HangryGrl

Day 11: Breakfast sandwich, sausage, hashbrowns (Erik) Spinach, mushroom, onion omelet, hashbrowns, sausage Fungi pizza w/vegan cheese and accidental GF crust (gf crust not great, sweet) Salad Night 11: No vegan menu Broccoli cheese soup. Literally pureed broccoli. Not amazing texture or taste wise. Bland and chunky. Spaghetti w/meatballs Indian (dal & something spicy). Peach margarita again! Yum!

Day 10: Port Day - Hilo Breakfast sandwich, sausage, hashbrowns Added avocado toast for Erik (stopped taking breakfast pics for the same items) Guys burgers veggie burger & fries. We don't actually have a picture of the Guy's version of this but as I said at the beginning it was much better than getting it at the deli. There is something funny about their pickles though. Way too acidic and I love acid (not that kind!). When mixed with the mustard it made everything very sour. Night 10: no vegan menu tonight Stuffed mushrooms. These look pretty weird but actually tasted good! The green sauce was a little on the bland side but a little salt and pepper improved it. Poblano corn soup. We were thinking this would be the same or similar to the corn poblano soup earlier in the cruise but this ended up being the poor cousin of that one. This tasted heavily of poblano but was also on the bland side. Chicken strips, mashed potatoes, broccoli. Same as the other night. It was not on the regular menu but I asked and they were able to do it this time. Spaghetti w/meatballs (again! And no he is not tired of pasta yet) Lemon drop Martini. Really good!

Day 9: Port Day - Kona Breakfast sandwich, sausage, hashbrowns (second verse same as the first!) Journey Cafe: This place was amazing! Everything we had was amazing and we would go back to Kona just to eat here! Attached vegan ice cream store next door. We were too full to try anything and had a snorkeling excursion so didn't want to be uncomfortable. Tomato soup. This was honestly the best tomato soup either of us have ever had, vegan or not! I actually had a dream about this soup! Foccacia. Also completely amazing! Perfect amount of crust to softness. Rainbow falafel. This was a "sandwich" but it was so full of goodies that there was no way you could pick it up to eat it! We ate it with knife and fork and each bite we found a new tasty goodie! Garlic knots w /ricotta. These were great! The sauce was listed as a ricotta but we thought it was more like a ranch kind of dig. It is hard to see but there are some little crumbles mixed in that were very flavorful! Night 9: No vegan menu for tonight Pumpkin soup. Pretty good. I didn't think I would like it but was pleasantly surprised. Salad Indian (potato butter chicken, dal). This was good. I enjoyed the potato butter "chicken". Had some spice to it more than a lot of the nights. Erik got pasta with marinara again! Pina colada w/Blue curacao float, lime candy straw. Drink was good. Candy straws are terrible and slimy.

Day 8: Port Day - Kauai Breakfast sandwich, sausage, hashbrowns Guys veggie burger (fried, much better than grill), fries Blue Iguana burrito Night 8: Second Elegant Night Tuna crudo. This was decent. There was not very much of the "tuna" but what was there was good and the other things complimented it nicely. This was the prettiest dish we got one the ship. Moroccan lentil soup. Good. A little more tomato heavy than I was expecting. Garlic shrimp, crab cakes, potatoes, broccoli. The shrimp were ok, potatoes and broccoli were pretty plain but fine. Now the crab cake….yikes! Super fishy! It actually smelled like fish food. We did not eat this. Grilled tofu steak w/ BBQ sauce, hassleback potatoes. This was pretty good. The sauce on the tofu was good. Potato was kind of weird. Like a boiled hassleback vs roasted. Blue drink. Haha! Neither of us can remmeber what this was.

Day 7: Port day - Honolulu Breakfast sandwich, sausage, hashbrowns Blondies: This place came highly recommended and did not disappoint! They do close at 3pm though since they are in a residential building it is apparently some kind of rule. Tacos w/avocado & lime crema. Super yummy! The avocado lime crema really added nicely! Hamburger w/smoked cheddar. This was amazing! The smoked cheddar sauce was so good! Samoa bar. Wow!! My husband does not like coconut but even he loved this! Really tasted like a girl scout Samoa cookie but better! Night 7: Salad Linguini carbonara. Ok, this was the worst meal of the trip. We jokingly started calling it "birthday cake pasta". It was way too sweet! I don't think Erik finished this which is pretty unusual. Chicken strips, mashed potatoes, broccoli. This was plain but honestly really good. The chick'n strips seemed like Gardein maybe? I ended up asking for this another night when there wasn't a vegan menu and was able to get it. Sex on the beach No dessert tonight. I think our waiter finally took us seriously that we were not dessert people! 😉

