wangfam

Emerald. There was lots of Covid and some Noro, and we suspect many staff were ill, as were many passengers. In all my cruises with Princess, this was the first time I did not have someone find me; the first time there were no GF desserts (aside from the aforementioned); and the first time the staff was so upset. It made me sad for the staff to be so overworked. This was our first time back since before the 2020 shutdown.

Well, I don’t want to rain on the parade of good news here, but it appears I will. Please be very careful on your cruise. I always fill out the forms ahead of time, and I indicated on the medallion app my Celiac status as well. After 15 amazing cruises with Princess and good GF food, on our last cruise in May, when I approached our wait person to ask who to discuss GF food given we had a new dining procedure, first I was yelled at. “If you are going to jump around from place to place, I cannot be expected to help you. I have nothing for you.” Mind you, this was the first night and I had gone nowhere else but the MDR. I promise you she absolutely screamed at me. I made it a point to never sit at her table again. So I tried the nice folks at the front desk, and was told GF dining was not possible. Now I was nervous. Luckily, the second day at lunch, I met a nice couple who had an amazing experience with the head wait staff approaching them to discus their GF food requirements. They told the staff to find me, although by then I had been searching and asking everyone in the dining room, only to be told “not possible.” This extremely nice woman found the person I needed, found me at dinner, and connected the two of us! There had been no indication anywhere that I needed GF food. I just got lost this time. I was able to finally order one evening ahead from the nice staff from day 3, but things still came with breadsticks (not GF breadsticks) on top of them, or with croutons, and so on. This was not her fault! Since they seemed to be understaffed, I didn’t ever say anything. There was no one at the buffet to help. The GF desserts consisted of tapioca and some sort of mousse. Breakfast had one kind of rather dry muffin, but only in the buffet. Occasionally, there was GF toast in the dining room, but it was a major pain for the staff to find it, so I asked for it only a couple of times. They were working so hard that they didn’t need more work from me. So I ate a lot of salads and fruit, and a shrimp cocktail every night. Most nights it was the regular salmon. Soft serve on the pool deck a couple of times because there are nice little cups to use if you cannot have a cone. I lost 8 pounds so it wasn’t all bad. YMMV, and I say this not to ding the cruise line. These things happen, but be really careful and be prepared for overworked staff to be overworked and for you to fall into the hole of the forgotten.

In 2018, Singapore to Tokyo, we were seated at a table where everyone got menus in Chinese, and everyone at the table save for us spoke Mandarin. The waiter, however, was from India and had a difficult time understanding any of us. He was a nice kid on his first contract and we all thought that was a tough task to require of him for his first assignment.