cruznut1111

Allergy Card - I mentioned how to do this a few posts ago. It worked beautifully! In Luxemberg one waitress read in French and her assistant in German. In Barcelona they were so happy to see I had translated into Spanish AND Catalon they gave me lots of special attention. I wore out 3 copies.

GROM Gelato - One of the worst things about going to Europe and seeing all those lovely gelato shops is the realization that all but the sorbets have gluten. GROM has one flavor with gluten and all the rest are gluten free. Even better is the gluten-free plastic box with it's own cups, scoops and spoons. I went to the website and printed out a list of all the locations where we might be going. Ended up trying four of them. Loved the smart way they behaved in all of them. There are shops in many ports - NY, (Paris), Venice, Florence (right of the duomo) and LA is coming.

Florence, Italy - I got to eat pizza!! There is a restaurant near the duomo on the left side called La Botteghe di Donatello. They have one page of their menu that lists gluten free items.

Italy - gluten free products everywhere there was a green or red cross

I don't know why I didn't think of this before! I just made my own allergy card - a one line list of my "must avoids" - in the 10 languages I'm most likely to encounter on this fall's trip - ship and land.

I went to Google, then "more" and chose Translate.

I opened a new word document then went back to Translate and typed in the shortest sentence that would cover my woes. "I am very allergic to all wheat, barley and malt."

Only had to do this part one time.

Then all I had to do was pick my language, highlight and copy ( CTL C) the translation, open my word doc, then hit paste (CTL V). Easy!

Repeat for each language, then fancy it up a bit and print your personal document.

So often the special cards I've seen were just too wordy. My choice was to keep it simple and improve my chances that it will be read.

Now to make one for "where's the nearest toilet!":D

The worst was on NCL. The best was on Regent. You get what you pay for..

Perhaps. But the difference in price is huge. The difference in food, not so much. Our oceanview room on Regent was over $500 pppd. On NCL our veranda was @$150 pppd. We choose to add @$15pppd to eat in the specialty restaurants every evening because we enjoy small dining rooms. We have had many successful meals in the MDR at lunch or breakfast.

Omelets made while I waited on NCL and I never had to wait long. Fruit, fruit, fruit - wonderful. Boursin and Emmenthal cheeses on the evening buffet made a great early evening snack. Can also get some fresh sushi.

I'm not sure why NCL gets such vitriolic responses. We have found them to be comparable to most of the standard lines and a great value. Like all lines, if a meal is not to your taste they will cheerfully replace it.

I have celiac. This will be my first cruise being diagnosed with it. I wonder if I can rally for Redbridge? :)

When you consider the difference in cost - $32 a case on land, $135-165 on board, you may want to rally for the privilege of bringing your own on board ;).

Oh - one or two more GF hints-

BUFFET TOASTER - I had two reactions on the Dawn. It wasn't until the second one (I wasn't eating) that I realized I was actually blimping from the gluten in the air. The first time we were sitting at a table that was close to the toaster. The second, I was standing near the toaster waiting to speak to the allergy maitre 'd. I know that this happens with peanut allergy and I know that "odor is particulate", but this was a first for me. YMMV

Surprises on the DAWN - I gave the maitre 'd lots of leyway for each day's meals and I got to eat a number of things I would never have thought to ask for. So don't limit yourself to your normal gluten-free choices. If something sounds yummy, ask if it can be fixed for you.

I am going to try to get the six-pack permission slip for my Pearl and Epic cruises! :)

 

Which restaurant made you the crispy fried calamari?

 

And how much did you pay for the case of Red Bridge?

Impressions - the Italian restaurant - hubby said he thought mine tasted every bit as good as what he had. We ate there 4 times. Also had great crab cakes at Cagney's. BTW - I'm pretty sure the Jack Daniels shrimp sauce has malt, but check. On the Star they gave me the regular sauce instead.

The case was $164.22 out of Los Angeles and @$130 out of Miami. I would love for them to start keeping a case on board for us so we could just buy a 6 pack. ... & then more perfect margaritas!!

I am booked on NCL Pearl in May and have e-mailed the access desk. They sent me a list of foods that I can pre-order. Anyone have experience with this?

Thanks!

I think we all covered this on the other thread. I just wait until I'm onboard and ask what they have. Fortunately they had COOKIES - Pamelas and Kinnikinik - on the last two where I ate.

My husband is celiac. We are taking our first Princess cruise on the Coral for an Alaskan cruise tour this July does the Coral Princess have free ice cream like Carnival does? Have any celiacs used the buffet successfully? Has anyone taken the Denali tour and if so, what did you eat? Did you let the land tour know ahead of time and how? Ok, that's all for my first time. Thanks, Denise

Denise, wish I could help, but it's been too long since my last Princess cruise. All lines are getting smarter. Contact the Special Needs department right away. You may want to re-post this question on the Princess board.

