Craig_K

On 8/21/2018 at 6:37 PM, tbugstwo said:

When this happened to us last year, we kept our same cabin, but changed our perk package to Go Best for only a couple of $$ extra per person. Celebrity allowed this upgrade based on current cabin price with Go Best package.

Has anyone else tried this?  I tried this today and Celebrity wanted to charge me the full price to go from Go Better to Go Best.  The huge price drop on my existing cabin had absolutely no impact.  Am I missing something, or have I approached this the wrong way with Celebrity?

We have done Solstice, Reflection and Summit over the past few years. My son and I are both Celiac. (My son also has a nut allergy.)

Overall we are very happy with the GF handling and options. As can be expected sometimes things are better than others and with the number of people onboard you cannot expect it to be perfect. You must alway assess the risks as you normally would going out to eat at home. A few times we did see things labeled as GF that clearly were not.

Main dining room and specialty restaurants have always been pretty much spot on to handle this. After the first night once you establish a relationship with your serving staff they are really on top of everything. Giving you the menu for next night meal in advance so they can order a special meal ticket (prepared in allergy designated area of kitchen we are told). For specialty restaurants I always stopped by the day before just to introduce myself and notify them of the allergies. Sometimes we would pick our meals there in advance so they could make special preparations.

We have found the Aqua Spa cafe to be very good for casual meals also. Many items are labeled as GF already. Oceanview buffet of course is quite a bit more risky, but a chef is usually available to walk through it with you.

Every once and a while we would find some GF cookies at Cafe al Bacio. Pizza was absolutely the worst GF thing we have ever had but everyone has their own opinion. We made arrangements at the Oceanview Cafe and the manager there told us they would have GF pizza dough available if we wanted it. Sometimes we would get lucky and they would offer french fries in fresh, uncontaminated oil. (Some fries were not GF with a "coating", but others were just sliced potato wedges.) Breakfast staff in Oceanview was always able to toast GF bread in a supposed GF toaster in back.

No GF bagels. Soft-serve was good, but we did take our chance at hard scooped also with clean scooper with no problems. Same risk you would have at ice cream shop at home.

In general, ask a lot of questions and get to know the servers and managers the first day. From then on, you will quickly learn what is good and get into a pretty good GF routine I am sure.

Most importantly, be gracious and appreciative of the extra time it takes to assist you with the GF issue considering the number of other guests also. No system is perfect. Some kindness and understanding goes a long way with this. (I am always amazed the number of rude guests I see!)

Thanks everyone for the info. Very helpful. I'll probably pass on this one.

I can't seem to find much information on what exactly the Indulgence show is in Cellar Masters. Celebrity's description is kind of vague to me. I see threads discussing the price, but not really much information about what exactly this show is. I am not clear from anything I read.

Has anyone done this and can explain exactly what it is and how long it is? Also, is it suitable for a family with young teens? Is it mostly just food and drink with a little entertainment sprinkled through?

Any information is helpful.

Fantastic Artemis! Thank you so much for these!

I am bringing up an old thread, but am looking for some specifics on Celebrity (Solstice) GF if possible.

I know the drill for the main dining room and buffets. We have done that before and have no problems with that. Breakfast and dinner are no problem for us.

But what about the availability of GF snacks throughout the day or a casual lunch by the pool or a quick, late night snack?

For example what about:

-ice cream by the pool grill (soft serve or hard scooped GF?)

-french fries at the pool grill (GF or fried in the same oil as chicken nuggets?)

-a plain hamburger okay or a salad available by the pool?

-what about a late evening snack? Are there options for a quick "take-out" from one of the cafe's on the entertainment deck?

Any feedback you can offer is really appreciated. We found in the past the main dining room and buffet service very accommodating. Our biggest problem on another cruise was those times later in the night, post theater but before bed for a quick snack.

RedSox5. I am new to this whole thing too. My son has only been for 4 months, and about 2 months for me. We went on the cruise only a few weeks after my son's diagnosis. We were not going to let that stop us, and we are sure glad we went on with life!

I am not one to want to call attention to myself either and don't want to be a "difficult customer". I have certainly found though that politely telling someone "I have some food allergies, is it possible to talk with a manager about some options for me?" is really the best way to handle it in a restaurant. I have found that in general the food servers are of a much lower calibur as the managers (head waiters). It is going to be certain frustration trying to explain everything to someone who is not familiar with GF needs. Hopefully by the time someone makes it to manager, they are better experienced to handle it.

