Vegetarian Experience

I am in the process of selecting a cruise line for a cruise in November. My husband and I are vegetarians . We cruised with NCL Dawn in June and the vegetarian food was, to say the least, not great. The buffet with the Indian choices was good, but I don't like to serve myself. When I go on vacation I want to be waited on. That's why we prefer to eat in the main dining rooms. Is there anybody who had a great experience on any ship with the vegetarian menu? I would like to know so I can make a decision on where to book our next cruise.:rolleyes:

I'm not a vegetarian, but on occasion, I have ordered the vegetarian selections on a few Carnival cruises. They are designated by a "V" on each menu, and I don't know how they manage to make the dishes so tasty, but I've enjoyed all I've tried.

A few examples of entrees at dinner:

Zucchini and Eggplant Parmigiana

Madras-Style Vegetable Curry

Grilled Brochette of Fresh Garden Vegetables

Black Bean and Vegetable Enchiladas

A couple I remember from lunch:

Vegetable Fajitas

Spinach and Ricotta Cheese Ravioli

Carnival asks at booking if you have any special dietary requirements. The only thing they do not offer is Kosher selections.

I am in the process of selecting a cruise line for a cruise in November. My husband and I are vegetarians . We cruised with NCL Dawn in June and the vegetarian food was, to say the least, not great. The buffet with the Indian choices was good, but I don't like to serve myself. When I go on vacation I want to be waited on. That's why we prefer to eat in the main dining rooms. Is there anybody who had a great experience on any ship with the vegetarian menu? I would like to know so I can make a decision on where to book our next cruise.:rolleyes:

What kind of a vegetarian are you? Are you a Vegan or do you eat eggs and butter?

What didn't you like about the food on the Dawn?

Letting us have more information might help us give you better information.

Calm seas,

Caroline

Thank you Cotton and Catmommy. To answer your question: We are lacto ovo and can eat dairy and eggs. I will consider Carnival. What they serve seems pretty good. What I didn't like on the Dawn is hard to say. I think I am spoiled by my own cooking. We have been vegetarians for over 20 years and I have cooked profesionally. I believe you really only get a fantastic vegetarian meal in a vegetarian restaurant such as Candle79 in NYC and the like. I guess the main thing I didn't like was that they played it so safe. Common ingredients, nothing exotic. When we were on the Celebrity Horizon it was the same. That was a few years back. They could have improved. Thanks again for your help

I am vegan and do not eat dairy and eggs. This makes it harder. I had excellent service on the Golden Princess last Oct. But on the Sun Princess in April it was terrible...really bad.....Many of the Princess vegetarian meals have cream and cheese but this should not be a problem for you. You may want to try Princess.

My oldest DD and her partner are lacto-ovo veggies. I always look at the menus keeping them in mind. Since 2001 I have sailed Carnival, NCL and Celebrity. I believe Carnival offers you the most choices.

Breakfast: no problem anywhere

Lunch: Dine room - 1 selection, Lido 1/more selections on the regular buffet plus fuit, salad stuff and what us omnivores call sides, grill has veggie burgers, deli has egg salad and chinese has a veggie option each day, pizzia station has cheese, veggie and goatcheese/mushroom.

Dinner: Dine room has at least 1 appetiser, of course salad, usually soup, 1 entree and I believe every dessert.

Princess also may be a good option as they do a pasta special at lunch and dinner every day. However, I have not personally sailed them and am unsure.

and had a wonderful experience on Holland America. They offer one or two vegetarian items on their regular dinner menu each night, but also have a special vegetarian menu. On our 10 day cruise we never repeated an entree! And had a wide variety of foods throughout the week. They also offer veggie-burgers at their pool-side grill and the Lido restaurant if you want a less formal lunch, as well as several vegetarian offerings on the buffet...and they were always easy to find. We found them to be extremely accomodating and anxious to please. I was concerned that my cruise was going to be a week of salad bars...but we were so impressed by Holland America that we've already book another cruise with them!

I guess we will be sailing on HAL. Princess sounds good too. It does seem like a challenge every time when you go out for dinner as a vegetarian and you go to a regular restaurant. Oh well, that's the price you have to pay for your:) conviction.

