iankh

Thank you to @cruisestitch and @DaKahuna, that makes sense!

We're going on our first Celebrity cruise to Alaska on the Edge at the end of the summer. We have the all in inclusive/have it all or whatever it's called on Celebrity. We're not big cocktail drinkers but are big coffee drinkers. I understand that we have the classic drinks package. Looking at the information Celebrity provides (https://www.celebritycruises.com/content/dam/celebrity/new-images/12_15_23_OB_SP_Drinks-Flyer_V4.pdf), it shows premium coffee under both the classic and premium packages. Just wondering if there is a difference between the coffees provided under one vs. the other?

6 hours ago, arizonaperson said:

@iankh

Well glad that another cruise line will be able to accommodate your dietary needs. I know I’ve read on this cruise forum under Princess that they do indeed accommodate dietary needs once you’re on board as long as you bring it up the very first time that you dine on the ship. But totally understand that you didn’t get the response from email ,very frustrating of course.  
Glad you made a decision to take your business elsewhere for your travel needs. Service everywhere is lacking, but definitely not an excuse. And yes, I seek out businesses that have great customer service and highly recommend them when customer service is great.

 

It would also be great after your cruise that you post back on here your experience .Might help others in the future.

Thank you. It really comes down to a matter of trust. The key is that none of my inquiries were answered, this made me uncomfortable, particularly since I wrote to an email address I obtained from the Princess website. After sitting in a waiting room, anxious because my partner is having a section of their intestine removed, and then subsequent hospital stays with tubes being shoved down their throat and being told that it was critical, I have developed a level of distrust, hence doing due diligence.

We're on a Celebrity cruise to Alaska in August, and the email I sent to Celebrity resulted in a response 24-hours later.

I am not fool enough to not know that additional diligence will be required while onboard ship, and needing to talk to staff, headwaiters and even chefs. For my personal decision, it was a matter of whether I start out knowing that caution is needed, or start out where there I have no trust at all.

I also know enough to purchase travel insurance early enough so that we have the preexisting health waiver and that the policy has sufficient emergency medical evacuation coverage should we need it.

We all weigh our appetite for risk. Some have more tolerance for it than others. Perhaps mine is low. The question I always ask myself is, "How will I feel if..."

Just now, charliedalrymple said:

 

Aside from the lack of response:  Perhaps I'm alone here, but I had no idea that parmesan cheese was made with animal products, and I would have considered a dish with parmesan to be vegetarian.  Is this widely known in the food service industry?

In fairness, probably not. Milk based vegetarian cheeses are made with plant/bacteria based enzymes. Ingredient lists will usually say vegetarian rennet or vegetarian enzymes.

8 minutes ago, Paula_MacFan said:

I'm no vegan/vegetarian expert by any means, but on both of our recent Princess cruises we saw a separate section of the buffet area marked 'vegetarian options'.  

 

Edit to say I just did a Google search for 'Princess vegetarian options' and this popped up immediately.   

 

https://www.princess.com/en-us/news/news-releases/2023/10/princess-cruises-introduces-expansive-vegan-menus-for-plant-based-cruisers

I am sharing my personal experience of Princess not responding to my concerns. They had four opportunities to do so and they didn't. It's important to realize that this isn't merely a lifestyle choice but a medical need, and not being met could result in hospitalization.  Either by mistake four times, or by intent four times, my concerns were not responded to. 

7 minutes ago, reedprincess said:

Did you write to special needs at sea for Princess? Or generic customer service?

Either way, Princess most definitely has a vegan menu....and has had for a while... unfortunate you didn't get a response from whatever address you wrote to. Glad Holland has met.your needs..

 

Thread from 2021 and forward on Vegan on Princess: 

https://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/topic/2812038-vegan-food-on-princess/

 

Newer vegan menus also introduced last fall posted below...  For future reference...

 

Hope you enjoy Holland America! .

 

I wrote to customer service four times, which was four opportunities for them to respond and provide the email address for whom to contact. I fully acknowledge that the onus is on the passengers to be honest about their needs. That I did four times. The onus is then on the cruise line to respond to those inquiries. In this case, silence spoke volumes. It's very important that my previous experience with being told to "eat at your own risk" created the initial framing of my distrust. The lack of a response to four inquiries, simply built on that distrust and solidified it.

