Gluten Free on Oasis in May 15

[Wesley66IN]

Since our last cruise our 2 daughters (20 and 15) have been diagnosed for a GF diet. One gets sick for weeks even with a hint of cross contamination. Appreciate any good tips and insights on how others who are very sensitive handled this. Especially but not limited to things like: (1) how did you verify to your satisfaction that there was no contamination at Sorrentos and Windjammer? (2) besides the MDR, what other complementary dining spots did you find did a good job? (3) favorite dishes? and (4) recommendations on Day 1 lunch! Thanks

[WupperAV]

You may request GF anytime and get it. We were on Princess and they were very acccomodating for 16 days. Cruise lines try hard to work with anyone with requests for GF or no nuts etc.

[Dayseldan]

I sailed Freedom in January 2014(Carribbean West)... It was a week of sheer bliss to be honest. The best eating out experience I have had since being diagnosed a Coeliac 9years ago.

 

Windjammer:

Head chef came around each day and pointed out what was GF etc. He was willing to cook items fresh for me if I wished..

 

MDR. We had my time dining and any waiter we spoke to knew about GF diets etc. I had no problems at all and thoroughly enjoyed the experience hence I booked a cruise for this March on Independence!!

 

Only place you have to be real careful is the islands. Bring food etc as I struggled to get food.

 

Freedom had fresh GF bread every day. I brought my GF cereal to breakfast each day.

 

Hope this helps

[Wesley66IN]

Thanks - that is encouraging! Did you eat at any other places on the ship too?

[elude411]

Last time we sailed was in June 2012 on RCL and we had no issues with being Gluten Free. The first night in the MDR one of the Chefs came to our table and asked what menu items we think we might order and he told us if it was GF, if not GF if he could easily make it custom for us, or not available in GF. Then each night in the MDR the waiter would take our order for the following night including dessert, he was very knowledgeable about GF. He even brought GF bread rolls in a separate basket to the table, we were seated w/ family that is not GF. It was great even if an app, main course, or dessert was not on the menu for the following night, he would have it prepared. We did eat at the Windjammer and as long as we were not in a rush whatever we wanted, even when our son wanted GF pizza, they would make it separately, to make sure cross contamination was avoided, as you never know when a person will use a serving spoon from a non-gf dish on a gf dish. One afternoon we ate at the hot dog stand on the ship (forgot the name) and our son had a GF hotdog on an Udi hotdog bun. We tried to eat each breakfast in the MDR so we could order eggs to order & have GF toast served more quickly than in Windjammer. We have an upcoming cruise on the Allure of the Seas (which the only thing I'm worried about is eating too much good GF food) and it looks like from other posts we will have even more places to eat, such as Johnny Rockets for breakfast, Donut place, etc.

[KDvacation]

I had good GF experience on Oasis Dec 2013. As far as trusting kitchen to not contaminate your food, it's just like risk in land-based restaurant (which does happen and I do not appreciate getting "glutened"). IMO the Sorrento's pizza was very good. I also was taken care of in Chops and Portifino's. In the windjammer, I stuck with "whole" foods that are GF such as fruit, yogurt, hard boiled eggs. In the MDR, I was ordered my dinner meal the night before. The GF bread and rolls were good, but just too much to eat. I had to specify a much smaller portion after the first couple days. For food in ports, I brought my own GF snack or granola bars in their sealed wrappers. Most ports are very strict about open food both getting off ship and re-boarding ship. We opted to have lunch before boarding the ship and I really enjoyed not fighting the crowds for lunch. We boarded the ship later in the day and our bags were in our room no waiting. Another perk IMO. We had one breakfast and lunch in MDR. Way too time consuming. So I did not go back purely to have more time to enjoy the amazing ship and activities. Finally I want to convey. Cruising GF is do-able and delicious. No worries. You will find many GF options.

 

 

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[Lionesss]

Just be careful if you select to eat in the Windjammer.

 

I would be cautious of cross contamination, by passengers using serving utensils in non-gluten free items, and then placing them back to gluten-free items thus making it risky for you.

 

MDR is your best bet.

 

Safe journey.

[KDvacation]

I forgot the cupcakes. GF Cupcakes are available by order only. I purchased one. It was good. Honestly there was so much food I had to make choices. No way to enjoy it all! Just like non-GF cruisers.

