Tips for Cruise

[Guest guest]

For the first time ever, our family will be going on a vegan cruise in a few

weeks to the Carribbean. This will really be the first time that my young

children will have food outside of my kitchen for a whole week! We are vegans

and eat lots of raw foods. However, because of the " horror " stories I have

heard about kitchen sanitation onboard cruise ships and how food-borne illnesses

can run rampant on these ships, I need some advice on how to deal with these

possible issues, especially from those who have experience with cruises.

 

Are there certain types of foods I should avoid? Are there any natural

remedies that I should bring on board just in case we get a " food bug? " I will

definitely do all to boost my children's immunity before the cruise, but is

there anything else I should do? I tried to get information from the Web to

answer these questions, but couldn't find anything.

 

Thanks for any advice!

 

Antoinette Martin

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Antoinette,

 

Keep in mind that a lot of times there is information put out there that

is not as scary as it is made out to be. I don't know the statistics on

it, but I would think you can just as easily catch these illnesses by

dining in area restaurants or shopping in your local stores. We have

been on a couple of cruises. The last one we took was this past April.

We took the kids on a Disney cruise to the Carribbean. It was amazing! I

had worried before we went if there would be anything we could eat. The

food was devine! There is so much vegan food available and the chefs are

completely accommodating to what you need. The servers, for your main

meal in the evening, will find out your vegan dining preferences on day

one and they will absolutely remember that every day you dine with them!

 

Every time we went to eat on the cruise ship there is a person standing

at the restaurant door with hand sanitizing wipes. Each person who

enters must use it on their hands right there, and then there is garbage

to dispose of them right there. I believe this helps keep down risks of

getting things, you know everyone is going in with santized hands. Same

with boarding the ship after being off for the day - they would have

everyone sanitize their hands. They seemed to me to be very cautious

about such things. Case in point - a toddler pooped in the kiddie pool.

They closed it down for two hours, drained and sanitized it, then

re-opened it. I saw many people just going around the ship

cleaning/santizing railings and such.

 

I really think the ships are aware of any risks and are taking these

measures to help minimize them. Just do your part to keep your hands

cleaned often.

 

As for vegan food being available - you should have no problem! And when

you go to places like buffets and you don't see soy milk out, just ask

dining staff. They DO have Silk soymilk in individual cartons available,

they just keep them in the back, instead of setting them out. But

everyone is very accommodating and helpful. There is loads of fresh

fruits/vegetables. And I was blown away by the great vegan dishes we

were served in the evening - like portobella over couscous! Some of the

best dishes I've had outside of the house.

 

Enjoy!

Jacqueline

[Guest guest]

I would bring a probiotic (I am sure that they can be refrigerated for you) and

chamomile tea.

 

 

 

 

________________________________

Jacqueline Bodnar <jb

 

Mon, November 23, 2009 9:08:00 AM

RE: Tips for Cruise

 

 

Antoinette,

 

Keep in mind that a lot of times there is information put out there that

is not as scary as it is made out to be. I don't know the statistics on

it, but I would think you can just as easily catch these illnesses by

dining in area restaurants or shopping in your local stores. We have

been on a couple of cruises. The last one we took was this past April.

We took the kids on a Disney cruise to the Carribbean. It was amazing! I

had worried before we went if there would be anything we could eat. The

food was devine! There is so much vegan food available and the chefs are

completely accommodating to what you need. The servers, for your main

meal in the evening, will find out your vegan dining preferences on day

one and they will absolutely remember that every day you dine with them!

 

Every time we went to eat on the cruise ship there is a person standing

at the restaurant door with hand sanitizing wipes. Each person who

enters must use it on their hands right there, and then there is garbage

to dispose of them right there. I believe this helps keep down risks of

getting things, you know everyone is going in with santized hands. Same

with boarding the ship after being off for the day - they would have

everyone sanitize their hands. They seemed to me to be very cautious

about such things. Case in point - a toddler pooped in the kiddie pool.

They closed it down for two hours, drained and sanitized it, then

re-opened it. I saw many people just going around the ship

cleaning/santizing railings and such.

 

I really think the ships are aware of any risks and are taking these

measures to help minimize them. Just do your part to keep your hands

cleaned often.

 

As for vegan food being available - you should have no problem! And when

you go to places like buffets and you don't see soy milk out, just ask

dining staff. They DO have Silk soymilk in individual cartons available,

they just keep them in the back, instead of setting them out. But

everyone is very accommodating and helpful. There is loads of fresh

fruits/vegetables. And I was blown away by the great vegan dishes we

were served in the evening - like portobella over couscous! Some of the

best dishes I've had outside of the house.

 

Enjoy!

Jacqueline

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

We went on a cruise with our son and a bunch of my family to the Western

Bahamas.

We brought several bricks of the shelf stable tofu (Xtra firm silken - so

they were in the brick form, and we just tossed them in our suitcase). You

can bring a cooler of food onboard, but it counts as one of your pieces of

luggage (for ours they didn't care what you brought onboard, just what you

were taking off/declaring etc at the end when you were docking back in the

USA).

 

There was an 24hr huge salad bar and a pasta bar and the dessert bar also

had a pretty nice sized fruit salad bar (nothing else was vegan on it), we

could get pasta with marinara, there were free drinks all night long

(Lemonaid, water, tea/coffee, iced tea). In the back, there was a pizza

place where we found out the crusts were vegan, as was the sauce, so we

could get pizza w/out cheese and tons of veggies. They also had veggie

burgers there, but I think they had milk/cheese in them. They also had

french fries and a sandwich place I think we were able to negotiate leaving

cheese/meat off some sandwich to get basically a hummos wrap (if I recall

correctly).

