For many vacationers, cruising is a top pick just because of the sheer surplus of food offered. Buffets, bars, restaurants, and huge dining rooms are all integral parts of the cruising experience for most people. Most people, though, doesn’t really include families with allergies, and it can get really tricky dealing with cross-contamination and having few available ingredient labels to read. So without further ado, here is a brief overview of my top three tips for cruising with allergies!
TIP #1: Bring your own food! While many people don’t realize you can bring food and drink on board, on most ships you can in fact do exactly this! Of course, you can’t bring an entire buffet with you, but as long as the food items are unopened and mostly non-perishable you should be fine. However, what exactly you can bring is up to the specific company you’re cruising with, so make sure to double-check their individual rules and regulations first! What I always recommend taking on board is some dessert toppings (like Hershey’s chocolate syrup) and hamburger or hot dog buns that are safe for you. First, because many ships have free soft-serve ice cream on the Lido deck, having a fun dessert topping can let you have a delicious sundae during formal dinners without having to stress over all the allergens present in “normal” desserts. While my family orders their desserts, I can run up to Lido, fill up a cup, and return to our dining room. You could also order a side of strawberries and/or bananas to gussy it up too. And as an added bonus, the jealous stares you'll get while carrying a heaping pile of ice cream through the formal dining room are priceless! Additionally, hamburger and hot dog buns are incredibly useful in my experience. Most ships will probably have a burger or hot dog stand, so with your own safe buns all you need to worry about is whether or not the meat is safe. I learned this the hard way; the majority of the Carnival ships we sail have egg wash on their buns, and burgers just aren't the same without the bread part. Darn you cruise companies, always trying to be fancy! :) TIP #2: Visit the MDR first thing! The Main Dining Room (MDR) is the main, mostly-fancy restaurant for dinners and sometimes breakfasts. But with different menu offerings every night and a lot of chefs in the kitchen, you practically have to do an FBI investigation to figure out what’s safe to eat. That’s why I’d definitely recommend talking to the maitre d' of your MDR as soon as you board the ship! This way you can get all your allergy needs put into the fancy-schmancy system they use, and, by talking directly to the maitre d' of the restaurant, you’ll have a valuable connection that can come in handy later if any issues arise. Likewise, the way we always set it up with the maitre d' the first day is by preordering our food. Basically, every night of the cruise you can tell your wait staff, who have a note about your allergies, your order for the next night. This gives the chefs time to prepare your meal specially without any cross-contamination and also to make any substitutions needed. Then when you go into the MDR the next night, they will be notified that you’ve entered and will start making your meal. It works like a charm! TIP #3: Make friends! “Eating at the buffets and poolside restaurants can be a little hassle” just has to be the understatement of the year. It seems like it takes an act of Congress sometimes to get access to the ingredient label! This is why I’d strongly recommend finding one nice chef or server who understands your allergies and can help you out, someone you can go to every time you want food. For example, on our last cruise, my family found a kind worker at the burrito bar who was willing to help us out with checking the ingredients, specially making my food, and even assisting us at the other buffets. While there’s no real set-in-stone way to go about this, once you find that one server, you’ll completely understand how beneficial it is. Just remember to be polite and happy, yet very assertive (and it also usually helps if they can speak English....you’d be surprised). And since the same staff is serving you the entire cruise, making friends with a worker gives you a nice connection, and it’s way easier than trying to explain what “cross-contamination” is to every single chef at the buffet. Trust me! So, there you have my top three tips for cruising with allergies! Eleven cruises in, I can tell you that these methods really, really helped my family, and I hope they'll do the same to yours. I’ll be going into more depth about specific cruises, how to get the maximum value out of them, and the exact companies I recommend in the future, but until then I’ll leave you with this nice overview. See you next post! :)
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