Solo Cruiser (new to Celebrity, D+ on RCL) on Eclipse - Food and Spa questions

[smokey7722]

Hey all, I am new to Celebrity but have cruised with RCL for ~20 years and am Diamond Plus so am matched as an "Elite" Celebrity guest.  I booked a Concierge cabin as a solo cruiser on the Eclipse and had a few questions I figured I would throw out there to see if anyone had any thoughts!

 

Food...

I am lactose intolerant and with RCL it was a complete mess on the cruise I went on earlier this year.  While the wait staff is eager to help, unfortunately they are just untrained and I don't hold that against them personally.  The chef's are trained as expected and make it very easy but obviously we don't interact with the chef's on a daily basis at every food venue.  On RCL I had a lengthy meeting with the restaurant mgr and the head chef discussing these concerns.  They specifically told me not to bother filling out the special needs form for lactose intolerance as its quite common and to just talk to a restaurant manager.  I found most of these folk, while happy to help, are untrained in dietary restrictions.  They did say I should preorder my dinners the night before though and if I am doing that I may as well just fill in the special needs form so I can also determine if it would be better to go to a specialty dining venue when the MDR menu doesn't have options for me.

 

My question is has anyone who has a food intolerance had better experiences with Celebrity?  Do they label items in the buffet or any venue's menus?  RCL doesn't label much if anything and their reasoning is that "due to cross contamination from guests we can't control allergens" when at the buffet and I get that but its a stupid comment as I don't even know if it was cooked with lactose or dairy ingredients at all.  The head chef at the buffet ended up spending 20 minutes walking through pointing at each item telling me yes or no when I would visit and that's just a waste of everyone's time when a simple label would resolve that issue.

 

Spa?

Due to my RCL Diamond Plus status it is usually most cost effective to book a massage on the ship and use my onboard discounts.  Celebrity looks like gives me 15% off for Elite status so I am trying to determine if the online *sales* are more or less than that.  I've found some older reported normal price sheets online but not sure how accurate they are.  The Celebrity website shows what they call discounts but they don't show original price so I don't know if the 15% discount onboard would be a better option.  I usually book a massage once I am onboard and schedule it for that afternoon as we depart.

Edited September 3, 2023 by smokey7722
Typo

[wrk2cruise]

Since you are in a suite (CS) I wouldn't worry too much about it.  You should be contacted by the Shoreside Concierge a week or 2 prior to your sailing.  At that time I would make sure to make them aware and they should get it to the info to the ship.  When you go to Luminae the first time mention it to the hostess who should have the Maitre'd speak with you.   The waiters will also generally ask you at your first seating about any dietary restrictions.   They will seat you with the same wait staff each time you dine there.  Reviewing the menu and ordering the night before they will take good care of you.

 

If dining in the buffet use the multiple assistant Maitre'd circulating (shirt and tie) to answer any questions as the line people won't know.  The Maitre'd will either know or ask the chef for you.

 

Lately they are very good at labeling vegan and gluten free items.  Lactose probably not.

[smokey7722]

4 minutes ago, wrk2cruise said:

Since you are in a suite (CS) I wouldn't worry too much about it.  You should be contacted by the Shoreside Concierge a week or 2 prior to your sailing.  At that time I would make sure to make them aware and they should get it to the info to the ship.  When you go to Luminae the first time mention it to the hostess who should have the Maitre'd speak with you.   The waiters will also generally ask you at your first seating about any dietary restrictions.   They will seat you with the same wait staff each time you dine there.  Reviewing the menu and ordering the night before they will take good care of you.

 

If dining in the buffet use the multiple assistant Maitre'd circulating (shirt and tie) to answer any questions as the line people won't know.  The Maitre'd will either know or ask the chef for you.

 

Lately they are very good at labeling vegan and gluten free items.  Lactose probably not.

 

Sorry about that, its a Concierge cabin - not suite.  I fixed the typo!

 

I don't expect lactose labeling - I was just really shocked at how even vegan or gluten free wasn't labeled or otherwise on RCL.  It was a complete mess and took way too much time to figure out.  Once figured out the food was fine but I'm on vacation and would prefer to avoid spending a ton of time doing that vs just enjoying myself you know?

[hcat]

E + on X.. I booked spa ahead with the discount price incl grats on line.. prices vary as to date and time.

 

Have not looked at ongoing sales

[DaisyFire]

I am also lactose intolerant… and found most waiters and staff to be very accommodating on my Feb ‘23 cruise. However, it did take me a while to figure out what to say or ask for. 
 

Butter is not an issue for me so it wasn’t too bad. I just asked if an entree had any milk or cheese and generally could gauge from the menu description or personal knowledge. Vegan labeled entrees were always safe - but there aren’t many of these. 
 

Lactose free milk is available on the ship - but never shown. You must ask for it - even in the buffet. 

 

And desserts are the biggest challenge. There’s always sorbet - but flavor changes every night and I didn’t always like what was on offer. There are sometimes vegan options in Cafe Al Bacio so I’d usually skip the offering in MDR and grab coffee and dessert later. 
 

The one exception was our dinner in Murano. They bent over backwards to make sure I had a delicious dessert and cappuccino - without milk. 

 

[CeleryCruiser]

In our last cruise on Edge waiters were quite well informed and trained about the lactose free and other dietary options. In MDR menu there are typically a sign to mark  lactose or milk free options - but not in all. In my opinion they have learned their lesson and waiters ask about your food allergies before they start serving. I had both very good service (they made the same portion without mascarpone) and a bad one - they informed the ingredients wrong. Lactose is sometimes difficult as it might be also as a "sugar" in some products like in meat cold cuts or lurking in desserts as condensed milk.

