Eating while getting food in the buffet 😖

[Locksmth]

2 minutes ago, mom says said:

Sorry that your health care providers have been lax in educating you on how to protect yourself while immune compromised. It is one of the most common recommendations. And no one here was talking about people with compromised immune systems due to disease or disorder. That's a whole separate subset of the population- one that has to be very careful about even setting foot on a ship,  let alone lining up at a buffet. 

 

PS: for the average healthy person, there are,  in fact, things you can do to boost your immune system. But this is veering way off topic.

I wouldn't (nor did I) suggest in any way that anyone else was responsible for my immune system, or lack there of.  However, being a pig at the trough is not in anyone's best interests.  Common decency and hygiene are worth the effort for everyone.  Sorry if you can't understand that.  

 

PS: "boosting your immune system" is something that starts when you are a child.  Don't for a moment believe that taking some vitamin or other substance is going to do you any good against the runny nosed person handling your food after touching their nose/face.

[ReneeFLL]

On 4/13/2019 at 10:49 PM, phoenix_dream said:

Sorry, don't agree. If I pick up a piece of bacon, or a breadstick, or whatever and eat it, without ever touching my mouth with my fingers. what's it to you besides an apparent annoyance?  I always use tongs. If my fingers have a touch of grease on them which is doubtful, it may be annoying but it is no less clean or healthy and nothing at all like double dipping. No bodily fluids involved so where and how are the germs transferred?? 

 

 

My mom taught me not to do that. It's called basic manners. You're not at home, but in a public place. Are you starving and just can't wait to eat something?

Edited April 20, 2019 by ReneeFLL

[ipeeinthepool]

On 4/13/2019 at 10:49 PM, phoenix_dream said:

Sorry, don't agree. If I pick up a piece of bacon, or a breadstick, or whatever and eat it, without ever touching my mouth with my fingers. what's it to you besides an apparent annoyance?  I always use tongs. If my fingers have a touch of grease on them which is doubtful, it may be annoying but it is no less clean or healthy and nothing at all like double dipping. No bodily fluids involved so where and how are the germs transferred?? 

 

 

We can argue if this is rude behavior, but it's no less sanitary than if the Phoenix went to the table, ate his/her food and then returned for seconds.  I don't understand why people think it presents any more of a sanitation problem.  The bottom line is you have to take measures to protect yourself.  Eat early, use napkins to handle serving utensils, go back and wash your hands after getting your food or only eat foods that are served to you.  Your choice.

[Rob the Cruiser]

On 4/17/2019 at 8:45 PM, Mike981 said:

I'm all for being smart and sanitary, but you will not change some people.
The best defense starts before you go on vacation.
Build up your immune system.

 

Please tell us how to build up our immune systems to avoid the flu, pneumonia or noro...or anything else that hasn't been solved by the greatest minds in the world.

Edited April 21, 2019 by Rob the Cruiser

[v72sonic]

Not sure if this was mentioned but how about the people that take their used water bottle and refill it at the water dispenser!  YUCK....they drank out of that bottle and put it up to the water dispenser!

PLEASE STOP DOING THIS!

ALSO STOP LICKING YOUR FINGERS WHILE EATING AND THEN GOING BACK UP TO THE BUFFET FOR MORE FOOD WITHOUT WASHING YOUR HANDS!

PLUS COVER YOUR MOUTH WHEN YOU COUGH OR SNEEZE, ESPECIALLY AROUND FOOD!

AND IF YOU ARE REALLY SICK STAY HOME!!!!!

[Stateroom_Sailor]

Our table mate at lunch had a couple issues in the buffet.  A couple women chatting, and grabbing prunes with their fingers, licking them, and going in for more.

 

Also a guy decided to cut in line, to be the next for Pizza.  When confronted, he said something to the effect, "Oh, you must be Canadian eh?  I can tell from the 'eh', and I don't have to listen to you."

 

Edited April 21, 2019 by Stateroom_Sailor

[gold1953]

5 hours ago, v72sonic said:

Not sure if this was mentioned but how about the people that take their used water bottle and refill it at the water dispenser!  YUCK....they drank out of that bottle and put it up to the water dispenser!