I've sailed Holland America & Celebrity eating the vegetarian choices. On HAL they had a vegetarian selection on the main menu each night, but if you wanted a choice from the vegetarian menu, they brought that around to you the night before for you to make a choice. They were very helpful and friendly. On Celebrity, I ordered from the vegetarian menu each night so I could choose between the vegetarian menu & the regular menu--getting a salad or cold fruit soup or whatever off the regular menu & main dish from the vegetarian. Our waiter was very funny & always careful that I didn't order anything with meat products. I enjoyed both experiences, but give the edge to HAL on food quality--just a personal preference.

I have also sailed both Holland America and Celebrity, and also preferred HAL's veggie options. Toward the end of dinner each night, the waiter on Zaandam would give me the veggie menu and the regular dinner menu for the next evening so I could see all of my options. Sometimes the vegetarian option on the regular menu sounded especially tasty so I would stick with that and didn't have to order in advance. I thought seeing the next night's menu was really helpful, and my tablemates loved sneaking a peek, too!

Carnival asks at booking if you have any special dietary requirements...

I'm curious as to why that would be? Obviously, they don't prepare meals especially for anyone, and the veggie menu is available for anyone to order from... Good to know they have tasty veggie selections, though.

Anyone know if Carnival has any VEGAN menu selections? My girlfriend is eats a mostly raw vegan diet, though she's planning on 'living a little' for this cruise, anyway.

And does anyone know if SOY MILK is available on Carnival?

I was on the Carnival Destiny almost two years ago and they would give me the menu the night before so I could order my meals. If they did not have anything vegan they would modify something or prepare something different. I did not have a problem getting things to eat with Carnival.

They do have salads and fruits but not the type of "raw cooking" I have seen with things being prepared. If she takes some recipies they may be willing to make some things for her.

ALL cruise lines ask about special needs at the time of booking. My late hubby needed wheel chair assistance for embarcation/debarcation. My cabin mate for Nov. is kosher and these meals need to be ordered ahead from an outside purveyor, loaded and special handled for our cruise.

this is one of the "perks" of cruising. Not having to search out resturants that meet your needs every day like on a land trip. Lo fat, sugar free, and veggie are common options generally incoporated into the general menu, especially as our boomer generation ages.

I'm curious as to why that would be?

 

.......And does anyone know if SOY MILK is available on Carnival?

There ya go! That's one of the reasons they ask about dietary requirements. If someone specifically requests ONLY soy milk, they will make sure they have a supply of it on board. Also, I was told by a Carnival F&B director that the person requiring it would have a notation by her/his name on the seating chart.:)

Moom2 - My partner is 14 years vegetarian (lacto-ovo like you and your husband). We've always been impressed by Celebrity's choice of two or three veggie options on the separate veggie menu in addition to one veggie option on the "regular" menu. In addition we normally eat two or three times in their specialty restaurants on board, and the chefs there are always creative in making up a veggie meal for him. It sounds as if you weren't impressed by your experience on the Horizon, but I'd encourage you to consider giving Celebrity another try.

We've been on HAL, NCL, Princess and RCCL, and there's always a single, token veggie option on the main menu. From this thread I'm learning that HAL has a separate veggie menu - either they didn't have that on our one and only HAL cruise (Zuiderdam last year) or our waiter was so inattentive that he didn't even offer it. I suspect the latter. As an aside, one of the few things that impressed us on NCL was the Hindu vegetarian section of the buffeet - not only were the dishes tasty, that section of the buffet was never crowded! :rolleyes:

My husband and I are lacto ovo and I too have been veggie for 20 years. We have sailed with Carnival twice and Princess once. Both offered at least one vegetarian selection for each course on the regular dinner menu. Now we are spoiled living in Seattle that has great vegetarian restaurants, and we were a little disppointed in the overall food quality.

I have to say we both thought Carnival was more innovative in regards to the vegetarian dishes. Princess served LOTS of pasta for their veggie selection.

However, desserts were better on Princess. Oh, and any cruise you go on, a little "trick" I like to do is look at the sides offered for all the dishes. You can order a side of say garlic mashed potatoes or ****akes in soy glaze on spinach to go with whatever your meal happens to be. All the waiters happily brought the sides.

Now I love food, but that alone does not a cruise make, so having said all this, I will sail again with Princess as the overall quality was better than on carnival.