Day 6: Port day (Maui) Breakfast sandwich, avocado toast, hasbrowns. I ordered avocado toast and my husband ordered the breakfast sandwich but they gave us both everything. I ended up scraping the avocado off my toast and putting it on my sandwich which was good. Sausage Mama Arepa in Maui. This was not our favorite port lunch but it was good. The portions were huge! Yes, more mushrooms! I think it was after this day we did a couple day mushroom detox. 😉 Hongo (mushroom) arepa Vegan hongo sandwich (plantain "bread") Yuca fries Night 6: no vegan menu this night Corn & poblano soup. This was super good! Meatballs & polenta. Also very good! Wish there had been a little more of the red sauce but would still recommend it. Indian (eggplant & corn) Peach mojito Mango Panna cotta. Still unimpressed.

Day 5: Sea Day Brunch menu Breakfast bowl. Interesting…..basically a salad with scrambled vegan eggs. No dressings or anything on the "salad". I think because the normal breakfast bowl has an over easy egg which would then serve as the sauce or dressing for the salad. It was fine but I did not get it again. Avocado toast w/egg. This was good and we ended up getting this a lot of mornings also. Specify with egg when you order the night before though or you just get avocado toast. Loved the hashbrowns! Though I think they ran out about halfway through the cruise and switched over to tater tots in the MDR and weird roasted potatoes in the buffet. Mistake pizza! Fungi pizza 1/2 w/vegan cheese no sauce. We both enjoyed this mistake and ordered it again! I liked the side with no vegan cheese. Kind of like garlic bread with mushrooms. 🙂 Night 5: We did have the vegan menu to order off of for this night. We just didn't think to take pictures every night. Cauliflower soup. Ok, weird texture and kind of bland. I ate mine and my husbands. Salad Mushrooms w/spinach. We thought it was going to be more like stuffed mushrooms but was more a salad with mushrooms. We ate a lot of mushrooms this day. 😄 Roasted Cauliflower w/romanesco. This was super good! Especially the sauce and the black bean puree! Spicy pineapple martini. Yummy! Sorbet (lime)

Day 4: Different breakfast sandwich than the day before w/tomatoes & Cucumber. Kind of strange but still good. We never received this one again when asking for the breakfast sandwich. Fries Blue Iguana burrito. Good, kind of like plain Chipotle which was fine. It is nice to have the option of here, Pizza Pirate and Guys because aside from salad there was basically nothing on lunch buffet that we could eat most days. We got more than enough food at breakfast and dinner that it didn't really matter, lunch was more of a snack. Night 4: No vegan menu for this night, we ordered of the standard the night before. Some kind of vegetable soup. I didn't remember what it was by the time we got to dinner. It was good. We both got this and salad. We would order different appetizers but most nights our waiter would bring both of us both options. I don't eat heavily at home so most nights Erik would end up eating all of his entrée and then finishing half of mine (he doesn't like to waste food). Salad Spaghetti & meatballs (again!) Indian (2 portions of dal). This was my least favorite Indian food we had on the cruise. Midori sour. Good! Been a bit since I had one. Vegan Panna cotta (lemon?). Again too sweet and weird texture. The only dessert I enjoyed was the first night.

Day 3: This was a Sea Day Brunch day Biscuits & gravy. Not good, would not recommend. The biscuits were very dry and no idea why they put cheese on them. No words to describe the "gravy". Eggs Benedict. Again would not recommend. It was also extremely dry and the vegan ham had a strange texture. Veggie omelet. This was pretty good and we would get it several more times. The picture is of it open so you can see what is inside. Just grilled veggies and vegan cheese. Night 3: 1st elegant night. We did have the vegan menu for this night I think?? We didn't take a picture though. Alchemy pre-dinner Martini Seduction. This was pretty good but we both liked mine (Perfect Storm) better. Perfect Storm. This was super good! We got it again later in the cruise, a different bartender made it and it wasn't quite as good. Shrimp cocktail. We did not enjoy the vegan shrimp "raw". Though I will say look wise they are quite impressive! The cocktail sauce was good. I powered through them but didn't get them again. Egg rolls. Yes!! Soo good! We found them in the buffet also once or twice during lunch. Fettuccine. Erik really enjoyed this. It was kind of a ratatouille style pasta. Roasted veggie lasagna. This was very good. I would have gotten it again if it had been an option. Peach Margarita. Very good! Crème Brule. I will preface this by saying we are not dessert people. We don't really eat dessert much at home so I am a pretty harsh judge on sweets. I go with the Prue Leith philosophy that it better be worth the calories. This was not. We actually did not order dessert but our waiter got us something anyway. 🙂 I will go more into that in the summary. This was incredibly sweet and the "custard" texture was weird, more like panna cotta.