I posted on the board today because a friend, who is a very loyal Platinum Princess member, urged me to do so. I know that he loves Princess and always raves about their cruises. It was he who convinced me to try Princess again. He thought it was an experience I should share.

1 hour ago, memoak said:

If you search this board there are several people who have posted pictures of the Princess vegan menu. You might want to look before you leap

That may well be, but in fairness to me, they should have responded to one of the four emails I sent them. As a paying passenger, I should not have to go digging on message boards to get answers to my questions. I am not disputing that others have had different experiences. However, we all make choices based on our personal experience, and if serious inquiries that state potential health risks go unanswered, then for me and us, the choice was to not pursue the relationship.  If they had failed to respond once, that I could excuse, but to fail to respond to the subsequent three inquiries, well, then I made the decision best for us.

I had a Hawaii cruise booked on Princess that I canceled today. I wrote to them on four separate occasions about the crucial need for my husband to have vegan or vegetarian food, and to my dismay, did not receive a single reply to any of my emails (I believe waiting three months for a reply is more than reasonable). We had a previous experience, about 5 years ago, when we took our first cruise with Princess. The 'vegetarian' options on the menu contained parmesan cheese, which is made with rennet, an enzyme taken from the stomachs of cows or sheep. The kitchen did try to accommodate us, but since they could not disclose the ingredients, it led to a very distressing week. When I returned home I wrote to Princess and received a reply from customer service that was both unsettling and alarming. I was informed that they offer what they consider to be vegetarian food and that passengers consume the food they offer at their own risk. I should emphasize that my husband has a condition that could potentially lead to hospitalization, as it had done in the past, so the concern about meeting dietary needs was not trivial.

I looked at Princess again and thought that perhaps after five years, things had changed. To be proactive, I wrote to Princess explaining his physical condition and our past cruise experience with them. Silence. There was no response to my initial email or the three follow-up emails.

I recently booked a Holland America cruise to Hawaii and specified the dietary restrictions. I received an email back with the email address of their special needs department. To my pleasant surprise, within 24 hours, I received a personalized, detailed response outlining exactly what they would do to accommodate the diet and who I should speak to when we boarded the ship. They assured me that they take dietary needs very seriously, a stark contrast to my experience with Princess Cruises.

I know that many people here have had wonderful experiences with Princess. Our friends are very loyal to Princess. I'm also sure that others with dietary needs have had excellent experiences with Princess. But as they say, "Once burned, twice cautious."  It could have been a redeemable situation had they responded to my emails.

This posting is not about the merits of Princess vs. Holland America. I did not cancel our Princess booking because" cruise line—they're not. They're a very good cruise line in all respects except for this. This posting is about listening and responsiveness to needs. I canceled based on personal experience and their lack of response to me. I canceled because, for our needs, I simply don't trust them.

@Cystalspin thank you so much!

My husband and I are considering booking a roundtrip cruise from Southern California to Hawaii. It's between HAL and Princess, and I'm looking for feedback. While I resent being told I'm an "old person" my husband and I are in our late 60s and early 70s. We previously did about 6 cruises with Disney, and did a California coastal cruise with Princess about 5 years ago. My husband is a vegetarian and the cruise was a food nightmare. Supposed vegetarian dishes were made with parmesan cheese, which is not vegetarian because it's made with rennet, an enzyme derived from cow or sheep stomach. Ultimately, we were told that the line considers it vegetarian, and the exact words we were told were, "Eat at your own risk." But that was five years ago, and times have changed, and we're willing to give it another go.

Both HAL and Princess have similar itineraries, but HAL comes out about $750 more.

We're not quiet or sedate, but we're not party people either, and even in our younger days we weren't big on deck parties, but we don't like being bored either. We like a laid-back environment, and we're just looking to have a good time.

I've found postings that compare the two lines for Alaska, but that might be a different kettle of fish (or tofu). I'm hoping that someone might be able to shed some light on the two lines beyond Alaska. Thanks!