Originally Posted By Mr X **I would not go to a Brown Cafe, so therefore that is a non issue.** Pussy. Now THAT'S something that can be enjoyed by all ages! (yes...it was a JOKE! I do not recommend marijuana smoking by ANYONE under the age of 18!)
Originally Posted By Mr X ***I have had to go to Wimbledon, Soccer Games and the like*** See, your problem is not "sports"...you are talking about lame, boring european sports that no good American would ever care about anyway! No wonder you were bored! (poor guy!) And did you actually say "American" football. Dude...YOU ARE AMERICAN!!!! I'm gonna kidnap your ass and take you to a patriots game...no joke!
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Never liked Football, likely never will (except the Cheerleaders). Ice Hockey is OK, as is Basketball (prefer seeing Globetrotter type stuff though).
Originally Posted By Mr X **and on continues a generation who aspire to be discovered on American Idol, watch everything Britany, Paris et al do, waste their existance on reality tv, lose etiquette etc. I would rather go and live life.** Come on, Dave..get off it. That was never the issue here. If your idea of "living life" is knowing the proper fork and how to be quiet when you're supposed to be...get off it. Seriously. There's a WHOLE lot in between the two extremes dude.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo I called it American Football to differentiate from Soccer, Gaelic Football, Aussie Rules, and other varieties.
Originally Posted By dshyates Mr. X. V&As, in most respects, is very little like a networking schmoozefest business meeting. I would NEVER take my kids to a business dinner. As I cannot provide the attention to keep them from getting bored and then they would probably misbehave. But then that would be my fault. Even as an adult I would get frustrated being told to sit quietly for 3+ hours and watch boring people talk to each other about boring things without being able to move, chat with my brother, or contribute to the conversation. Thats kinda like prison or torture or something. I would expect an uprising. Anytime you have the kids in tow, its always about family, including them. If the dinner is about business, get a sitter. Kids are ignorant and fascinated little PEOPLE. Those eyes are wide for a reason.
Originally Posted By Mr X **Never liked Football, likely never will (except the Cheerleaders). Ice Hockey is OK, as is Basketball (prefer seeing Globetrotter type stuff though).** DAVE, you're killin me here! What city are you from again? Come on...think back...WAY back...before that Queen got her claws in ya. (you know I'm just kiddin ya...you know that, right?)
Originally Posted By Mr X **I called it American Football to differentiate from Soccer, Gaelic Football, Aussie Rules, and other varieties.** Yeah, yeah, yeah... All those "sports" don't count...since YOU ARE AMERICAN (gotta keep reminding ya).
Originally Posted By Mr X **Kids are ignorant and fascinated little PEOPLE.** Personally, I don't find kids ignorant at all. Maybe you are trying too hard with the fine dining training rounds?
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo >>>There's a WHOLE lot in between the two extremes dude.<<< Ya but most people talk about kids like they are all from Lord of the Flies. They are not. My kids and I love to do a mix of things - yesterday we had burritos and rocked out on Guitar Hero 3 on the Wii. Another time we might go to a museum, a nice meal and on to the theatre (well Mikey anyway for the theatre, Jess is a little too young currently). And we enjoy all our time together. Coming back to the original point. I think Marriott does something really well. In some of their resorts, the SPA and the restaurants have different hours - some are adult only, some are family time. For the same venues. This works really well!
Originally Posted By Mr X **Anytime you have the kids in tow, its always about family, including them.** Yup. You and I have mentioned, on several occasions, on how we both rock as Dads. And we know this. Here's a question for ya though...say you brought the kids to a place like V&A and, 10 minutes into the 3 hour meal, one of them says unequivocally "Dad, this place SUCKS! It's boring, and I don't want to be here". What would you do? And the REAL question is, would any kid feel ABLE to say such a thing.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo >>>since YOU ARE AMERICAN (gotta keep reminding ya).<<< I sometimes wonder, since we enjoy long meals with wine! lol
Originally Posted By Mr X Oh... Yeah, that explains it. There's no football culture in SF...that's for SURE!