Hi All -

I'm the little trouble maker that got the Redbridge ball rolling. Just got off the Dawn today with 3 bottles of my case remaining.

The Dawn was a bit slow getting it to me - un-iced - on the afternoon the day after we boarded, but it worked out.

I was just spoiled by the Star having a six-pack iced and waiting when we first opened the cabin door in Jan.

In between those we were on the Jewel. Only ate a couple meals, but no problem getting them GF. Cherylynn is still the maitre 'd at Le Bistro and she is really on the ball when it comes to GF.

I was delighted to hear that a line (NCL?) let someone take on a six-pack. I would have preferred to do it that way and have more variety in my alcoholic treats. (I bet my bar bill would have been higher too!)

I didn't get a list of GF foods ahead, but on the Star and Dawn met with the Special Diets maitre 'd and had all my meals plannned through them. I had great spaghetti bolognese night before last - YUM. Gusti and Anil had me going for foods I wouldn't have even considered possible. I even had taquitos and crispy fried calamari.

Drooling yet?:D

You can enter the search term 'allergies" on the "Cruise Foodies" Conversation Board.

That's where I've entered all my allergy information and others have done the same. NCL really shines in this area. Each ship will have one asst. maitre d' who is in charge of special diets - your new best friend.

In addition to the MDR you can get very knowledgable help and specially prepared meals in the specialty restaurants.

NCL BUFFET CONSOMME - This "custom soup CAN BE gluten-free if you take a few precautions. There are two pots of broth. One is used to heat/cook the items you chose and then the clear broth from the second pot is only used to fill your bowl.

So choose your items (only the soba noodles have gluten), and have the server pour the broth over from the second pot only - no cooking. Just takes a few minutes and they are fine.

(I wish I didn't have such extensive knowledge on this, but it was my main meal for most of my week on the Jewel last month.)

NCL's Le Bistro and some general news - Found that Bistro is really being gluten aware and has changed several sauces so they are now made with corn starch rather than wheat flour. They make their French Onion with a gluten free flavor mix. (So it is another perfect soup when you are under the weather.)

Also learned a bit about serving practices. We help them when we stay with small tables and our own groups. Because they do have to pay extra attention to us, there are sometime hurt feelings. Also, they try to bring our food out separately from everyone elses so there will be no chance of cross contamination.

Sorry that this is so heavily loaded toward NCL, but it does seem like we have been on them a lot recently. Have another one later this month on the Dawn. I'm hoping for limited smoking, no black mold (first time that has happened ever!) and a healthy great time with lots of port experiences to evaluate.

Off Ship- I have to let you all know about the new pies at Whole Foods! Wonderful, gluten-free, flaky crusts, tasty fillings. I tried Cherry and Pecan ones - yum!

St. Thomas - I remember having grilled fish and jerk chicken with no problems.

LAST BREAKFAST - Okay, so you've had two weeks of great GF meals (only 1 blooper) with surprise stacks of Kinnikinik Chocolate chip cookies every few days, and Kinnikinik Blueberry muffins for breakfast and you've been promised that the last blueberry muffin will be in the special fridge with your room number on it - hmmm. Say,"no thanks, no problem, I'll take it back to my room tonight and bring it with me." I'm sure it was exactly where it was supposed to be - before the night shift came in and started the end of cruise clean up of all the refridgerators. But between them, the craziness of last morning, and changed crews, the meal was over when a harried maitre d' came rushing to the table with my newly discovered muffin. I felt like a jerk putting them through all that trouble. We settled back into our chairs, let the last minute packing wait and I ate every bite with a big grin. No way would I let a crumb go to waste after all that effort.

NACHOS, FRIES and other "safe" foods - As has been mentioned a few times, not every waiter on every ship understands things like cross contamination. So it wouldn't hurt to ask twice "was anything else cooked in the same oil?" I asked once and the answer was "no, gluten free for you" so I started munching. A few minutes later he came back to say, "there was one spring roll cooked in the same oil, is that a problem?":rolleyes:

GLUTEN FREE BEER tastes wonderful with NCL Le Bistro's Pork and saurkraut dish... and Kinnikinik pizza.... (it would have been even better with those hand made "Gluten Free Pantry" pizzas on the Sun) I was surprised to find I did a very credible job of demolishing the largest part of my case in 14 days.

Introduce yourself to the person in charge of special diets and ask to see a list of products available during your cruise - usually 2nd day. That's how I found out that there were cookies on board. It's also how you learn to recognize your best GF friend.

Tomorrow we are off on the Jewel, I'll compare when I return, but I know my last trip they were very good.

:DI'm on board the NCL Star right now, sipping a frosty Redbridge GF and all is right with my world.

So, here is my tip - call the Acess desk at least a month ahead on domestic embarcation points and two months ahead on European. Agree to purchase a whole case. If your cruiseline says "no" tell them NCL does it.