Pretty much we learned that you just have to ask - they are very willing to

accomodate to your wishes and will let you know what they can/can not do or

direct you to another part of the ship that can or has stuff you can eat

(they're all different, but they are there to serve you, so if you don't

find anything suitable, just ask them)

 

With all of that, we were able to put together some decent meals for the

week we were gone w/out getting bored with 'just eating salads' for that

week.

There were also different 'themed' dinners, one night we were able to get

black beans and rice but much of the other nights were not so friendly. We

also couldn't eat in the fancy dining area, though they did have a few

vegetarian options, but they had cheese or milk ingredients, so we mainly

ended up sicking to the different 'bars' outside

(pasta/salad/dessert/pizza/grill). My son was pretty happy with a sugar cone

we stuffed with plain tofu (he prefers it plain, and he was just delighted

it was in a cone LOL).

 

We also had no problems with the 'kiddie camp' we had him in a few times

(they would watch the kids up till about midnight have

crafts/playtime/movies). We let them know he couldn't eat anything there and

they marked his name tag and everything - they were awesome.

 

I am glad we brought tofu with us, but like I said, if you're creative, you

can toss together some plain pasta, some tomatoes, garbanzos, corn and so on

for something like an impromptu salad bar version of pasta fagioli. Or toss

tofu into pasta w/marinara. I did a lot of salads, as I love them and could

eat them for dinner all the time anyway.

 

I think more of the illnesses are probably related to the meat/seafood

onboard, as we had no problems what so ever. We did bring my son's allergy

medicine (he does have a milk protein allergy) and we brough our vitamins,

so we made sure to have those since we were sure there was a lot less for us

to eat than what was actually available (nice surprise!). We never needed

his medicine, but we did need dramamine (there was a storm we ended up going

through that was dreadful on the way back). I also had a patch for motion

sickness from my doctor (which I didn't have during the storm). I found

spending time on the deck (there were parts that were covered) it didn't

bother me as much as in our cabin for some reason, too).

If you are worried, there is a pro-biotic that we take, which we didn't at

the time we took the cruise - it's American Health. They're chewable, vegan

and they come in Banana, blueberry or strawberry. There's 100 tablets per

jar, and they're pretty cheap (I got mine for $4 through my co-op/food

buying club, I've seen them in Whole Foods for about $7 I think). I think

they'd work for you on the ship if you were very concerned. We had no

problems, didn't get sick or anything (maybe because we ate all the fresh

stuff rather than meats/seafood? hee hee).

 

HTH

Missie

 

 

 

On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 8:14 AM, <admartin5 wrote:

 

>

>

> For the first time ever, our family will be going on a vegan cruise in a

> few weeks to the Carribbean. This will really be the first time that my

> young children will have food outside of my kitchen for a whole week! We are

> vegans and eat lots of raw foods. However, because of the " horror " stories I

> have heard about kitchen sanitation onboard cruise ships and how food-borne

> illnesses can run rampant on these ships, I need some advice on how to deal

> with these possible issues, especially from those who have experience with

> cruises.

>

> Are there certain types of foods I should avoid? Are there any natural

> remedies that I should bring on board just in case we get a " food bug? " I

> will definitely do all to boost my children's immunity before the cruise,

> but is there anything else I should do? I tried to get information from the

> Web to answer these questions, but couldn't find anything.

>

> Thanks for any advice!

>

> Antoinette Martin

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Antoinette,

We've gone on cruises with no problem - and my partner/husband used to

go on them all the time when he was a travel agent, and never had any

problems at all with the food on the ships. I think any food problems

are rare on ships. Of all our friends who have gone on cruises (even a

couple families who go a couple times a year) and of all the travel

agents we've known who go all the time, we've never known anyone to have

any problems with the food. And we also find that once the staff on the

cruise find out we're vegetarians, they go out of their way to point out

which things are okay for us and which aren't. Even in the buffet line,

they'd rush over to us and say this is vegetarian, this is vegan, this

has chicken broth, etc. And in the formal dining room, they always had

a special menu for us. It was really nice. I would weigh those

" horror " stories with a grain of salt, bring some probiotics and

astragulus and Echinacea for your immune systems just in case, and just

go have a wonderful time!!!! And tell us all about it!!! :-)

Have fun!

Lorraine

 

 

On

Behalf Of admartin5

Monday, November 23, 2009 6:15 AM

 

Tips for Cruise

 

 

For the first time ever, our family will be going on a vegan cruise in a

few weeks to the Carribbean. This will really be the first time that my

young children will have food outside of my kitchen for a whole week! We

are vegans and eat lots of raw foods. However, because of the " horror "

stories I have heard about kitchen sanitation onboard cruise ships and

how food-borne illnesses can run rampant on these ships, I need some

advice on how to deal with these possible issues, especially from those

who have experience with cruises.

 

Are there certain types of foods I should avoid? Are there any natural

remedies that I should bring on board just in case we get a " food bug? "

I will definitely do all to boost my children's immunity before the

cruise, but is there anything else I should do? I tried to get

information from the Web to answer these questions, but couldn't find

anything.

 

Thanks for any advice!

 

Antoinette Martin

 

 

[Guest guest]

After I went on my first cruise ((Carnival) a few yrs. ago, I swore I wouldn't

go on another one unless it was vegan.

I read others posts and wish the staff was half as pleasant on my trip. Luckily

I brought some raw food, lots of trail mix, and tofu. I would never recommend

Carnival. They didn't have soy milk and the fruit selection was poor.

I'd take some acidophilus. I'd also take digestive enzymes. Homeopathics- nux

vomica- nausea; Arnica Montana- bruises and bumps,tissue trauma, and maybe Carbo

Veg. - if eaten too much. The motion sickness wrist bands are great and

inexpensive.

Hope that makes sense.

Laura