bellbull

Thanks for your notes- I appreciate the interest and caring.

There were a few more frustrations and missteps that I didn't include in the original post which may shed more light (in hopes that nobody else falls into the same traps). The only other cruise we've taken my son on is Disney which does an excellent job at managing food allergies (even at the ports) and gave me a false set of expectations of how Carnival would use the info I supplied when booking.

When I booked online and identified the food allergy the website generated the attached info sheet- it's a joke. There's no way that you can identify anything on the sheet as being "safe" without ingredients listed. This is the primary reason that my first stop was to Guest Services so that I could 1) make sure there is an alert to the staff (like Disney does) and 2) make sure that I knew who I needed to coordinate with. I was told that I there was no indication in the system about the food allergy and that I should coordinate with the Camp Director about the food allergies. I explained that he would not be eating with the camp and needed to coordinate with the chef. The guest services lady then told me to talk to our waiter that night.

We were able to pre-order with the waiter for the next evening which included ordering the "sorbet". My next big frustration was at lunch the next day.

I went to order a simple turkey sandwich at the Deli and asked to speak to the chef. The chef was conscious of the fact that we needed milk-free bread but had little concern over cross contamination. I had to talk him through the fact that the veggies had been touched by cheese hands, the meat was cut by the slicer that was also cut by cheese… and then only to have the cheese from someone else's plate drop onto my sons plate while they were preparing it. Needless to say, I went right back to Guest Services in seek of more help. The lady assured me that she would send out another alert and that somebody would get back to me to coordinate his meals. Nobody got back to me. That evening was the night that my son had the attack.

The MDR did show up at the medical station as they were treating my son. She was on the phone with various people trying to understand what happened and I watched her get increasingly miffed. She explained that the person in the kitchen didn't understand that "nonfat milk" is still "milk". She indicated that the waiter triple checked and was given bad information. The head chef later told me that the person who gave the wrong information had been "dealt with".

In regards to the epi-pen usage, my first line of attack is always antihistamine. I use the epi-pen when I know that we are more than a few minutes away from medical help. In this case it took us 3 minutes to get downstairs and the benadryl was doing its job. I had the epi-pen ready but they had an IV in my son within minutes and at that point, I yielded to the doctor. I explained that I had two epi-pens on the boat and asked if they had epinephrine as well. The doctor indicated that they did. In hindsight, I should have administered the epi-pen before the doctor intervened. I had major fears about pushing the doctor out of the way to shoot my son up with epinephrine with my sons heart rate so high after the IV meds. After this experience I won't hesitate again.

Even more frustrating was that after my sons condition improved I told that doctor that I did not believe that he was allergic to benadryl and that I think he needed more of it and that I should have used the epi-pen. The doctor looked at me strangely and said "I thought you gave him epinephrine". It is beyond me how the doctor could have been confused. I explicitly wrote down what I had given him as well as verbally told him and the nurse several times. They even asked for the packaging of the benadryl so that they knew the dose without ever asking for details about epinephrine. I started recording the doctor on my phone at one point because he wasn't making any sense, contradicting himself and saying things that led me to believe he was trying to cover his butt.

All in all, it was a mess from start to finish. I allowed the booking process and past experience to give me a false sense of process and procedure. I thought they'd already know (like Disney) when we got on the boat. With that said, there wasn't a single point of failure on Carnivals part... there were multiple points of failure and that's where things go bad quickly.

We recently returned from our cruise on the Triumph after a pretty terrifying experience. My son has gone into anaphylaxis before but never in the middle of the sea with a doctor that we were losing faith in by the second. Had Carnival had any real process, this could have been completely avoided.

My 12 year old son has a severe milk allergy and I identified it during the online booking process. Although I spent 2 hours at Guest Services during the first two days trying to figure out their process for food allergies, I was either told I needed to talk to someone else or told that they would get back to me within hours (which they never did).

With the help of the waiter, we did our best to order him safe food the first night and our waiter pre-ordered his food for the next night... which was to include a milk-free sorbet. Lunch the next day was even more difficult and my 2nd escalation to guest services didn’t seem to make a difference.

The second night my son finished his pre-ordered dinner and I inquired about the sorbet. The waiter said that he would check on it and I asked him to make sure that it was milk-free sorbet and not sherbet. The waiter came back with the “sorbet” and said that he double checked to make sure it was safe. Minutes later my son started to have an allergic reaction. I quickly gave my son a double-dose of Benadryl and headed down to the medical station with the epi-pen ready.

The doctor arrived and took his vitals while I filled out the form indicating the issue and the medication that I had administered. My son started complaining of nausea and a dry throat (it was closing). His blood oxygen levels dropped dramatically and the doctor ordered a Hydrocortisone IV. Over the next hour my son got worse. Hives covered his body, he struggled to breathe without oxygen, his lungs constricted, his heart raced and his skin was lobster read. The doctor appeared to be nervous and did everything from lecture us about how we could not trust anyone (including the chef) with our son’s food to proposing that my son was allergic to Benadryl.

At this point I was fearful about administering the epi-pen since he had an IV pumping medication into him. His heart was already pounding and looked like it was going to pop out of his neck. I feared killing him while trying to save him. The doctor didn’t seem to have any idea what to do and just kept repeating that he was tachycardic with constricted lungs. He left the room (presumably to figure out what to do next) and I gave my son more Benadryl which turned everything around within minutes. My son was in full anaphylaxis and had I listened to the doctors theory about Benadryl being the culprit and not administered more of it, I’m not sure how much worse it could have become.

I’m disheartened by the lack of awareness, process and attention to passengers with special needs such as food allergies. Had the cruise shown the same amount of vigilance before the reaction as they did afterwards, it could have been avoided. We are not happy with Carnival as a whole although we were happy with the few people that did their best to reduce our angst for the rest if the trip.