Drift Wood

I've just returned from 12 days in the Baltic on the Jewel. I need a gluten free diet and my experience was very poor (I've also posted on the gluten free tips thread in more detail). However, the concensus among our fellow diners is that the food varied from good/satisfactory most of the time in the MDR, to occasionally inedible (literally, a calzone pizza on the last night had to be sent back without a bite taken out of it, it was so disgusting, and another dish chosen instead. Also on the last night several people left the veg as it was stone cold. The Windjammer is a disorganised scrum, catering to the masses with huge quantities of cheap food - burgers, fries, beans, processed cheese etc. only small offerings of healthy stuff such as salad or fruit which take some finding as they are not rationally organised (a superfluity of melon though - presumably it comes cheap).

All that aside, the salad bar at lunch in the MDR is superb - this doubles as a muesli bar at breakfast and is also superb. Alas, the former is only available on days at sea and the latter is not available on the last morning when the whole breakfast offering is very limited, not even a banana to be had on the whole of the ship apparently - shame that breakfast experience is the final memory you take with you.

Obviously for me the food and dining experience is going to colour my judgment of the whole cruise experience because of my gluten free diet but to compound that there was lots wrong with the RCI dining experience from bungling waiters in the MDR to ones in both the MDR and W/J who were indifferent and unhelpful; There are certainly not enough tables for 2; Food is generally low quality.

Regards

Wish I had found this thread when I was looking before I sailed (I think more people need to put Gluten Free in the titles of their posts and make them more descriptive/informative) but I am so glad it's here as I have been looking for the right forum to post my gluten free gripes. Hopefully the louder we speak up the more likely we are to see change. I don't see my gluten intolerance as a disability, illness or hassle and I don't see why other people should treat me with any disdain because of it.

We have just returned from 12 days in the Baltic on RCI Jewel. Whilst you can hop off the boat and find wonderful gluten free pastries and cakes in both specialised and regular bakeries in Sweden (we visted both Stockholm and Gothenburg), along with GF in most Macdonalds (if that's your sort of thing) the GF experience on board the Jewel was pretty dismal. By the end of the trip I felt very much humiliated by staff who were too busy or ignorant to be bothered to help me. In any case the 'normal' food on the Jewel varies from good to inedible.

I feel RCI, on this ship at least, are just not really trying. In fact cruise lines in general need to cotton on to the fact that there are are lots of coeliacs out there and mostly they travel with families or friends. If they do not cater for the coeliac in the group then the whole party will go elsewhere next time so mulitplied up that's quite a lot of disgruntled people. All it takes is a separate area to cater for speciality foods and special diets (not just GF) and healthy eating, with careful labelling, separation to avoid cross contamination and an appointed catering crew member with dietary knowledge to make contact with those on board with special requirements to ensure they get a VARIETY of safe foods. Surely they are missing a trick here - they could make healthy eating a selling point. We don't all want beans, chips and burgers coeliac or not. Have just read about the processed eggs - glad i did not have any of those.

I cruised 10 years ago on the old Airtours Sunbird and they did much better than this. As knowledge of Coeliac disease amongst the general public is much better now than it was then I really assumed that my experience would be even better this time. There is no excuse in this day and age for RCI's performance here.

I will post a full run down of my experience here when I have calmed down.

:mad:

Regards

Drift Wood

PS. The ship and the cruise by the way were fantastic (apart from the Northern European weather).