Of course there are also times when the manager looks at me like they have no idea what I am talking about, in which case I order a plain salad, no crutons with olive oil and lemons. You are always taking a chance that your allergy needs are going to be properly communicated to the kitchen.

I am sure things will go well and you will wonder when you return what all the worry was about.

Yes it is open seating. Everything went very smoothly. When I sat down, I told them I had an allergy and asked to see a manager. The manager was aware of everything because our head waiter told him the night before when we talked about it. And the kitchen was already prepared for it. Everything was taken care of very smoothly and easily. No issues whatsoever. My son got his GF pancakes, and the rest of us go whatever else we ordered off the menu. No problems, very enjoyable. All serverd together without much wait.

I don't know exactly how it is all communicated, but it works. In fact, one morning we missed breakfast and that night at dinner our head waiter asked us what happened. So they must all communicate well. He offered then to us that if we think we might miss breakfast, that he would have it delivered from room service if we wanted. That worked well also.

Like I said at the beginning. This was all handled and coordinated by our head waiter. They are your key contact. Treat them well and they will be good to you. (At least ours was.) Every night at dinner, talk with them to plan your next day's meals and they will do the rest.

Hey RedSox5. Don't worry, YOU ARE GOING ON A CRUISE! I was the same way a few months back before my cruise, worrying about dealing with my son's Celiac (and I was just also diagnosed a month ago). I can honestly tell you that there was no need to worry, everything went better than expected, and we had a great time. No lables to read, nothing to cook, no shopping to do, etc. They took care of everything for us better than we could have hoped for.

As I said before, befriend your HEAD WAITER. Tip them well and be very gracious. They have the ability to help you a lot and take away your worries. We always spoke to the Head Waiter during dinner about our meal plans for the next day and then they would coordinate and make sure we were taken care of. For example, they would make sure we had GF breakfast in the dining room, or even to coordinate a GF breakfast and a "regular" breakfast to be delivered to our room together. And they always took and arranged our next night's dinner for us in advance (GF bread each night, dessert, etc.)

I know you said you like the buffets for breakfast and lunch, but I would recommend that you are open to other options if possible. I was also a buffet person before Celiac, but this last cruise we really enjoyed being served breakfast in the dining room. Sit down, order, and get served what you want. No lines to wait in, no trays to carry, etc. Very relaxing. And the dining room staff always knew to expect us and thus had GF pancakes for my son each morning!

I found that the staff at the buffets was not of the same calibur as that of the dining room and I was not comfortable enough to risk eating there. There was also the possibility of cross-contamination with utensils. For lunch once we found a carry-out salad option at one of the other restaurants, we kept it simple and stuck with that each day. We just made sure to get dressing that came in packets. We carried out and ate at the pool

Let me know if I can help in any way. I know what you are going through.

We were told to stay away from the fries. Some had a crispy coating on them and yes, they share common oil and utensils as chicken nuggets many times.

My son and I both have Celiac and were recently on a Royal Caribbean cruise. My advice, regardless of the cruise line, is make good friends with your HEAD WAITER in the dining room. If you let the cruise line know of your restriction when you booked, the head waiter will certainly be aware of your needs. I also found that the same head waiter was wonderful at coordinating GF breakfast for us each morning and any other requests we had. The maitre'd did not do anything to help. It was all the head waiter.

I suggest you give your head waiter a very generous tip AT THE BEGINNING of the cruise. We just told him thank you very much in advance, we know it is a lot of extra work, and we really appreciate your help for us. Maybe it was not exactly necessary, but I can tell you for sure that our particular head waiter absolutely made our cruise the wonderful experience it was for us and my kids.

Lunch was not quite as easy, but once we found a few workable options, we pretty much stuck with the same thing each day to keep it simple.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I know my experience was based on RCCL, but I am sure it must be similar to Celebrity as well. I'm reading this board however since we will be on the Summit next February.

I just saw your post. Thank you for starting something like this!

My son was just diagnosed last week, after we have already reserved and paid for our cruise on the Oasis this February.

Any real-life tips would really be appreciated. We have already notified RCCl who said they would make accommodations in the Main Dining room, so I am not worried about that. It is all of the other food temptations such as ice cream and candy that I wonder about.

For example, will I be able to find information on the ice cream or candy served aboard? What brand, etc.? I hate to be 100% limited to the Main Dining room for everything, especially for a growing teenager.

Anything specific to RCCL or the Oasis to help would be great!