PLEASE STOP DOING THIS!

ALSO STOP LICKING YOUR FINGERS WHILE EATING AND THEN GOING BACK UP TO THE BUFFET FOR MORE FOOD WITHOUT WASHING YOUR HANDS!

PLUS COVER YOUR MOUTH WHEN YOU COUGH OR SNEEZE, ESPECIALLY AROUND FOOD!

AND IF YOU ARE REALLY SICK STAY HOME!!!!!

Agreed.. People should NOT use their hands to push the level for water . Next guy uses a clean cup and it is now contaminated. We see people filling water bottles often.. especially on port days . 

We fill one cup with ice and one with water and take them to our table to fill our bottles

[4774Papa]

On 4/13/2019 at 10:16 PM, bogeycruiser said:

Sorry folks but I’m going to vent.

Last Monday I disembarked the Eclipse after a 29 day B2B from Buenos Aires to San Diego. We had a wonderful time, the crew is fantastic and the ship is in great condition but every time I went to the Oceanview Cafe I’d see numerous people eating while they were in line for food. Eating in the buffet line is the first cousin of double dipping and it isn’t sanitary, people eating greasy bacon then picking up the tongs to get hash browns or sadly not using the tongs. Constantly people were walking from one station to another while eating from their plate and then there was the man ahead of me getting chicken wings one day during lunch who finished devouring one of his 15 or 20 wings, set the bone on the side of his plate and with the same hand picked up the tongs to add another 6 or 7 wings.

Most days in the Celebrity Today newsletter they mention the importance of hand washing and staying healthy onboard, it’d be nice if they would mention the basic buffet etiquette of not eating until getting to your table.

LIKE

[jan-n-john]

12 hours ago, Rob the Cruiser said:

 

Please tell us how to build up our immune systems to avoid the flu, pneumonia or noro...or anything else that hasn't been solved by the greatest minds in the world.

 

Point taken.  There is little scientifically valid evidence that one can boost one's immune system short term -- if it can be done at all, long term measures that fall under the rubric of "healthy lifestyle" would be the way, but specifics are for another place.  The best single measure is probably to choose your parents wisely.

 

That said, our bodies are generally pretty good at fighting off nasty invaders.  Nastiness is all around so they get a lot of practice.  I think completely avoiding the buffet on a cruise ship is probably over responding to the danger posed unless one has a certifiably compromised immune system due to, for example, a short term situation such as recent chemo.  For the rest of us, take reasonable precautions, and try never to go over to the dark side.  Of course, none of this excuses the boorish behavior described here, perpetrated by some of our fellow human beings, but let's face it you aren't going to change human nature.  It would be nice if the cruise companies, as a matter of policy, chose to get tougher on such infractions when they occur, but one can understand why they typically don't.  As always, (loosely) caveat emptor. 

[wpgcycler]

Unsure whether to be amused or saddened that, despite a seemingly never ending supply of nutcasery, this thread survives like the proverbial cockroach in a nuclear storm. I think Mike981 said it best way back in post #75, “If you go in public and eat, you have lost all control. Plain and simple.”

 

Do you smorgasbord activists really believe that (what you consider to be) good behaviour in the buffet line will protect you from unwanted tiny critters??? Whether your fellow passenger has sneaked a fry or a strip of bacon while in line or not, you have NO IDEA where his or her hands have been prior to entering the buffet. And what about the staff who work with the food? Do you actually believe those signs that say staff MUST wash their hands work 100% of the time? I’ve personally witnessed the dean of a medical school exiting a public toilet without so much as even looking at the sink! And even if everyone does wash, sanitize and doesn't snack while in line, they WILL touch the armrest of a chair that has not been cleaned, or a table which has been wiped with a cloth that is no longer sterile. A restaurant, whether a buffet or a 3 star culinary temple is a playground for all manner of invisible organisms - "plain and simple".

