Directors, you could be a high-roller, or you could just simply be good looking.  There is a long list of what to look for when selecting guests to join the Captain for dinner and many times, it’s running interference, keeping people happy but in other times, it all comes down to each unique Captain.  One Captain I worked with, who was at sea so long they made him a Commodore, only wanted pretty people at his table so prior to the invitations being delivered, we had to send the guests passports along with the list to his office so he could see what they looked like first.  If they weren’t attractive enough, no matter how influential they were, they would not be invited to his table.  Needless to say, he was all about being the center of attention and theatre.

Fortunately we always had “runners up” just in case someone the Captain didn’t like the looks of them, the guests were sea sick and couldn’t make it or they didn’t bring any formal wear on the cruise.  No matter what, the invite list was a gamble.  To the average person, this may sound like a simple sounding task made challenging because people sometimes travel in groups and if you invite one couple, they can expect you to invite the whole family.  

Now there are always certain memories that stand out more than others and we always remember our “firsts”.  With the first Captain I ever worked with and his tables, part of my long list of duties was to call the guests staterooms around 5pm each formal night to confirm that they had received the elegant invitation and would be joining us for cocktails and dinner.  If it was the first formal night and we had officer introductions, the guests were to identify themselves when coming through the line so we knew to have them escorted to our reserved table.  A typical phone call would go something like this:

Guest: “Hello?”

Me:      “Good afternoon is this Mr. (or Mrs.) Brown?”

Guest: “Yes it is.”  (warmly)

Me:      “Hello Mr. Brown, this is Yvette, your Social Hostess.  I hope you been having a nice day?”

Guest:  “Yes we have, we enjoy the relaxing days at sea.”

Me:      “Excellent – happy to hear that! Mr. Brown, I’m calling on behalf of Captain Smith to confirm that you received the invitation and that you and your wife will be joining him for dinner this evening in the dining room.”

Guest: “Yes we did!  What a treat!  My wife and I are looking forward to it!”

Me:      “Great, thank you for confirming, we look forward to meeting you both.”

From there, I would give him/her the details of where to meet us and what time to arrive, further advising that they should look for the Maitre’d who would escort them to our reserved table in the lounge.  Here we would gather for pre-dinner cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, eventually to be paraded through the formal dining room to the Captain’s table which more times than not, was center stage.  As I mentioned earlier, each Captain has his quirks and with this particular Captain, he wanted to watch how his dinner guests ate before going to the dining room.  Why?  Because if he didn’t like how they chewed, or if they spoke with their mouth full, he would ask to have the seating rearranged so they would sit farther down the table, away from him.  Captain Smith was picky about people’s table manners!  Or if he found a particular woman attractive, he would ask to have her sit next to him.  This, in particular, caused problems because etiquette dictated that the most prominent couples sit on either side of the Captain and Social Hostess, women next to the Captain and men next to the Social Hostess.  Much to my consternation, when the woman wasn’t the wife of the most prominent man at the table, we would be forced to rearrange everyone.  It was not uncommon for me to call to the Maitre’d to the bar, asking him to bring his copy of the seating arrangements and make the changes a la minute.  

But then there was this one cruise … a memorable first!  Earlier I wrote about a typical confirmation call with a dinner guest and now I share one that was not so typical …­­

Guest: “Hello?”

Me:      “Good afternoon is this Mr. Jones?”

Guest: “Yes it is.”, he said tersely.

Me:      “Hello Mr. Jones, this is Yvette, your Social Hostess.  I hope you been having a nice day?”

Guest:  “Yes, it’s fine.  Why are you calling?”, he rudely replied.

Me:      “Mr. Jones I’m calling on behalf of Captain Smith to confirm that you received the invitation and that you and your wife will be joining him for dinner this evening in the dining room.”

A. Very. Long Pause.

Guest: “Yes we received it.”, Mr. Jones responded briefly.

Me:      “Ok … so … will you be joining us?”

Guest: “No we most certainly will not.  My wife and I do not dine with the hired help.”, he said, shouting at me through the phone.

Click.  

Mr. Jones had abruptly ended our conversation, rudely hanging up on me.  I took a deep breath, drumming up the courage to call Captain “Smith” about Mr. and Mrs. Jones.  They were corporate VIPs after all but VIPs who considered him the hired help.  Completely insulted, I cringed as a long shout of Greek expletives filled my ear.  

*I use the term “man” in this story because historically the Captain has traditionally been a man.  It’s not until fairly recently do you see women in the bridge and engine room.  We celebrated Captain Kate’s accomplishment of being the first female American Celebrity Cruise Line Captain and you can follow her on Facebook.