dining on anthem of seas for dietary needs

[loyalcruiser]

I am going on the anthem of the seas June 2015. I have special diet, which Royal Caribbean know about, but I am unsure how this would work for getting food prepared for my dietary needs.

 

Previous cruises in MDR have given me the menu for the next day the night before and I chose what I want and they make it up Gluten and Dairy free. However with this new dynamic dining, will mean I am not sitting at the same table, same MDR or have same staff that will know my needs.

How will it work for me to get the food prepared in advance each night, so I am not having food that I am intolerant too.

 

Don't want to be unwell on cruise because there was gluten or dairy in my food.

 

If anyone has been on quantum with dietary needs, and using dynamic dining please let me know how it worked so I can know what it will be like .

 

thanks

[crayon78]

Previous cruises in MDR have given me the menu for the next day the night before and I chose what I want and they make it up Gluten and Dairy free. However with this new dynamic dining, will mean I am not sitting at the same table, same MDR or have same staff that will know my needs.

 

They can still do that in dynamic dining (have you order the night before). But I don't think it works as well as the old MDR, at least not in our experience.

 

One reason is I'm not sure they actually make anything in advance. We ordered the night before, but when we got to each meal, the head waiter or regular waiter would come over, confirm the allergy, and confirm what people had put in for the pre-order, as it wasn't cooked until we did that. If there were something in the order that required a different advanced preparation, maybe they would do that, but when we went, they just told people what not to order when they were pre-ordering. In some ways it makes sense that they don't cook it in advance, as they don't know if you're really going to show up at your reservation time or if you're going to come earlier/later, but we didn't really see that pre-ordering made a huge difference.

 

When we went, not all of the staff seemed to even understand what the purpose of the pre-order was or what it meant. One even told us she was going to disregard it and take the order again. Hopefully in the 2 months since we were on board, there's been more training and this isn't as much of an issue.

 

One area it did help was with desserts (someone at our table was dairy-free as well). Most often they would bring over a fruit plate or some sorbet, but at one of the restaurants they actually made a nice dairy-free cake in advance. Dessert was the only area where we really saw the advanced notification of restrictions made any difference.

 

Logistically, the way it worked for us was the head waiter would come over during dinner, ask us where we were dining the next day, get us the menu from that restaurant, and take the pre-order. But like I said, I don't know that it would really be any different for the most part from just showing up at the restaurant the next day and explaining the allergies all over again. It wasn't as seamless as the old MDR where the wait staff knew your dietary restrictions, ensured that they were followed, and already knew your order. The way I look at it, it can't really hurt to do pre-ordering, but you may have to just give or confirm the order and all the allergies again when you get there.

 

The ship will be able to address the dietary restrictions. I just think, compared to the MDR way, it takes more of an active role on the diner's part to make sure that everything is accounted for and to be vigilant.