 

And I love how, when the logical fallacies of their proposed sanitation practices are pointed out, the activists turn to “good manners” as their refuge. Manners, especially in todays day and age are largely subjective. What’s important to you may be of no consequence to another - not because they’re “disgusting pigs” but because their view and priorities are different from yours AND just as valid. Furthermore, let’s not forget that manners differ greatly among different cultures. Fork in right hand or left? Some cultures eat with their hands. Bread on a separate plate or simply placed on the table? What YOU do is not necessarily what others do - and neither is right or wrong.

 

Get a life, people - or stay home. It’s the only surefire way to ensure that other people’s nasty little bugs don’t come a courting your nasty little bugs.

[Mike981]

16 hours ago, Rob the Cruiser said:

 

Please tell us how to build up our immune systems to avoid the flu, pneumonia or noro...or anything else that hasn't been solved by the greatest minds in the world.

 

Hey Rob! Since you asked your question this way, you know the answer.
Some "things" we just can't avoid. We haven't figured out how to avoid the common cold for example. But that doesn't make my point irrelevant.

BUT. My point was, if one doesn't go crazy with say, antibacterial soaps when at home, you build up a better immune system. That is it. You are better off not using them at all. But, some will anyway because they will feel better.

Again, you will not change some peoples behavior to align with your concerns and beliefs.

[jan-n-john]

30 minutes ago, Mike981 said:

BUT. My point was, if one doesn't go crazy with say, antibacterial soaps when at home, you build up a better immune system. That is it. You are better off not using them at all. But, some will anyway because they will feel better.

Again, you will not change some peoples behavior to align with your concerns and beliefs.

 

1 hour ago, wpgcycler said:

Unsure whether to be amused or saddened that, despite a seemingly never ending supply of nutcasery, this thread survives like the proverbial cockroach in a nuclear storm.

 

Get a life, people - or stay home. It’s the only surefire way to ensure that other people’s nasty little bugs don’t come a courting your nasty little bugs.

 

If you think the craziness shown in this thread is bad, take a look at one of those steak threads where people come out of the woodwork and claim that they can cook a steak to well done and maintain its juiciness and tenderness.  "You just have to know how." People believe what they want to believe. Facts? Science? Forget it.  It's as old as the human race

[C-Dragons]

2 hours ago, wpgcycler said:

Unsure whether to be amused or saddened that, despite a seemingly never ending supply of nutcasery, this thread survives like the proverbial cockroach in a nuclear storm. I think Mike981 said it best way back in post #75, “If you go in public and eat, you have lost all control. Plain and simple.”

 

Do you smorgasbord activists really believe that (what you consider to be) good behaviour in the buffet line will protect you from unwanted tiny critters??? Whether your fellow passenger has sneaked a fry or a strip of bacon while in line or not, you have NO IDEA where his or her hands have been prior to entering the buffet. And what about the staff who work with the food? Do you actually believe those signs that say staff MUST wash their hands work 100% of the time? I’ve personally witnessed the dean of a medical school exiting a public toilet without so much as even looking at the sink! And even if everyone does wash, sanitize and doesn't snack while in line, they WILL touch the armrest of a chair that has not been cleaned, or a table which has been wiped with a cloth that is no longer sterile. A restaurant, whether a buffet or a 3 star culinary temple is a playground for all manner of invisible organisms - "plain and simple".

 

And I love how, when the logical fallacies of their proposed sanitation practices are pointed out, the activists turn to “good manners” as their refuge. Manners, especially in todays day and age are largely subjective. What’s important to you may be of no consequence to another - not because they’re “disgusting pigs” but because their view and priorities are different from yours AND just as valid. Furthermore, let’s not forget that manners differ greatly among different cultures. Fork in right hand or left? Some cultures eat with their hands. Bread on a separate plate or simply placed on the table? What YOU do is not necessarily what others do - and neither is right or wrong.

 

Get a life, people - or stay home. It’s the only surefire way to ensure that other people’s nasty little bugs don’t come a courting your nasty little bugs.

Priceless. 😎

(Btw, thanks for the laugh!)