Day 2: This is the standard vegan breakfast menu. There is also a Sea Day Brunch vegan menu that we did not get a picture of. It has some fancier items that we tried and I will share down the line. They did not do the brunch menu every sea day. I am guessing to help save the staff since the brunch goes until noon and normal breakfast only goes until 10 if I remember correctly. Vegan breakfast sandwich (sourdough, vegan egg, vegan bacon, vegan cheese) and hashbrowns. We really liked this item and would end up getting it most days for breakfast. Pizza pirate fungi pizza w/vegan cheese. This was good. We ended up getting a communication error pizza later in the cruise that didn't have sauce and we actually liked it better. Night 2: Spaghetti w/meatballs (app). Erik liked this and ended up getting several nights when they didn't have the vegan menu as an option. They actually did not overcook the pasta which was a nice surprise. Baked potato w/cheese soup (app). This was ok, a little bland. Didn't get any cheese flavor but I don't enjoy most vegan cheese so this was fine. You can probably see in the pic that I added a decent amount of black pepper to it. Also needed salt. Chicken drumsticks. These were super good! I wish we could have had these a few nights! The "bone" is a little piece of sugar cane. Mashed potatoes were bland but fine. Broccoli was broccoli. Indian (Gobi Matar, daal, papadum & rice). Good but the Indian food on cruises almost always is. Halloween drink. Can't remember the name but it was good. Our assistant waiter, Wanwipa, seemed to thoroughly enjoy picking out cocktails for us each night! 🙂 Chocolate cake. Good & light

Day 1: Veggie burger (deli). We found out a couple days later that you can request one from Guys Burgers and they fry it in the deep fryer vs whatever kind of weird reheating method the deli does. It is much better from Guys and the fries are also significantly better than the deli. Night 1: We went to see the maitre'd during their open hours once we boarded and were able to order dinner off of the vegan menu for the first night. We didn't take a pic of that menu though unfortunately. We did have to order the night before each day for both dinner and breakfast in the MDR. Tomato soup (app). Fine, nothing special. Szechwan shrimp (in the background was my entrée and was actually very good. We liked the "shrimp" when they were cooked much better than raw (we'll get to that in a couple days). I asked for this again later in the cruise on a night where they didn't have the vegan menu but they made me pick something from the regular menu to "veganize" instead. Spaghetti (app). Also fine, nothing special. Veggie wellington. This was pretty good. The crust was a little weird and we were wondering if maybe it was gluten free. We didn't take pictures of dessert the first night but it was lime sorbet and fruit. Standard menu items.

A little about us…we are Erik and Tracy, mid-40's both born and raised in Colorado. We were vegetarian for 7 years and have been vegan for 8 years. This was our 7th cruise and 3rd on Carnival. We have also cruise on Royal and Celebrity. We were on the Carnival Miracle 15 day to Hawaii and back. After writing this I also now have way more respect for people who write these reviews! Man it is a lot of work! 😄 Long Beach - Day before cruise The 4th Horseman: Interesting place! Horror themed pizza place and dive bar. We stayed at the Renaissance Long Beach near the convention center and this was in walking distance. Vegan version of Rosemary's Baby. Good! Garlic knots w/marinara

We were on the Miracle 15 days to Hawaii 10/14-10/29 and are vegan. We ate in the MDR every dinner and most breakfasts. I actually have pictures of all of the food we ate and was planning to put into a review just haven't gotten around to it yet! Hopefully this weekend! I know it is very new so we were expecting some hiccups but we were only able to order off the vegan menu 4 or 5 nights out of 15 and we always still had to order the night before. They said they did not have it the other nights and we had to try to pick off the regular menu things for them to "veganize". It seems like they maybe only have 7 nights of menus but we would have been happy just repeating those twice. Overall we were happy with the food, a couple misses (one we are jokingly calling "birthday cake pasta" 😂) but nothing inedible. The vegan breakfast menu is really where it is at though! Huevos rancheros, breakfast sandwiches, omelets, bacon, sausage! You have to order this the night before as well and breakfast service is a little slow as they don't put your order in until you get there (vs dinner where they know when you are coming).

