Review: Cruised with Autistic and Allergic Child to Alaska

During the winter, I asked some questions regarding cruising with a child on the autism spectrum that also has allergies in the following thread:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2000669

I promised to report back. Overall, the cruise was fabulous with the staff really making the cruise for us.

We ended up on the Grand Princess July 6th sailing. The two areas that I originally asked this board about where how would my son would fare on the Grand especially in the Children's program and how would the cruise line deal with his severe nut/peanut allergy. Here is what we found. I hope this helps others with a similar situation.

Children's Program with Child on the Spectrum

We emailed the Princess special needs department to let them know that our 10 year old son would be on board and asked whether they could accommodate him. We suggested that he would probably need to be signed in and out of the program and that it would be beneficial for us to have a pager when he wanted to leaver. We also created a little profile so that they would know our son better.

They emailed us back saying that they would forward the information to the ship. At that time, I thought that that would be the end of my communication with the Princess home office in this regard and would be speaking with the ship. To my surprise we received an email from special needs about a week later with questions from the ship. I won't go into the questions but needless to say they were the "right" questions and this let us know that they were taking accommodating our son very seriously.

When we arrived in the Kids Club on embarkation day, the two counselors we met at the door already knew about our son and had a pager handy for us to sign out.

Our son had a wonderful time in the Kids Club all week and they were excellent with him. One thing we noticed was that the Club was really small and once there were anything more than 15 children my son's age, it got really crowded. He says that he enjoyed the Princess club over the Disney one (liked the activities better) but we also noticed he did not spend as much time in the club as the Disney one. We suspect that the reason is that it would get crowded which can be a challenging situation with a child on the autism spectrum.

Overall, the staff were fabulous with our son and seemed to know how to interact with a child on the spectrum. Speaking with them, most are grade school teachers that work on Princess to earn extra income and travel. Some had contracts as short as three weeks.

Food Allergies

This is one area we were pleasantly surprised. Let me explain that we cruised on Disney a couple of years back and did not have an overly impressive experience. Disney fed my son but did so by mostly just saying "no" we can't provide that for him. On our Disney cruise, it came down to him only being able to have Jello or sliced fruit for dessert most meals. Reading these boards and others, it was always stated that Disney was the gold standard when it comes to accommodating food allergies. I say this not to bash Disney but to let you know that our expectations were pretty low when it came to food allergies on Princess. How wrong we were.

We contacted the Princess special diets department via the Personalizer. Our son has a very severe peanut allergy and also a tree nut allergy. We received a standard email stating that we should eat in the MDRs as much as possible. So far, same as Disney.

When we boarded and went to our stateroom and found a letter saying that our allergy is noted and to speak with our Headwaiter during the first night's meal.

We decided to try the MDR for the embarkation lunch and we were one of the first to arrive. When we spoke to the Head Waiter checking people in about the food allergy, he said that he would get someone to come by our table. In the end, it was the head waiter that checked us in. He said that they were somewhat limited at the embarkation lunch but would see if what we ordered could be made nut free. After my son put in his order, the Head waiter checked with the kitchen and came back to say that everything could be made without any nuts or potential cross contamination (even the dessert my son wanted). We were blown away. They were going the extra effort to provide an allergen free meal with a knowledge of cross contamination.

The lunch headwaiter told us to speak to our assigned evening headwaiter for the rest of the cruise meals.

That evening, we met Paolo the headwaiter form Protugal and Scotland and waiter Daniel from the Philippines. Both were amazing in terms of dealing with the food allergy. Paolo would bring the lunch and dinner menus for the next day and we would put our son's order in for all the MDR meals for the following days. Initially, my son would also put in a desert order. However, Paolo said that he would arrange a special nut free dessert for dinner every day. On the second evening, my son stopped ordering his own dessert and just waited to see what the chef would create for him. It was such a nice surprise and treat to see what the chef would create. My son loved every dessert.