Edited April 21, 2019 by C-Dragons

[Sascol]

I've read this whole thread and I am truly disgusted.  In my mind I knew this kind of nastiness went on but to read about it in such detail and see how some people truly don't get it nauseates me.  I sanitize and wash with the best of them and have still become ill on 2 of our last 3 cruises.  Based on what I have read here, I am going to attribute this happening in all likelihood to buffet behavior and a lack of understanding by many of basic hygiene.  For our upcoming cruise this fall, we have decided that we are going to avoid the buffet if at all possible. 

[wpgcycler]

2 hours ago, Sascol said:

I am going to attribute this happening in all likelihood to buffet behavior and a lack of understanding by many of basic hygiene. 

 Sorry but, given the number of people that eat in the buffet, if it were as bad as you're insinuating, there'd never be any issue finding a lounger by the pool, having to wait for a drink at the bar, having to wait for a seat in Blu, finding a table to play cards....

[poffles]

My last cruise a lady in front of me had a bagel and my reasonableness assumed that when she was dishing up sour cream she likely thought she was getting cream cheese so I did the polite thing and mentioned that it was sour cream in case she hadn't realize.

 

With that, in order to confirm what I was saying she proceeded to scrape off the serving spoon with her finger and stick her finger in her mouth to taste ... yep she says that is sour cream ... she then proceeds to use the same finger to scrape off the rest of spoon to the edge of her plate and is about to use the spoon to use to get the cream cheese.  OMG ... I quickly said "don't use that spoon you just used your finger to scrape off after you had it in your mouth!"  She said oh you are right, she hadn't even realized what she was about to do.

 

So one has to consider not only the intentional actions but ones that are done without thinking.  I try not to think about it too hard 🙂 but sometimes we get to see it first hand.

 

I will say that I have yet to get sick on (or shortly after) a cruise and I eat primarily in the buffet.  Luck?

Edited April 29, 2019 by poffles

[jan-n-john]

1 hour ago, wpgcycler said:

 Sorry but, given the number of people that eat in the buffet, if it were as bad as you're insinuating, there'd never be any issue finding a lounger by the pool, having to wait for a drink at the bar, having to wait for a seat in Blu, finding a table to play cards....

 

You have made some valid points in this and your previous post, but you're over-concluding from them, i.e. in my view they don't support your position as well as you may think.

 

It's true that there are bugs around us all the time, and usually we don't get sick from them.  But sometimes we do.  The question is why we do when we do and why we don't when we don't.  Two points:  (1) everybody is different in his/her susceptibility to a particular pathogen at a particular time, and (2) the quantity of a given pathogen we take in at a particular moment matters.

 

Everyone's body can fight off many things, and does so all the time, but if it gets a large dose its defenses can be overwhelmed. Purely for purposes of illustration, maybe it can fight off a few "thousand" of some particular bug, but it might not manage if there are a few "million" to deal with.  The quantity of any particular bug that will overwhelm any particular body's defenses varies with the person, the bug, and over time.

 

Maybe Sascol up there in #164 just happens to be more susceptible to some particular bug than most of the rest of us.  Who knows -- and maybe Sascol is getting it from the handrails and not the buffet. So the fact that most people aren't sick and continue to hog the lounge chairs at the pool doesn't mean Sascol isn't acquiring the problem from the buffet or somewhere else on the ship, nor does it mean that Sascol couldn't improve his/her situation by being more diligent.  

 

In other words, while it's true we can't totally insulate ourselves from contact with bugs, contrary to your suggestion we can improve our chances of not becoming ill from those contacts by following common sense strategies.  It's not binary; it's probabilistic.  I eat in the buffet, but I try to hand wash and sanitize (for others as much as me) and wipe my hands a lot while there.  I try to avoid touching elevator buttons or railings with my fingertips (which is the usual vector for disease when we subsequently touch fingertips to nasal opening or lips) but rather use knuckles or my palms instead as the case may be.  So far so good -- I haven't gotten sick on a cruise yet, maybe due to being a bit careful or maybe just dumb luck, like poffles up there above this post.

