RelaxNCruz

If I just want to text my husband onboard the ship, text my friends onshore, read my email and do some internet surfing about what might be going on in the world, should I get Voom, AT&T’s cruise package or Royal Caribbean ‘s messaging service or some combination of those 3?

https://www.att.com/international/cruise-packages/

AT&T Cruise Package vs Anthem Text Messaging system vs Voom… 

Which is the best combination of communication tools for me if I want to do texting to the States and on the ship, email, and maybe some internet surfing?

You’re forgetting that these three ships will not be at full capacity due to COVID. There won’t be anything near 12k on that island.

I have read numerous other posts on how to safely cruise while being gluten free and I know the MDR will have lots of options, but I was also wondering what types of GF foods Grandeur of the Seas has when it comes to "fun foods" like pizza, buns for hamburgers, cookies etc...

Thanks for any info!

Just got off the Grandeur and have lots to report regarding Gluten Free Options. You will always be fine eating at the main dining room. See attached picture showing the bottom of the main dining room menu. You can ask to see the menu for the next day in advance, and if you do not see anything GF that excites you, they will make you just about anything you want. They had a GF pasta dish with a sauce I didn't like one night, so I requested a marinara and they happily accommodated my request. Once our waiters in the MDR knew I was GF, they had GF bread waiting for me at every dinner.

For breakfast, ordering room service the night before works fine - just make sure you identify which items must be gluten free on the order sheet you hang out on your door. If you like bagels, ask for a GF one - they had a limited number of them when I was on board and let me tell you, they were great bagels! If they run out, they do have two types of gluten free bread -- one white, and one everything version. To me these breads were much better toasted than not.

We also ate breakfast and lunch at the Windjammer, where you can get a GF meal if you work things as I did. I cannot handle any cross contamination (through serving utensils touching items with gluten), so once we located a table I would find one of the sous chefs and have them walk me through the dishes of the day and tell me which ones were gluten free. (If the sous chef does not know, he/she will escalate to a higher level chef.) Once you decide what you want, the chef will have it prepared for you in the kitchen, so no possible cross contamination can occur. I had jambalaya, beef curry, steak, shrimp scampi, and other options at the Windjammer for lunch (some pictures attached). They also offer GF hamburger and hotdog buns which I skipped (would rather use the calories on a treat)!

They also have Udi's cookies in the back at Windjammer that are really quite good. I stockpiled a bunch of them so I could have some sort of sweet treat when my husband was eating stuff I could not eat.

The nights we ate at Chops and Giovanni's I had a dessert made of vanilla pudding, amarena cherries, and marsala wine (see picture). They were a nice treat! At Izumi they had a wonderful rice and ginger pudding, which was also good (they specially made non-gluten dishes for me including sushi, beef and salmon - almost all of their dishes are NOT gluten free).

Overall both my husband and I thought that the quality of the gluten free food in the specialty restaurants was not as good as what we were served in the main dining room. All of the specialty restaurants had people out in the halls trying to talk people into making reservations at their restaurants, which leads me to believe that there are others are also questioning the value-add, but obviously this is an individual preference and to each his own. If I had it to do again, I probably would skip those three venues.

The only complaint I had, if you could call it that, was in finding a lack of gluten free desserts at meals in the main dining room and Windjammer, other than ice cream and pudding. I know I have been spoiled by working with accomplished chefs across the US who have made amazing baked gluten-free treats specifically for me and their growing list of customers, but offering gluten free desserts for the end of meal would make my cruise experience that much more of a splurge! I would love it if there were more options next time around.