We didn't receive one either from the cruise we just returned from on 10/29. A PVP reached out to my husband to give us offers on new cruises. He told her we never received it and she sent us over the link. Maybe try calling?

They do have Red Bull now?! Last I heard it was Rockstar. DH would be thrilled if they switched and he didn't have to carry on.

Can you fly into Long Beach instead? Much smaller airport and closer to the port.

Hi All! I saw a link in another post for the free Passport shuttle (https://ridelbt.com/passport/) around Long Beach. It looks like it would be an easy free way to get from the Renaissance Long Beach in downtown to the port on the morning we embark. Wondering if anyone else has done this and if so how it went? The trip planner on the Passport website looks like it would take about 20 minutes and I doubt we will be in a huge hurry.

Thanks! I appreciate the detailed response! I ended up cancelling the Crowne Plaza and rebooking the Renaissance by the convention center. Price was slightly higher but not crazy given we are only about a month out now. Thankfully I booked the original hotel with the refundable rate! I think I originally got confused as I think this is the first home port I have been to where the cruise lines dock far enough apart that it makes a difference. Thanks again to everyone who responded!

Oh boo! Thanks for the info! Now to decide if it's worth moving the reservation.

Hoping someone can help clarify which side of the port Carnival docks at? I had originally thought based on reading some on this board that it would be on the San Pedro side. I was just double checking reservations (currently have one at the Crowne Plaza) and directions and when I googled it comes up with the Carnival terminal being on the other side by the Queen Mary. If this is the case I might end up moving our hotel reservation to the Long Beach side. We are on the Carnival Miracle leaving 10/14/23 if that makes any difference.

Yes to both! Iguana Mama was one of our favorite excursions we have done anywhere! I have a review over on the Amber Cove board and have answered a few questions also. Grand Turk we just walked down the beach to one of the small beach clubs and rented chairs. My husband snorkeled and I read and drank cocktails. 🙂

I would recommend looking on the port of call boards here for recommendations for your specific ports. We do DIY all the time, but it does require more research and leg work than just booking a ships tour. Sometimes booking with Viator or similar is best but some of the time booking directly with the operator is better. Be sure to look at things like transportation/pick up from the port, time (does your ship stay on local time vs ship time? We missed a tour once because of this), distance from port (traffic getting back could affect depending on your mode of transport).

If you are on the Constellation, going to Colombia and are unvaccinated you will have to test pre-cruise. Otherwise you are in the clear but I would make sure to bring proof of vaccination. We are on this itinerary leaving in a week and a half. Cartagena, Colombia Vaccination While vaccinations are not required to sail on Celebrity Cruises, they are highly recommended. COVID-19 booster shots are also not currently required but remain highly recommended. Please note: A guest is considered fully vaccinated 14 days after the required number of doses in their vaccine series have been fully administered (e.g. 2 shots of Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, etc., or 1 shot of Johnson & Johnson). Vaccines must be approved for use by the WHO or U.S. FDA, with the exception of CanSino. Testing To debark in Cartagena, unvaccinated guests ages 18 and older are required to provide proof of a negative PCR taken within 72hrs prior to embarkation or negative antigen test taken within 48hrs prior to embarkation. Required testing can be completed using any type of PCR or antigen COVID-19 test. It can be professionally proctored at your doctor or drugstore, or it can be a test you administer to yourself at home without supervision. Tests must be arranged on your own and are at your own expense.

My mother in law was going to do this on our upcoming December cruise but from what we could find it was going to be about $50 each way from downtown to the restaurant where Spirit of the West wanted her to meet them. The cost combined with the fact she wasn't really comfortable going by herself (the rest of us have other plans) led us to cancel her horseback riding excursion unfortunately.

I just upgraded 1 of our packages via phone and I was only on hold maybe 30 seconds. Quick and easy. I called the main Celebrity number and routed through the options to note.