[smokey7722]

1 minute ago, DaisyFire said:

I am also lactose intolerant… and found most waiters and staff to be very accommodating on my Feb ‘23 cruise. However, it did take me a while to figure out what to say or ask for. 
 

Butter is not an issue for me so it wasn’t too bad. I just asked if an entree had any milk or cheese and generally could gauge from the menu description or personal knowledge. Vegan labeled entrees were always safe - but there aren’t many of these. 
 

Lactose free milk is available on the ship - but never shown. You must ask for it - even in the buffet. 

 

And desserts are the biggest challenge. There’s always sorbet - but flavor changes every night and I didn’t always like what was on offer. There are sometimes vegan options in Cafe Al Bacio so I’d usually skip the offering in MDR and grab coffee and dessert later. 
 

The one exception was our dinner in Murano. They bent over backwards to make sure I had a delicious dessert and cappuccino - without milk. 

 

 

Thanks for the feedback!  Butter for me is bad so that can be an issue if they are using normal butter vs clarified.  Most breads they baked at RCL have no butter (benefit of talking to head chef on day 2 is I was able to get a lot more detail on cooking throughout the ship like this) or dairy at all, obviously with the cheese bread being an exception as well as croissants.

 

I'm 2 years into being intolerant and have learned quite a bit so I am decent at picking things out of a menu that should in theory be ok and do look at vegan options quite a lot nowadays.  One thing that I was told with RCL though is with the preordered meals PRIOR to the ship, they were more accommodating to make special versions of something.  For example prime rib w/mashed potatoes - the mashed I can't eat due to dairy but if requested PRIOR they can plan to make a dairy free version for me using lactose free milk for example.  He said that's a lot more difficult to do if you pre-order the night before, though still a slim possibility.

 

I did similar for desserts.  It was usually sorbet or the vegan option every evening however the head waiter came by one evening with this insane dark chocolate tort one evening and brought that a few times throughout the week when he didn't have a vegan option I was interested in.

 

So far I haven't dug into the speciality dining options but had found the opposite on RCL regarding dessert.  Coffee's always were reasonably easy to get lactose free milk or I just drank it black which is my preference anyway.  Thats good to know about Murano for desserts!

[smokey7722]

3 minutes ago, CeleryCruiser said:

In our last cruise on Edge waiters were quite well informed and trained about the lactose free and other dietary options. In MDR menu there are typically a sign to mark  lactose or milk free options - but not in all. In my opinion they have learned their lesson and waiters ask about your food allergies before they start serving. I had both very good service (they made the same portion without mascarpone) and a bad one - they informed the ingredients wrong. Lactose is sometimes difficult as it might be also as a "sugar" in some products like in meat cold cuts or lurking in desserts as condensed milk.

 

Yup, the staff I encountered took it to the extreme which is fine but then wouldn't listen when I tried to clarify for my tolerance.  Lactose intolerance is not Dairy intolerance so there are some cheeses or products I can have but at one point they gave me a "caesar salad" which was dry lettuce and nothing else since they claimed the croutons had cheese/dairy (head chef confirmed nothing in the croutons) and that I couldn't have the parmesan cheese (no lactose, or effectively very little so it is rarely an issue for anyone I know thats lactose intolerant) and the dressing which had no dairy at all either.  That is the misinformed/untrained detail I mentioned. 

 

I'm thrilled they were genuinely doing their best to accommodate but sometimes it became a bit much when they were confusing dairy and lactose intolerances and then I couldn't get an edible meal at all as they refused to serve something.

 

And don't get me wrong, I went onboard with likely the entire worlds supply of lactaid pills just in case!

[DaisyFire]

53 minutes ago, smokey7722 said:

 

Yup, the staff I encountered took it to the extreme… 

 

And don't get me wrong, I went onboard with likely the entire worlds supply of lactaid pills just in case!

Yes. This happened to me as well. I can eat butter and they were always trying to take it away from me 🤣

 

And definitely had lots of Lactaid with me as well! 

[smokey7722]

4 minutes ago, DaisyFire said:

Yes. This happened to me as well. I can eat butter and they were always trying to take it away from me 🤣

 

And definitely had lots of Lactaid with me as well! 

 

I wish I could tolerate butter as it would make life so much easier when eating out.  But over 2 years I've at least figured out rough ideas on how many lactaid pills and what intervals as well as how each dairy product reacts in some cases.  More importantly, it seems like I am always educating people when they say I can't have something and I say there's either no lactose in it or such a small amount that it is effectively none (despite being dairy based).

 

I'm hoping that Celebrity will handle things better than RCL to give me an option to switch to them as I was looking to leave RCL anyway.

Edited September 3, 2023 by smokey7722

[Bobsgonecoastal]

On 9/3/2023 at 10:26 AM, smokey7722 said:

Spa?

Due to my RCL Diamond Plus status it is usually most cost effective to book a massage on the ship and use my onboard discounts.  Celebrity looks like gives me 15% off for Elite status so I am trying to determine if the online *sales* are more or less than that.  I've found some older reported normal price sheets online but not sure how accurate they are.  The Celebrity website shows what they call discounts but they don't show original price so I don't know if the 15% discount onboard would be a better option.  I usually book a massage once I am onboard and schedule it for that afternoon as we depart.

To get the Captains Club Elite discount pre-cruise, you must book by phone, however, some of the pre cruise flash sales offered in the cruise planner may be as good.  It varies from day to day.  You will receive the discount if you book onboard.

 

bob