Ladyshopper23

We were on Getaway in October last year. They had a veggie/vegan menu in the main dining room, which you definitely needed to ask for. It wasn't all that thrilling, there was a lot of repetition, plus only about 3 days worth of meals before they went back to the first menu, but it was nice to see, and great to have some additional choices. I've been veggie for 40 years, and also have to be gluten-free, so always contact the access desk for NCL cruises, and always ask for all menus to be able to pre-order for the next day. Having the extra veggie/vegan menu gave me a little bit more choice (they're generally able to adapt a lot of meals to make them gluten free). They definitely weren't forthcoming in offering these menus out though, was something you had to ask for.

Sailing out of Budapest on 9th April.

My app has been updated today (or possibly yesterday) and all flights have been removed from it except for our flights. I wasn't too worried, and was pretty sure it would be sorted, but glad it has been. Two weeks to go!

Yep, you would think so. That is really bad. Wonder what is going on with P&O then? It seems surprising that they've gone from dealing with allergies/special diets so well to doing it so poorly.

It wasn't too clear what your friend did in relation to their meals Camberley - you said they looked at the menu for the next night? Did they actually make a pre-order, or did they just look and see there were some meals marked as GF, so decided that would be fine and then ordered at the time? P&O are very good for marking up their menus, and a lot of their menu options are marked up as gluten free - far more than any other cruise line I've sailed on. However, unless you pre-order your meal in advance, then the meals will just come out with everyone else's and will have been made in the main galley, where not as much care will have been taken to avoid cross contamination (obviously not everyone that is gluten free has coeliac disease, so for some people this won't be a problem and it's fine for them to just order at the time). By pre-ordering, you should (in theory) ensure that your meal is made in the separate area of the galley that is specifically for allergy/special order meals, and so it should be a lot safer. Just like in a land based restaurant though, there is always that slight chance of cross contamination unless the kitchen is 100% gluten free, which if course it isn't. I'm so sad to read about these bad experiences on here. If you see my signature you'll see I've sailed on a number of cruise lines being gluten free, and P&O has been the best of the lot (closely followed by Disney, but I don't have the budget to sail with them as often as I'd like to cruise, and would rather do 2 or 3 P&O cruises than one Disney cruise!).

It's not a separate kitchen as such, but it is a separate part of the galley which is specifically used for preparing allergy/special order meals. I'd be very surprised if they've got rid of this, but if they have then that's not good news. I'm really sorry you're experiencing such a bad time. I'm actually staggered that this is happening, as P&O are normally amazing for gluten-free. Who is it you've actually complained to onboard? And what have they said, and then presumably not carried through what they said they would? I'm shocked, and would definitely be trying to email the executive office shoreside to try and get some assistance. P&O are the cruise line I recommend the most for gluten-free when others ask about gluten-free cruising, so it's really disappointing to hear how much they're failing you and others on this cruise. Which ship are you on? On our cruises, when ordering the night before, there has been no issue in adapting dishes that haven't been already marked as gluten free, or cooking something entirely different (I'm also vegetarian, so sometimes the marked GF dishes are meat and fish so I have to order something else). I don't think the buffets are amazing, although they do tend to allergen mark, and on both the ships I've been on (Britannia and Iona) they had a special diets counter where you could get all the GF bread, crackers, cakes etc. There has also been the people in yellow aprons who have been happy to go into the kitchen to get fresh food to make sure it hasn't been contaminated on the buffet. However, outside of the buffet I've always been able to get safe GF pizza at Taste, and on Iona there is the fish and chips at They Quays (you can ask for GF), so these always make a good alternative to buffet stuff. Have you been to any of the paid for restaurants, and are they any different?

My cruise starts the week after yours. Still have a long list of just about every single flight combination on my app!

Was prompted to download this a week or so ago for our forthcoming river cruise in April. All was fine on there, showed everything correctly including flights. Yesterday it showed that there had been an update to it. It now shows what I imagine is the whole boats flights! I can see flights from various USA airports on various dates before the cruise, as well as our own flights and other UK flights. Same for the return home. There is no identifying information - if I click on the flight it doesn't give me passenger names or anything. But this is still a bit odd. Same has happened on my husband's app. Today even more flights have appeared. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this before? Seems like it's some kind of glitch, and I'm not too concerned about it (our flights are still showing fine on the airline website). Hopefully in a few days it will sort itself out and go back to normal. Bit weird though seeing all those flights listed!

If you want to see some recent ish menus, I've just written up our cruise on Norwegian Dawn from August last year (see my signature for how to access it). It has photos of all the menus from that cruise. There wasn't a separate veggie/vegan menu on there, but it will give you an idea of menus in the main dining room, and there are also photos of the speciality restaurants too. At some point I'll be writing up our Getaway cruise from October, which did have the additional veggie/vegan menus. I am quite behind in write ups though for various reasons, so might be a while!

We sailed on Getaway in October last year, and they had a separate veggie/vegan menu you could ask for. They were quite samey, but it was nice to have some different options. Don't know if they're doing this across the fleet, but worth an ask. They generally have at least one veggie option on the main menu, if not a couple. However, if you're struggling, you can always ask at dinner to see the menus for the next day to see if there is anything suitable. If there isn't, you can make a pre-order via the maitre d, and they will either adapt something to make it vegan or veggie, or you can ask for something else entirely. The buffet always has veggie options, especially the section that has curries in it. You should be absolutely fine if you're able to eat veggie rather than vegan, and I suspect with my tips above you'll be able to eat a lot of vegan dishes too.

We'd be more than happy with that. Will definitely have a chat with them onboard to check we can come and go and grab some safe food (obviously will be chatting with the chef when we board to discuss the dietary stuff, so they'll know us well by the last day!).

It was booked by a TA, and I suspect the flights are a group travel agent booking so can't be changed. I don't mind the evening flight, we can go off and explore Vilshofen a bit, and hopefully grab some lunch onboard (gluten free, so suspect it will be easier on the boat as I don't think there are many suitable places in Vilshofen from the quick look I've done). It's only a couple of hours flight back home, so be nice to make the most of the last day.

We didn't pick the time, it was a package deal we booked (very well priced) so the flights were included and there was no choice on time. The time isn't ideal, but hopefully if we can explore and use the lounge area, then that will be ideal.

On the last day, can you stay on the boat until your transfer to the airport comes? We've booked a package including airport transfers and flights. Our flight isn't until nearly 7pm on the last day, so hoping we can make use of the boat until transfer time.

I took my wheelchair on one cruise to use it for port days. In general, I could manage round the ship with my walking stick and plenty of places to have a rest if necessary. However, my mobility was particularly bad at that point so used the wheelchair to be able to get off the ship and actually see something of the port we were stopped at.