Cruising and kids with food allergies

[JenM328]

My husband and I are considering a 5-day cruise on the Carnival Fascination. Our 3-year old has a severe, life-threatening allergy to peanuts.

 

Does anyone have any experience with cruising with a child with a severe food allergy. Of course, we would alert the cruise line in advance of his condition and we would speak with the Maitre D and the waiter. Would this be enough? Are crew members usually pretty careful about stuff like this?

 

The big risk is cross contamination (e.g., someone uses a spoon for peanut butter and then uses the spoon for something else without washing it).

[karenem]

Hi, Jen,

 

Welcome to cruisecritic! My daughter is allergic to peanuts/tree nuts, although it doesn't look like a very severe allergy (at least so far--crossing fingers). I've only been on one cruise, so take my input with a grain of salt, but...

 

According to what I've read/heard, the cruise lines DO take this sort of thing very seriously. I've read many stories by CC members about being very well taken care of vis a vis allergies or restricted diets. However, on our cruise last summer, DD asked for ice cream. The waiter brought the standard presentation, which--you guessed it--had a peanut butter cookie included.

 

I don't think I would skip a cruise because of allergies, but I would be very vigilant. We had anytime dining on Princess, which meant getting a new waitstaff every night. Next time we're going for traditional seating so that we can get to know the waiter and take one layer of uncertainty out of the equation. Best of luck!

[sunshine40]

I cruised with my 14 yo with a severe dairy allergy in Oct. on NCL. It was his first cruise and I almost didn't take him because of the severity of his allergy, but all went well with the exception of him having very limited dining choices. A year before our cruise he had an episode where a restaurant grabbed his dry breadsticks with buttered hands and he ended up completely shutting down his airway and passing out requiring his epi-pen and paramedics so we checked everything out carefully before the cruise. All cruise ships are equipped with mini ER's on board to handle emergencies. We were set-up to meet with the restaurant manager the first day and instructed to always only order his food from a manager or maitre D and not let the waiters handle his food orders. We had freestyle dining with different waiters every night. I think a ship like Carnival with assigned dining will be an advantage to you. Your waiters, Maitre D will all know your daughter and you can plan her meals in advance. Looking back I think that is the one thing we could've done that would have helped more. I do think a peanut allergy will be easier to avoid on board and offer your daughter more food choices than my son had avoiding all dairy products. The reality was it wasn't as easy as the cruise ship lead us to believe. Trying to find food that he could eat at times could be a challenge. If I did a cruise in the future I would bring some of the things I know that are safe for him. But, as far as the concern of keeping him safe from an anaphylactic reaction, the cruise ship was wonderful! We were vigilient in constantly explaining the seriousness of his allergy to every staff member we contacted and being very blunt about explaining that if he ate the dairy product he would die. Because of their diligence to keeping him safe I really couldn't complain about his lack of a varied diet experience on board. It was our main goal sailing with him to not have to use his epi-pen and repeat that horrible experience from the year before. We were really impressed by how much extra effort the staff of our ship put in to make sure that happened for us. The Kids Club would be the only other area I would think could be an area for concern, but I would just make sure to be really straight forward with all the staff how serious the allergy is. Seems to me they could serve something to all the kids without peanuts. I remember this being my biggest worry going into our cruise, but it went so well we are considering going on another one.

[kitty9]

I would strongly recommend writing a letter to the Special Services Department of Carnival and telling them in advance of your child's allergy. And then, once you get on board, go and see the maitre'd and speak to him about the allergy and then ask to see the head waiter for your section. While they will assist you, you must be the one who is vigilant. And, if your son goes to the kid's club, I would suggest going with him every day and reinforcing to all the counselors about his allergy.

[kcocat]

One of the things we've worried about is the potential of allergenic foods while in the kids clubs. Our daughter is 4, she knows she can't have gluten & dairy, but because we have safe "ice cream" at home, she doesn't necessarily know that ice cream elsewhere might be suspect. I recently found a great way to be sure the workers in the kids area remember that our daughter has food allergies!

 

You can get temporary tattoos which list kids food allergies and stick them on their hand, arm etc. This keeps the issue "in the face" of the kid-care workers so they won't so readily forget. Here's the site for anyone interested: http://store.safetytat.com/store/ - they also have "in case of emergency call..." tattoo's which I think are great!