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo >>>Here's a question for ya though...say you brought the kids to a place like V&A and, 10 minutes into the 3 hour meal, one of them says unequivocally "Dad, this place SUCKS! It's boring, and I don't want to be here". What would you do?<<< Funny thing is, I would expect my kids to speak freely of their emotions and would discuss it. But life is about compromise. Let's take our upcoming trip to California next month. We are discussing, as a family, what we want to see and do. Not yes, I know Mike and Jess will not fully contribute, but we are seeking their opinions. This will continue. Sometimes when we are on vacation, we will do stuff that has little interest for me, but my wife is into (e.g. lace making or something) and visa versa (Sarah didn't want to go to Disneyquest a few years ago). But because we did it all together, and it's give and take, we enjoy our precious moments together. Reality is we would probably not venture much to V&A's unless it was our anniversary or whatever, but we probably would have been to some rubberhead event or something the kids wanted to do at some stage too. My kids need to learn that families compromise and share. Just like Mikey would rather watch the Transformers movie than Dora these days, he and Jess take turns.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Ya, cause like the 49ers and Raiders have been so unpopular. Nope sorry, a bunch of grown men chasing stuffed leather around a field and getting paid in 1 week what some people make in a year does not appeal to me at all.
Originally Posted By dshyates "Here's a question for ya though...say you brought the kids to a place like V&A and, 10 minutes into the 3 hour meal, one of them says unequivocally "Dad, this place SUCKS! It's boring, and I don't want to be here". What would you do?" First, Since V&A's doesn't suck, I don't think they would say that. But if they did, I would ask "What's the problem? In the unimaginable event they were to even start to get loud, Me and the problem child would be out the door and given a reasonable amount of time to calm down. Since my kids are 7 and 11, that would be no more than 5 mins or we'ld be off to the room for an evening of me expressing my disapointment and CNN. I'd pay for the dinner, explain how much it cost, and why THAT kind of behavior is NOT tolerated under any circumstances at a restaurant like that. On our August trip to Orlando we had made ressies at Emeril's Orlando. Well, my father blistered his feet on some hot bricks around the pool. We had to cancel Emeril's. My kids whined so much he surprised them with Cirque tix just for the 3 of us to make up for it. Even I will admit that as kids they would rather see cirque than eat at Emeril's. But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have enjoyed Emeril's very much. They loved Paula Dean's place in Savannah. But it is nowhere near a 5 star. They also loved Trader Vic's Atlanta. That's why I was saying that by its very nature V&As is a more kid oriented restaurant than someplace like California Grill. It is a theme restaurant. My kids haven't eaten there, and I have only once. But the one time I did eat there was Hannah would love this. She had just had Tea with Mary Poppins@DLR. And she is still into a Victorian look. Albiet, Right now, she's more Mrs Lovett than Mary Poppins. She all a twitter over Sweeney Todd: the Movie. Helena Bonham-Carter is her hero. She's 11 so I know the ban wouldn't effect her, but since its a party of 3 where one of us is 7, unfortunately we will not be attending. But thanks for not inviting us. Have a Disney Day.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << "Here's a question for ya though...say you brought the kids to a place like V&A and, 10 minutes into the 3 hour meal, one of them says unequivocally "Dad, this place SUCKS! It's boring, and I don't want to be here". >> Well, at the age of 33, I can pretty much say that I would be bored at V&A's about 30 minutes into the thing. Those sort of long, drawn-out pretentious dining rooms aren't my cup of tea. I guess if you want your kids to grow up to be pretentious, I might understand the appeal in taking them there. Of course, I'm not much into food. All meals are to me is a time to re-fuel so I can keep up with the day's activities. Wasting hours on end at an overpriced table when I could be out doing something more productive just doesn't appeal to me, and I think I'd be hard pressed to find very many children who are all that interested in having a restaurant experience be the tentpole event of their day at WDW.
Originally Posted By dshyates See I don't think of V$As as pretentious. I think its really cool in a themed Disney Magic sort of way. To me its very amusment park chic. I do think the clientele is pretentious. That is the type folks who go to the GF. I think a lot of the urban chic metro martini bars are pretentious. I like those too. (hangs head in shame).
Originally Posted By juicer I used to be a restaurant manager at a upscale clamhouse restaurant in Marin (north of San Francisco) - It was incredible how many misbehaved children would come in - We would have people spending quite a bit of money trying to have a nice meal and a misbehaving child on the floor crawling between tables playing making loud noises - As a manager I would have to let the parents know what was going on becuase they were on their 2nd bottle of wine and not paying attention to thier kids - The parents would get MAD AT US for even mentioning that thier kids were nothing but perfect - The other patrons trying to have a nice meal would get MAD AT US for not doing something quick enough - It was hell Oh...and we would have kids coloring on the floor in our main walkways with servers carrying hot food dishes trying to walk over these little people without dropping food on them and themselvs! These things happened on a regular basis - This is one of the reasons I am in retail management now - I am in favor of the V&A new policy - What is so sad is I am the youngest of large family and when we went out to dinner (which was not that often) we were at out best -
