Oh yea this issue has always been one the most negative things when it comes to skiing. Ive always found it rude, disrespectful, lacking in common courtesy and outright "all about me" kill or be killled atmosphere. Its just plane ugly. And i always feel bad for the dad and or mom (or both) with a couple little ones who walk around the lodge round and round forever with trays of food looking for somewhere to sit the family. And if your one who has a very respectful and passive personality you will basically eat standing up with your kids. Its sometimes sad when i see folks not know what to do with thier kids to sit and eat. Ive actually told people to come and sit.
While at the same time I'll see a family of 5 sitting at 2 tables they placed together. I hate that complete selfishness because instead of having some courtesy for everyone else via squeezing 5 at the one table, they instead place 2 together loosing two whole sides of each table and takes away an entire table. and yet mom or dad is walking around with trays of food looking for where they can feed thier kids. Its so terrible imo. Often society just sucks and nowadays it gets worse and worse.
As mentioned the leaving of items on/under/around tables is at some places i recall an excepted action. Im not even talking soccer mom holding tables but just common practice to leave your stuff and go out and ski. And you come into sit you have to basically sit between on top of and next to other peoples coolers and gear and etc. And there isnt any room to temporarily put your own crap down.
But yea,...then ya got the soccer parent each one holding for a table of 8.
Ive gotten to the point where i hate lodges so much for this reason. I never could understand why things are not set up much smoother and with rules enforced etc.
It is such a terrible environment that I just keep a lunch cooler on my vehicle and walk there to sit and eat in the piece of my own space in/at my vehicle.
Doing that even when the kids were relatively younger even a good walk away was still better, lees stressful and more pleasant than dealing with the rude selfish ugly chaos of the lodge not to mention spending a small fortune for mostly crap food. Problem was though there was a limit as to how far you had to walk especially with young kids.
The key is getting early parking close, skiing early, eating early, leaving when the chaos is at its worst. But that was not always so easy to do when you have little ones. Youd often be stuck having to endure the ugliness and dark side of a ski day with our young families.