ardentcruiser

21 hours ago, JohninDC said:

For how many?

Just two people!

We will be sailing on the Celebrity Equinox in February 2020 and looking into taking an Uber/Lyft at disembarkation in Port Everglades to get to the airport. Has anyone tried that before? Since there are a lot of people getting off at one time, I am not sure if it will be tough to find an Uber. Is there a better option to get to the airport? 

3 minutes ago, Chocolate martini fan said:

In my opinion Celebrity had a better selection of lactose free deserts.

What kind of lactose free desserts did they have? We just booked with Celebrity. 

On 6/18/2019 at 2:31 PM, HangryGrl said:

Not lactose intolerant but vegan here.  We have had the best luck doing the following:

1.  Calling or emailing the cruise line's special needs department before we leave.

2.  Visiting the Maitre'd during his "open" hours in the dining room on embarkation day to make sure our needs have been communicated and see if they have any questions.  This is also the best way to have dinner the first night go smoothly.

3.  Have "fixed" time dining vs what ever incarnation of "my time" the cruise line has.  You keep your same waitstaff every night so you don't have to keep re-explaining things.

4.  Ordering the next nights meal at dinner.  The only time we have not done this was on Carnival last December and they asked if they could just surprise us each night.  This went fine, everything was good but it ended up being too much food for me as I don't generally eat an appetizer, entree and dessert.

5.  Speaking with one of the higher chef level people at the buffet vs one of the line cooks/servers.

 

I believe if you have an actual allergy they prepare your food in a separate kitchen so that would limit the cross contamination issues more but I think that is why they want you to order ahead of time also.

All wise words! And as a lactose intolerant person, I would like to thank all the vegans out there for making things easier for me when I eat out! 🙂 

Thanks for the comments everyone! Let me further explain my issue. Dairy sneaks into all sorts of restaurant food. As already mentioned, butter is commonly put on top of steaks after they have been cooked. This is the case in many normal restaurants (outback, ruth's chris) as well as on the cruise (RC Chops, japanese steakhouse, and so on). While that can be easily dealt with, it is the unknown that makes it hard, particularly in the buffets. Chili, omelets (milk mixed into the egg sauce), soups, rolls, salad dressings, curry, hamburgers, and many other all have the potential of having dairy. On the Disney cruise someone was able to point out which foods were safe. On RC, it took a lot of effort to find someone, and then they had to go back and talk to someone else. I could easily spend 30 minutes just finding out if food are safe, and that gets to be tiresome. 

RC menus now say "lactose free options available" but I found the waiters to not be very knowledgeable about what that menu. And, as I already said, they have very limited dessert options. I can only eat so much jello or fruit for dessert! 

I am lactose intolerant... beyond what a lactaid pill can fix. So I have to be very careful about avoiding dairy while cruising. My experience on cruises so far is that the buffets are difficult to figure out what is safe other than hunting down a manager to ask about a specific food. The dining rooms have "safe" entrees, but they are limited and my only dessert option is jello. Have any of you been on a cruise line or ship that did well with dietary restrictions? 

I just finished a 3 day cruise on the Dream last month with my wife (we left our young kids home with their grandparents). I think it really depends on the child but I would say the youngest I would ever spend money to take my kids is four or five. I saw a bunch of families with younger kids and some seemed to be having a blast. But there was also lots of fussing and crying to go around with the younger ones.

We just got back from a 3 day dream cruise (which by the way was a lot of fun!). I went back and forth on the parking. You can definitely find cheaper off site parking but the reviews were mixed. Some times people had no trouble getting a shuttle to/from the boat while other times people waited up to an hour. In the end, I decided to pay the higher price and park at the garage right next to the Dream. It was $20 per day but I knew I wouldn't have to worry about getting picked up or being delayed while trying to get to the airport. I am glad I did! We walked right off the boat and were in our car within minutes.

We just got back from a 3 day cruise on the Dream and had a great time. The food was the same at each location every night, but since they rotate you to a different dining room you end up with a different menu. They assign you to the rotation, so can't pick which dining room you will be in on a particular night.