 

 

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[Disney Sheep]

Hopefully this isn't too much/too long, however I cut and paste a post I made on a trip report I wrote on another cruise board after we did a cruise on the Allure last March:

 

GLUTEN-FREE EATING/OPTIONS. The morning of our first breakfast at Windjammer I took the opportunity to speak to the the available chef (Chef Victor) to discuss what was /wasn't safe for us to eat. Realistically, there were lots of choices, (note, stay away from the tasty sausages), but he then had GF pancakes (we declined his offer of waffles) made and delivered to our table.

 

Also, at the port side toast station in Windjammer they have individually packaged Udi's GF bagels and a dedicated toaster available, where one of the staff will don a clean set of throw away gloves and make you GF bagels on request. DD also discovered that they have individually packaged hotdog and hamburger styled buns at the same station. And they were all tasty.

 

We also took great advantage of the frozen yogurt available at both the Wipeout Cafe and at a machine across from the towel station on the pool deck. Wipeout had bowls and spoons available (since GF cones are never available on cruise ships it seems, but when 'forced' to use the stand alone fro-yo machine one day, I simply let DH eat the cone part of my ice cream, and yes I realize that I am lucky as most Celiacs would have a cross contamination issue with that.

 

Sorrentos has gluten free pizza available on request. In general it takes about 10-15 minutes for them to prepare it and your choices are either cheese or pepperoni. I tried to convince them to put some of the fresh toppings available such as ham and pineapple etc on my pizza, but I was told very firmly that they were not allowed to do this! Interestingly enough, my kids and I separately both went to Sorrentos just minutes apart. The GF pizza made for them apparently had a thick and delicious crust while the pizza made for me had a thin crust. It was still tasty though, but I think that I would have preferred the thicker crust.

 

DH and I visited the Promenade Cafe daily, usually more than once. The Promenade Cafe offers tea and coffee as well as small sandwiches and desserts such as muffins, pastries and cookies available at no extra charge. From this perspective, DH had lots of choices to nibble on. On the positive side, individually wrapped Udi's gluten-free cookies were available on request. They had both snicker doodles and chocolate chip - but the chocolate chip were very popular, so you had to score those in the morning and save them for later.

 

Another tasty treat that I discovered was in the Solarium Bistro. On a regular basis during our cruise they had what I called Nut'n'Honey cookies, since they were made from nuts and seeds and maybe dried fruit, held together with honey on a thin base of chocolate. There was nothing officially to indicate that they were GF, however when I inquired, the server behind the counter listed the ingredients as stated. I personally did not have a reaction and they were wicked tasty.

 

MY TIME DINING (MTD)/ GLUTEN-FREE EATING cont'd: As for the Celiac issue, we are very fortunate in our family that although we are officially diagnosed with this health issue, we don't tend to react to minuscule amounts of gluten such as that encountered through cross contamination, which means as long as we don't directly eat gluten we can enjoy a buffet for example, where getting 'glutened' as my kids call it, is a real possibility. Yes, all three of us did get glutened on this trip, possibly at the buffet (darn those tasty sausages) although it may have occurred at the pre-cruise hotels.

 

When we reserved our cruise, the early dinner seating option was no longer available, so we chose MTD. Based on me scouring reviews/ Compasses from the Western Caribbean cruises on Allure and Oasis, I created my planning schedule and we reserved our shows and our dining times as soon as the opportunity arose.

 

Arriving at the Adagio restaurant the first night (and all nights actually) we were escorted in to our table with almost no wait. Serving wise however, things did not go well. As soon as we mentioned to our waiter that we were gluten-free, we clearly threw him for a loop! Although the assistant server had already rapidly provided us with a plate of GF bread, the server literally backed away from us as if we had something contagious! Apparently he rushed off to locate the head server who was busy elsewhere. After a long while the server returned and told us that we could only order from the 'Classic' menu items ( I.e. Plain chicken breast, plain steak etc), despite there being symbols on the menu for several items indicating that they could be prepared GF. We were definitely not impressed and I was about to insist on seeing the head server when he appeared.

 

The head server had no problem taking our order for items from the normal menu that were identified with a 'wheat' symbol, and our dinner proceeded happily along. The head server also took our order for 'tomorrow night's dinner' as we were accustomed to on our DCL cruises. We were informed that wherever we would be seated the next night for dinner our food order would follow us.

