Why do they even need Head Servers?

[wdwstateofmind]

Jamie from Portugal was ours on my trip last week on the Disney Fantasy. What a lazy you know what. Literally just stood around every night making jokes with servers. I forgot my pirate cup from pirate night towards the end of our trip and he made Kruno (GREAT SERVER from Croatia) get it in the middle of our meal the next night while he did absolutely nothing for the entire meal. It would have taken him 2 minutes. He was literally the only negative I experienced with the staff the entire time.

I felt bad for Kruno, because while he didn't seem to mind, I know this can ruin morale in the food service industry (at least my opinion from my own experience waiting in college).

 

[DisneyJoe]

Supposedly they are there to oversee guest service in that restaurant for the evening. Special requests, troubleshooting, changing tables, etc.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

All bar one of our head servers have been good, and checked in every day to see if everything was fine, they deal with their team of severs ensure your served quickly and the food is hot, and take any special diet requests or special food requests. A lot is in the galley and you might not actually see it. I said all bar one, yes on one cruise I didn't see my head server on a 14 night cruise until the last night, he had a grin and his hand out and I didn't tip him, I did expect to see him like all of the other head cruisers during the cruise, even if it was just to say hello. I did give his tip to my server and assist server.
I have had the head servers swap me from early to late dinner, deal with cold food ( should have been hot), serve us quickly when we wanted to go somewhere, order Palo Shuffle to our kids. For example.

 

[wdwstateofmind]

So I just got the one bad apple in the bag...rats...

 

[Disneyfalcon]

We've had one (a couple of times) who didn't seem to do a thing. We've had others who checked in every night. One cruise we had an excellent one who spent a lot of time with us, and it was because we had an allergy at our table. He came over every night to check on her and to let her order the next night's meal.

I think it's true you see them a lot more if there are special needs or things are going wrong.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

So I just got the one bad apple in the bag...rats...

Yes like in any role there always is one, I have been on 10 DCL cruises and only had the one, on the others they always introduced themselves first night, and always by second night checked the service was very good. They normally check and re check and if there is any problem, its that they do come over so often when you want to just eat!! However I had one as said who wasn't seen in all of my cruise, i asked the server who the head server was, that should give a hint to them, but never saw him, so on my pre paid tips I took his tip off and added it to the server and assist server and guess what last night he came over and I am not joking his hand was out!!! Now they do, do a lot behind the public areas, in the galley, but also out front, I have been served by my head server when my team was getting multiple orders at the same time, and had the HS take our plates or tidy up. Now they might have to spend more of their time with other cruisers with, 'needs' or 'demands', so I wouldn't expect them to visit all of the time, but there when i need them. They should sort out any complaints. The best advice is 1/ Find out who your HS is, if you cant, 2/ then go to the restaurant manager, -normally front of house as you come in, and speak there, and if not, 3/stop that tip!! As with no tip they will leave and not spoil other cruisers enjoyment. But always give them a chance.

 

[Bolna]

We had a really good head server on the Wonder who was always on top of things, came by a few times during the evening usually to check whether we were happy and we did not even have any special needs or problems at all. I noticed that he always spent a little bit more time at different tables every day and he was great at making jokes with the kids. He truly seemed to enjoy his job!

 

[Maccabee18]

Jamie from Portugal was ours on my trip last week on the Disney Fantasy. What a lazy you know what. Literally just stood around every night making jokes with servers. I forgot my pirate cup from pirate night towards the end of our trip and he made Kruno (GREAT SERVER from Croatia) get it in the middle of our meal the next night while he did absolutely nothing for the entire meal. It would have taken him 2 minutes. He was literally the only negative I experienced with the staff the entire time.

I felt bad for Kruno, because while he didn't seem to mind, I know this can ruin morale in the food service industry (at least my opinion from my own experience waiting in college).

Jamie was my head server as well, and I felt like he was useless. I thought about asking Guest Services to remove his gratuity because I did not feel like him coming to my table to ask how everything was was worth his gratuity. In fact the table next time mine spoke Portuguese and he spent all the time there speaking to them in the native language, which was also distracting to my meal.

I don't really see the need for them since the waiters in my opinion have been fantastic.

 

[EOD K9]

On my trip in February we had Ari from Turkey. He was at the front of the house every night guiding guests to their servers to make sure they were situated for the meal. At least once during each meal, he'd stop by, chat for 5 minutes or so, and clear a plate or two. While I am with most of you, do they really need a tip? do we need them?...what he did justified the small amount he got.

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

The HS tip is small as the HS covers a bigger section of tables and servers, so if everyone does tip them then overall they will get a big tip, (ie lots by volume of smaller tips, compared to the main server who gets fewer larger tips). As posted before, we have had one poor one on our cruises the others have justified their remuneration.

 

[Bolna]

I see the head servers role as some kind of manager for your part of the dining room. I saw ours talking briefly to the servers all the time and once when I had ordered a dish which I did not like and had asked my server to get me something else instead he came by within a few minutes to ask whether there was something wrong with my first dish. I think if you don't have any special requests or problems, you might never really notice what your head server does for you, but maybe the reason why you don't have any problems is that the head server does his job and makes sure that his section of the dining room works very well as a team.

 

[Ralphlaw]

I realize they have behind the scenes duties, but I also wonder what they actually do. Also, how many people do they supervise, and do they step in if one of the normal servers gets sick?

 

[DISNEY FANTASY]

On the older ships I understood the HS had circa 50% of the dinning room, so two head servers, on the newer ships not so sure but I would think at least three, and there is a dinning room manager overseeing it all. They should visit each table once a night.

There are normally 'training' servers in Topsiders/Cabanas, and they might be brought in to cover unwell servers, now its likely its a bump up, ie training server will cover assist server and assist server will bump up to main server. On my Fantasy cruise our assist server had finished her training as a main server.

 

[5thGenTexan]

I saw our head server from our first cruise, Oct 2012, working Topsiders and out around Mickey's Pool on both of our cruises. The HS from our most recent cruise was not as visible. As I told someone on one of the elevators who was wondering what the purpose of the HS was... I explained they are there to take your lobster out of the shell.

 

[tracyandalex]

We have often wondered about the head servers too. On 4 cruises I only remember 1 and I can't even remember his name. He was good though, he stopped by every night to say hi and one night made a comment to the assistant server about not cutting DD's meatloaf for her (I was cutting it). He took the plate from me and chatted with DD while he cut her meatloaf. Our last cruise was a 5 night and we didn't see the head server till night 5, imagine that! I found that interesting too cause the family we were dining with was somewhat traditional Indian, especially in diet. Our head server was amazing for them; he got the chef to make the little boy a traditional Indian fried rice and was careful to recommend to them the menu items that fit within their dining preferences. Our server was also from India so kudos to DCL for that cause I think it really made a huge difference for our table-mates. We are very laid back and don't have any food related issues so I guess that's why we never really see our head servers.