 

And while it's true that there are germs everywhere, such as on the tabletops and arm rests that are wiped with non-sterile cloths as you noted, nevertheless that wipe with the non-sterile cloth possibly removes enough of the germs to keep the number down below that critical quantity that would make me sick if I ingested it.

Edited April 29, 2019 by jan-n-john

[wpgcycler]

There is not even a correlation established with buffet use and acquisition of a pathogen, let alone a cause. You’ve simply amplified my point - germs are everywhere, people will spread them, end of story.

[Sascol]

46 minutes ago, jan-n-john said:

In other words, while it's true we can't totally insulate ourselves from contact with bugs, contrary to your suggestion we can improve our chances of not becoming ill from those contacts by following common sense strategies.  It's not binary; it's probabilistic.  I eat in the buffet, but I try to hand wash and sanitize (for others as much as me) and wipe my hands a lot while there.  I try to avoid touching elevator buttons or railings with my fingertips (which is the usual vector for disease when we subsequently touch fingertips to nasal opening or lips) but rather use knuckles or my palms instead as the case may be.  So far so good -- I haven't gotten sick on a cruise yet, maybe due to being a bit careful or maybe just dumb luck, like poffles up there above this post.

 

Valid points.  Whatever I've been 'infected' with could have come from anywhere - maybe even somewhere off the ship.  Who knows.  I wash as I enter the buffet, I get my food and I then sanitize my hands before I eat.  Made it through 20+ cruises without getting sick.  Now, I have become sick on two of the last three.  I can't pinpoint any of this directly to the buffet of course but we've just decided this time that it is a chance we'd rather not take - especially after reading all of the nastiness in this thread.  Yuck. 

[jan-n-john]

13 minutes ago, wpgcycler said:

There is not even a correlation established with buffet use and acquisition of a pathogen, let alone a cause. You’ve simply amplified my point - germs are everywhere, people will spread them, end of story.

 

No.  Yes germs are everywhere and people will spread them, but that's not the end of the story.  Rest of story is that I can reduce/minimize the quantity of such germs that I ingest (reduce not eliminate) and in so doing will reduce the chance of me becoming ill. Anyone can do that by taking preventive measures, and should do so more forcefully when in a situation conducive to ingesting large quantities of germs such as in the confined area of a cruise ship..  Again it's not binary; it's probabilistic. 

[davekathy]

It's ok to sample while in line at the buffet as long as you are wearing your Celebrity bathrobe. 

[citronella]

Methinks that some of the stuff on here has been exaggerated eg. picking up jello with hands - how is that even possible ? I think I would politely take them aside and demonstrate how to use the acceptable utensil - assuming I haven’t eaten a chip off my plate while waiting for them to scoop up the jello - cause you know they would slow down the line.

 

 

 

[wpgcycler]

2 hours ago, jan-n-john said:

 

 I can reduce/minimize the quantity of such germs that I ingest (reduce not eliminate) and in so doing will reduce the chance of me becoming ill. 

Indeed - no argument whatsoever. But no matter how hard we try, neither you nor I can control the behaviour of others - which, as I recall, is the premise of this thread.

[CPCruiser4Life]

Is it wrong that I take each and every Raspberry off of each individual dessert. I don't want the dessert, just the berry. Most of the time I use the tongs, but there are times where I test out my OPERATION Skills from a 9 year old child to see if I can touch the berry and only the berry. I have a 98% success rate...couple times my pinky brushed against the whipped cream. I agree, so much easier if they just had a bowl of berries to spoon out instead of doing it this way....I agree wholeheartedly. 

[ipeeinthepool]

2 minutes ago, CPCruiser4Life said:

Is it wrong that I take each and every Raspberry off of each individual dessert. I don't want the dessert, just the berry. Most of the time I use the tongs, but there are times where I test out my OPERATION Skills from a 9 year old child to see if I can touch the berry and only the berry. I have a 98% success rate...couple times my pinky brushed against the whipped cream. I agree, so much easier if they just had a bowl of berries to spoon out instead of doing it this way....I agree wholeheartedly. 

 

Absolutely