 

Fast forward to dinner #2. We arrived at approximately the same time (most of our meals were reserved at times in line with the early dinner seating time) and we were lead to the opposite side of the dining room. We explained to this new serving team that we were gluten-free and that we had pre-ordered our meals the night before. Our serving team handled things well, however we were informed that they only two of our orders had been placed. I was honestly starting to question why I had booked us on this cruise if RCCL could not handle feeding us GF meals - really, we are not high maintenance when it comes to food (honestly, meat and potatoes in most basic forms is GF!).

 

Happily this serving team did not find this issue to be insurmountable and our meals showed up as ordered and our dining experience was pleasant. In fact even without making a formal request, we had this same dining team for the rest of the cruise, and their service was excellent.

 

With respect to the actual food, we thought it was good, sometimes it was even great, and on the rare occasion (classic menu item steak) not inspiring. However in our experience, the same can be said for DCL. As an example, DH found the breads, steaks and desserts to be better on DCL, however the WJ buffet breakfast, the salads and shrimp (in butter) was better on RCCL.

[NorbertsNiece]

Ate GF on Oasis last year.

 

GF pizza

 

 

GF cupcake : made to order in various flavours

 

 

GF in 150 Central Park fabulous.

 

Watch the fries and mashed potatoes in WJ.... they may not be GF.

[clawmachine]

Following, because my brother (GF) will be traveling with me and my family on the Oasis this summer. Additionally, I have a several shellfish allergy and my son has a severe peanut and tree nut allergy. We cruised once before on DCL and while they did take good care of us, it became extremely time consuming if not in the MDR. How simple/fast is it to approach a dining venue on the Oasis (other than MDR) and get the safety info you need before selecting a meal? My son gets really embarrassed and nervous about this..

Thanks!

[ldl05]

I am interested to know if anyone has done specialty dining GF, and did they place their orders the night before or just wing it at the time of dining?

 

 

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[Natmom]

I am interested to know if anyone has done specialty dining GF, and did they place their orders the night before or just wing it at the time of dining?

 

 

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I'd like to know this too :)

 

 

 

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[NorbertsNiece]

I am interested to know if anyone has done specialty dining GF, and did they place their orders the night before or just wing it at the time of dining?

 

 

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I'd like to know this too :)

 

 

 

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Am leaving my signature in.

The Oasis blog below has it all described in detail.

Specialty dining included.... 150 Central Park brilliant. Giovanni's not so much.

[Cruisegirl6]

I got off the Allure this May...I have to be gluten free, its true, if you need to be GF tell your waiter/server and they will go over the next nights meal with you and accommodate you. We decided not to dine in the MDR for dinner but chose the specialty restaurants, we wanted to try them all out and also know doing this we got better quality/selection of food.

 

Upon making our reservations which were online there was no area to specifically state I need to be GF, so upon boarding I went to the specialty restaurants had them pull up my reservation and make notes I am GF.

 

Every one of the specialty restaurants accommodated me and the server was aware (although I did mention anyways I had to be GF) they knew exactly what I can order...also on the menu's some of them and in the MDR there are icons next to the entrees that will tell you what is gluten free, soy free, sugar free, dairy free and gluten free. All the servers knew exactly what I could choose and not but honestly I already knew...you can order any steak and just ask for no seasoning or marinade they were all fine, any plain vegetable, salad with oil and vinegar, potato, rice....there was plenty to choose from that were GF. The desserts is where RC disappoints.

 

The one restaurant that was extremely disappointing to me was 150 Central Park shame on them....they did NOTHING to make me anything special...my appetizer was gluten free pasta with some tomato sauce not even any herbs in it no cheese nothing...then they gave me soup from the MDR, my meal was really tasteless it was short ribs which was chopped up like a stew....lets just say it was horrible for $75 we paid for each person, it was a disappointment for sure, I never would step foot in that restaurant because they could of made something GF and special. They didn't even have a dessert for me shame on them!!

 

The buffets...find a worker who will find a person who knows exactly what is gluten free, I had no trouble in finding somebody to explain what I could eat, none at all but it appeared that any salads, all veggies, the meat carving were all gluten free. NEVER had any time on the cruise where I got sick never and the gluten free pizza isn't bad, its true they have to make it a certain way you can't ask for certain other toppings maybe because of cross containation and you do have to wait 20 minutes for it but they have it.

 

Now I have to be both gluten free, dairy free and free of eggs UGH!!!

[Wesley66IN]

GREAT and very HELPFUL responses! Thanks so much