We asked Paolo what should we do for the times the MDR was closed and we had to eat elsewhere. He said that when we went to the lido buffet to ask to speak to a sous chef and they would help us. We did this and they were amazing as well. The sous chef would go through the menu items and would state what items could have potential cross contamination in the kitchen and what items in the buffet should not be had because of cross contamination in the buffet. The only possible downside we saw about the buffet was that we were restricted to the Jello and fresh fruit as all of the pastries could have been cross contaminated. That said, we were so happy overall that it would be churlish to complain (plus is forced all of us to have more fruit which is not a bad thing ;))

As for breakfasts, we ate in Sabatini's every morning and they were just as careful. They would remember my son's allergy every day and it was quite easy for them to provide him nut free food daily as they cook everything to order in a smaller less busy kitchen.

When we took the galley tour on the last day at sea, we spoke with the Executive Chef and Maitre d' about accommodating food allergies. What blew me away was that when I mentioned my son has a nut allergy, the Maitre d' immediately said, "table 479". He told me that he knew our table because Paolo has been extremely vigilant to make sure that we got appropriate meals. I also spoke with the executive chef who outlined the special diets galley process.

Sorry for the length of this. We were quite unsure about taking another cruise with or son because of our first experience with Disney. I am not sure if we just lucked out and had the right people this cruise, but everyone we interacted on the Grand Princess regarding food preparation was knowledgeable and went out of their way to provide a variety of safe food for my son.

One tip I would suggest for anyone considering a cruise with food allergies is to find out who is responsible for providing the special diets and what is the process. I know if we just spoke with the waiter in the Horizon or even in the MDR, although well meaning, many of them are not educated in food allergies.

Thank you to all those that helped us make this decision to cruise on Princess. It was the best vacation we have ever had. Please let know if you have any questions.

Wonderful to hear our favorite cruise line took such good care of you and your family!

Excellent report! Glad it worked well.

Princess kids' facilities are first rate.

So glad to read your report!

Love hearing this! Thank you for sharing your experience!

I would guess you have already done something of the sort but I would think it would be a great idea to forward this review to Princess to be sure the people involved are properly acknowledged to the management.

Awesome that they took such good care of you. Life has dealt you and your son more than enough challenges. You deserve to have things go right for you.

I would guess you have already done something of the sort but I would think it would be a great idea to forward this review to Princess to be sure the people involved are properly acknowledged to the management.

Very good idea!

Glad to hear that everyone worked out for your family and hope that any future cruises will be just as great. I echo the above comment about letting Princess know the names of those who helped you out.

Wonderful to hear that they took your son's well being so seriously and took such good care of him and the rest of your family!

Thank you for your feedback everyone. We have already sent a note to Princess (via email) and also mentioned the staff in the post cruise survey. Interestingly enough, I got a call from my PCC regarding the "customer service issue" which she did not have the details about but said customer service would get back to me. I was perplexed because I did not have a customer service issue.

It turns out "the issue" was my letter/email regarding the exemplary job of the named staff. The wrote me back snail mail thanking me for the letter and said that my comments would be passed onto the ship.

That said, I will send my PCC a link to this post. I think it is always good to let Princess (or any company for that matter) that the good stuff gets mentioned on the web as well.

Thanks again for the good suggestion.

I'm glad Princess (my favorite line) lived up to my expectations. I've always found the dining room staff to be wonderful. I feel the same way about the children's area. I had the solar system that my grandson did for quite some time. I like that they teach as well as watch the kids.

What a wonderful review. So glad you had such a good cruise!

Thank you for posting. With all of the complaints being posted, it's good to see an acknowledgement when they do something right.

Based on several observations, I don't believe the treatment you received in the MDR was unusual. Princess says to always speak with a Headwaiter - not a waiter - on any dietary restrictions, and I have seen the same excellent response several times. However, I haven't had the detailed experience that you had, and I'm glad everything was handled correctly - as we should be able to expect. I'm sure we will be seeing you back on Princess many times in the future.

Thank you for the nice review and for telling us how well treated your son was with his allergies.

 

I know if we just spoke with the waiter in the Horizon or even in the MDR, although well meaning, many of them are not educated in food allergies.

 

That is why on every Princess menu it says "If you have any food related allergies or special dietary requirements, please make sure to contact only your headwaiter or the Maitre d'Hotel"

Let your waiter and assistant waiter know so they can be vigilant on your behalf, but they cannot give the assistance that the headwaiters and the Maitre d'Hotel can give.