What are the worst crimes you have seen committed at a buffet? Or any communal food situation.

[Sparklingbrook]

Following on from people who stand too close when queuing.

Also any top tips for buffet etiquette on an AI holiday?

Crimes for me-

Picking up food and putting it back
Using incorrect spoons and cross contaminating different foodstuffs

We went on holiday last week (half board rather than AI) and I had to breakfast with wet hair because the hair drier provided by the hotel was a completely ineffective yet hair destroying instrument of torture. I tied it back loosely and let it dry naturally. It was that it allow it to be entirely chewed up by the hair drier. I had to cut out matted chunks from my attempts to dry my hair at the start of the week.

A crime regularly committed at those world buffet type abominations in this country is people letting their children loose on the desserts section. You get young teenage girls pouring gallons of liquid chocolate on to plates and then spilling it all over the floor. You take your life in your hands going within 5m of the bloody chocolate fountain.

If they're only charging a fiver for the all you can eat buffet, then they're undercharging for the adults and overcharging for the children - it all balances out. Where I live you wouldn't get the child's plate for £5, let alone an adult's.

I went to Disneyland in 1990. I am all Disneyed out. Still.

I didn't know double-dipping was a thing either until I was about 22

On a work night out somebody helped themselves to the Chinese. With their chopsticks that they had been eating with. Minging.

I go to breakfast with wet hair and bare feet at 5 mins before it ends usually (well pre DC anyway).

These are just more reasons to never go to Disney.

Ideally breakfast should be eaten wearing a dressing gown when on holiday. I'm not that brave though.

€10 a sandwich x 4 is not exactly cheap though. And that's your bare minimum price in Disneyland. You can fill up water bottles at water fountains everywhere though so you can avoid paying the astounding prices for drinks (I taught several strangers the technique to do this quickly and efficiently).

Ice cream is ludicrously expensive too. And for some reason, it takes the servers an unbelievable length of time to pick one up from the freezer and hand it over.

Although, you have gone on holiday to Disneyland in the summer holidays, so you should be aware that you're signing up to pay a fortune for anything and everything!

The worst thing about the breakfast buffet lunch food poisoning was that my mum and stepdad utterly refused to believe it could be due to the unrefrigerated meat and cheese and the legions of bacteria swarming them in the 30C heat. Apparently it was much more likely to be a virus or something because, you know, we just refrigerate meat for a laugh generally.

They are weird though.

Cheese was probably ok. Some salamis are ok with heat. But wet ham would be a festering fetid stew of salmonella and E. coli.

MrsKoala I have heard lots of tales from DH about eating the main course and pudding out of one mess tin whilst standing up on exercise.

But they don't wipe their bums on dock leaves in the mess toilets do they?

There is a time and a place.

It was a buffet at home when we were kids, for a big birthday. Lots of 'company' there; my mum had gone all out, relatively speaking.

We saw the cats licking the cream out of the profiteroles (this was utterly NOT allowed, nor an expected occurrence Chez McWitch), and we didn't tell anyone.
And roared with laughter when the adults ate the profiteroles. And still laugh at the mere mention of profiteroles a few 30 years later.

They were, of course, ham rolls. Bleurgh.

Mostly anyway. It's easier to make a ham roll under a napkin than it is to try to cut up chunks of cheese. They put out chunks to make it more difficult, of course. My mother doesn't approve of salami.

Sparklingbrook, where did you find my childhood photo?! Allowing my hair to dry naturally is still the only way not to look like that, and a 2 year old blowing out a candle has more strength than most hotel hair dryers unless they've caught some hair in the other end in which case they turn into industrial whisks.

Anyway, our experiences were similar to many. Half board cheapo hol in Turkey, several people waiting at buffet for chicken which is main dish. Very overweight English girl aged around 9 at front of queue. She loads 95% of freshly delivered chicken onto her plate, egged on by the 4 adult members of her family sitting nearby

Oh, and a recent one. I do not want to see your arse sagging out of your hot pants while I'm eating my cereal. You may be fairly slim but you're at least 70

I'm clearly a terrible person to have at a buffet. I always get my moneys worth at breakfast buffets. I stand at the juice and refill and I'm going to Disney at easter and am totally planning on raiding breakfast for lunch!

On a recent visit to a youth hostel, I may well have been overheard saying to DD, "I've paid £5 for that breakfast and we'll be walking all day, so don't think you're just having cereal... get eating!"

On the other hand, I had to stop DS going back for thirds.

I also had wet hair, as I'd forgotten my hairdryer.

it was claimed that everyone does it at Disneyland Paris because it's so expensive to eat lunch there Yep we did this!

Every day you saw Dad and the kids with bum bags and mum with a suitcase to put the purloined lunch in :o

It was expensive when you think of what you pay versus what you get. If I could recommend a theme park in Paris I would say go to Parc Asterix. Better rides, friendlier staff, better food much cheaper and you dont feel like your brain is dribbling out of your ears after an hour :o

Not a buffet as such but I saw a woman in Morissons walk around the salad bar with one of the plastic forks eating a bit from each of the salads.

That reminds me lessemin, I saw a guy at Waitrose pick up a loaf of bakery bread the wrong way up so it fell out in the floor. He picked it up, put it back in the bag and shoved it back on the shelf.

And I saw a toddler grab a large carrot off the display in the Co-op and suck on it for a minute. I thought, hey, whatever keeps the kid quiet. Then the mum turned round, noticed, took the carrot away and put it back with the others.

I have a confession.

I once drank all the communal milk meant for the breakfast cereal, straight from the jug.

I was extremely hungover, the coffee was stewed and the orange juice had so many bits in it was like pumpkin soup.

I'm sorry. And I'm sorry to the appalled mother behind me, queuing with her child for some cornflakes.

lessemin

My mum saw a woman in Sainsburys do that, she would sneak stuff out of the salad bar and eat it while filling her tiny container. Mum said that normally she would have kicked up a fuss but this was a little old lady who she said "looked hungry" so she didnt have the heart. She has said since that she wishes she had gone over and offered to buy her lunch :(

Southern that is rank!

And how the hell did you not puke? The worst thing for a hangover is dairy!

AI holiday a few years ago, there was a massively overweight family who, what they gained in flab lost in manners. They pushed and shoved to the front every mealtime and woe betide anyone who got in their way. They would also pile their plates up and then leave loads, usually squashing it between plates in a ghastly pile of wobbling crockery.

Their piece de resistance though was as spectacular as it was gross. One night on the dessert counter was a truly vast glass platter of profiteroles ( think of the Ambassadors party in the Ferrero Rocher adert). Egged on by his adoring family the teenage son waddled his way over, picked up the entire dish and took it back to their table. Where they proceeded to dig into it with their bare hands, stuff their faces and then leave the mangled remains for the poor waiters to dispose of. Greedy pigs!

*I should add this was in a hotel, I didn't break into the aformentioned mothers' house and steal their milk - I wasn't that hungover.