:rolleyes:Thanks to all the replies. After all this good advise I put food in the second category of concern and went with the itinerary. We are sailing with the NCL Jewel 9/4/05. This cruise line was not praised for it's great vegetarian food, and I was not very happy with it on the Dawn. Now however, I found out that on NCL ships you can also ask for the vegetarian menue the night before, which no one had told as about. With this new knowledge I am optimistic. Btw are any other vegetarians going on this cruise?

SS United States 1953

SS America 1953

Celebrity Horizon 1999

NCL Dawn 6/29/2005

:rolleyes:Thanks to all the replies. After all this good advise I put food in the second category of concern and went with the itinerary. We are sailing with the NCL Jewel 9/4/05. This cruise line was not praised for it's great vegetarian food, and I was not very happy with it on the Dawn. Now however, I found out that on NCL ships you can also ask for the vegetarian menue the night before, which no one had told as about. With this new knowledge I am optimistic. Btw are any other vegetarians going on this cruise?

 

 

 

SS United States 1953

SS America 1953

Celebrity Horizon 1999

NCL Dawn 6/29/2005

We have found it helpful to immediately inform the maitre'd of your preference. On NCL, you will have different waitstaff each night, so a reminder when being seated is also a good idea.

Check out whether the Jewel has a tapas bar. They are likely to have some veggie options as a starter. The Indian section of the lunch buffet is also worth a look.

Have fun!:)

I have one DD who is vegan and one DD who is vegetarian. Mom and Dad are confirmed MEAT and SUSHI eaters. Yes - we coexist quite nicely - thank you!

We have never had any trouble sailing RCCL - done the Voyager, the Radiance and the Splendor as a family. Take a moment and just make sure the bell captain and the waiters know what you can and cannot eat. On the Splendor the bell captain came over to our table every night and if there was nothing on the menu that suited my daughter (he actually made suggestions!) he made sure that she had mounds of steamed veggies and plain pasta and tomato sauce. There was usually a fruit or veggie soup on the menu that worked, salad and fruit for dessert. The vegetarian is much easier by comparison. The buffet usually had some Indian dish or plain pasta dish and sometimes veggie sushi.

We sailed the Carnival Holiday and that was a total vegan disaster. It seemed like there was cheese in everything and they didn't/couldn't understand the concept of no eggs.

I also found that with special requests - a small tip to the bell captain and wait staff in the beginning would make things run oh so smoothly! Bon appetit!

Thanks, Arubamoose for the advise which I am going to follow. With two daughters being non-meat eaters you know what a challenge it is for them to to eat in a regular restaurant. It does seem to be getting better lately. Well anyway, I am well equipped with good advise and should have no trouble asserting myself with anybody who has anything to do with feeding DH and me.:):p;)

We sat with a vegetarian on one of our Celebrity cruises. Funnily enough her husband ordered beef every night. She had a seperate vegetarian menu and sometimes had diffuculty deciding between entrees. The waiter was always quick to order her more than one so she could try them both. She liked everything- never complained about the food or choices.

I'm also lacto-ovo vegetarian. Most of the menus offer one vegetarian meal each evening. But I don't consider one vegetarian meal a "choice" unless you consider "take it or leave it" an option. I have had good experiences on Celebrity. At least I get my own menu with several meals to select from and I've often had a hard time picking just one.

Do you need to tell anyone beforehand that you are vegetarian or can you just ask for a veg menu (lacto-ovo here)?

Do you need to tell anyone beforehand that you are vegetarian or can you just ask for a veg menu (lacto-ovo here)?

I asked my travel agent to let the cruiselines know ahead of time that I need a vegetarian diet. It depends upon the cruiselines, but it never hurts to give them advance notice. With Celebrity, we ordered from the veg. menu each evening, but on Hal we were given the veg. menu at the end of each evening to order for the next evening. Enjoy!

I'm sailing HAL Zuiderdam in April, and I've loved reading over the menus that people have posted from the ship. Unfortunately nobody has posted this wonderful vegetarian menu that (I have learned from this thread) the dining room offers every night. Does anyone who has sailed HAL remember anything specific from the vegetarian menu in the dining room and/or from the Lido at lunch? (Is there ... Indian food?!) :p Thanks everyone for what I've learned so far, I'm sure my cruise dining experience would have fallen short of its potential if I had never found out about the vegetarian menu.