In the buffets - try to get in early or ask the buffet chef to bring something from the back if you are worried about cross-contamination. Personally, I worry about everything on the buffet, but I eat there anyway. On Oceania they made sure to use clean tongs for my food or if they were concerned, my assigned chef brought food from the back or fixed something special. I actually ate all my meals at the buffet. On NCL the servers called the buffet chef to go over any offerings that interested me. On Celebrity I was stunnned to see the omelet guy put bread in the omelet pan to cook someone a sandwich and then thought he could use the same pan for my omelet. He was very cooperative when I said I had to have a clean pan and spatula. On RCCL I went to the spa buffet and they made things up for me at the back so I didn't have to worry about cross-contaminaton. On Regent they worked with me extensively, but I got in trouble because I didn't know they put the bacon on bread to drain it and they floured the french fries. On gluten-free desserts - there may be a few of these on the buffet, but if there is a gluten dessert behind it forget that option. Everyone drops crumbs as they serve themselves. On Celebrity the maitre d' understood and made sure all gluten-free items were grouped together. The next day they were rearranged by color- :confused:.

Gluten alert - watch the hot chocolate. Maybe it's just me, but I have a real reaction to Nestles. I'm guessing there is some malt in the mix. Swiss Miss works for me safely.

At the ice cream stands - If they have cones I just have to skip it. They never seem to have much time and they move from flavor to flavor without changing scoops. Cone crumbs are everywhere. On Oceania they don't do cones, but if there is one ice cream with wheat I have to assume every flavor has been contaminated. Do try to check out the smoothies, they are usually a safe choice.

At the Grills - Watch for the brands of ketchup, mustard - also watch a bit before grabbing food from there. Are they cooking the burgers in a different place from the buns or are they put in the same place on the grill?

At the Parties - Eat before you arrive!! In all our cruises I have only had one party with one appetizer I could eat. Watch out for the "champagne". House brands may have malt. (PS - Beware Grey Goose! I'm guessing you already knew about whiskey and scotch.)

On the Shore Excursions - You can't bring ship food off in most ports so be sure to have some commercially packaged snacks with you. Be sure to tell the shore excursion staff you are gluten free and they will notify your excursion staff, but have a backup. ShoreEx doesn't get to share the notification you have given Access/Special Needs so be sure to let them know when you book.

In the Dining Rooms - Make sure you plan your meals ahead. If you are eating at a group table watch for bread crumbs from the other diners. If you have a waiter who can't accommodate you, ask to be moved. This is your health. Don't get upset, don't fuss, just move. I was well served in the main diningrooms on Celebrity and RCCI and in both cases they found me a private table for two when I quietly explained my only other safe option was to have all my meals sent to my cabin. On NCL I am happiest in the small dining rooms and the extra price is very small.

Okay, that's it for me tonight.

I've started this thread after searching "gluten-free" and realizing how sparse information used to be just a few years ago. Lady, Barbara, Bug and Irish posted queries about how to eat safely on board and no one answered. I didn't start posting my gluten-free travels until a few years later and was delighted when others started adding to the info list.

I'm thinking we can do better still. What if we use this thread for little ideas to help those with sensitivity, intolerance, celiac, coeliac to eat safely, without pain?

I have had good experiences on NCL, Oceania, Regent, Celebrity and RCCL. I have had bad experiences on the same list and a few others.

After years of dealing with this problem and each year finding less and less that the pleasures are worth the pains, I am still learning. It would be nice if I learned more before the fact instead of after. Perhaps more of you feel the same way.

This thread is not meant to substitute for individual inquiries about specific ships or lines. Rather, I hope it gives us a smalll space to come together with general tips, trick and ideas we have learned that will serve us well, wherever, however the wind and whim may take us.

And to all... a Gluten-free, glutin free, celiac, coeliac... Bon Voyage.

Thanks for a wonderful chuckle-filled review of your cruise. You have helped make "the season bright" and given us all a good reminder of how a good attitude helps in tough times.

We noticed the camera aimed at the side of the ship on one of our last cruises - either Celebrity or NCL. After the Princess fire, I would expect nothing less.

Since I could see the camera, I'm sure I could be seen. Gave me a small sense of comfort.

I was glad to see Jimmy Buffett's "Lovely Cruise" listed. Always thought it should be played the last night of every cruise.

To get in the mood before the cruise, I always like Jimmy's "Tin Cup Chalice" ...."I wanna go back to the islands"

I think it was on one of the "hogar" sites that it explained that it was illegal to bring in items for children made in China. That was a year or so before all the problems started hitting the news.

There is another good reason for buying locally - something the Red Cross practices- you help two or more. In addition to the one you are buying FOR, you also help the one you are buying FROM, and spreading the money around the community.

PLUS - you have less to pack.