Carnival Cruise Line has gone to great lengths to accommodate special diets.
Over the past two years, it has added more gluten-free, vegan and vegetarian options across all of its ships. It also added vegan and gluten-free menus in its main dining room (MDR).
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“Carnival can offer our guests meals tailored to the following special dietary needs: vegetarian, low cholesterol, low fat, low carbohydrate, low sugar and gluten free. Our chefs will do their best to accommodate your requests and will gladly will prepare freshly made options that meet your dietary needs,” the cruise line shared on its website.
Furthermore, the Carnival (CCL) has added Menu Mate, a technology designed to help people with food allergies stay safe.
“Our ships are equipped with the fleet-wide Menu Mate food ingredient program to serve guests with food allergies. The Menu Mate food ingredient program, easily operated on touchscreen tablets in dining venues, is powered by award-winning CertiStar software to mitigate allergy risks,” Carnival posted.
No other major cruise line has similar technology, according to Carnival.
“Our staff will ask guests about food allergies and enter any restrictions into the program. The software will then sort through all available options and show which items do not contain allergens, which options can be modified to exclude the specified allergen, and which selections must be avoid,” he added.
Passengers can also use the Menu Mate tablets on their own. There is a Menu Mate available for use near the Lido buffet.
Despite those efforts, some passengers still have complaints.
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Image source: Carnaval Corp.
Carnival passenger concerned about food safety
A cruise line may have the right menus to meet people's dietary needs and top-notch technology for sharing allergy information, but passenger safety still depends on people.
Sara White shared her experience with Carnival brand ambassador John Heald.
“The rest of the time it was the main dining room, occasionally the Lido buffet, and I was happy to get gluten-free pizza at Miami Slice and sandwiches at The Deco Deli. The gluten-free Quattro Fromaggi was so good that I could see them being very careful with my gluten-free products,” he wrote.
Not all restaurants were so careful.
“I had no problem at Pig and Anchor or Guy's Burger getting gluten-free food and feeling safe eating it. On the Lido deck, I had a lot of concerns about gluten contamination. Many people don't realize how dangerous it is for people who can't have gluten and carelessly use gluten-free tongs to pick up other items, contaminating the food,” he shared.
White was also concerned about how another food station was run.
“The other concerning section was the ice cream section, where the spoons are placed under where the cones are, so when someone took out a cone all the crumbs went on the spoons. It was no big deal, I just went and found a coffee station and a spoon. Sometimes I felt sick after eating,” he added.
Carnival takes food problems seriously
Heald made it clear that Carnival takes food allergies seriously.
“Thank you very much for these very valuable comments. I know we have worked hard last year, especially in introducing the gluten-free menu and the other things we have, such as the additional assistance we have on the terrace of the Lido for those guests who have allergies or that they really need to eat gluten-free,” he wrote.
The brand ambassador promised to share White's concerns with the right people.
“I will share this with the executive chef and I promise you that in the future we will continue to work very hard to make sure that there is no cross contamination and that we have the wonderful care that we need and, for the most part, I am already doing for our guests without gluten, so I hope you had a great time overall, leave this to me and I'll be here to help you if you need anything else, wishing you a happy new year,” he added.
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White also noted that he didn't hear from Menu Mate until the second half of his cruise.
“On about our fifth day on the cruise, I discovered the Lido counter, Menu Mate. I talked to the woman there, and she even had a chef come talk to me. I'm not sure how I didn't know that. The desk was there to talking about allergies. We had the BEST time,” she shared.
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