Our Royal Mess on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas

Being a travel agent, sometimes you just can't pass up a good deal.  My hubby and I decided to join our daughter on a Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas cruise to celebrate her 21st birthday and her recent engagement.  Side note: we sailed on this ship in 2006 before we even knew what gluten was.  My best friend recently took a cruise on the Allure of the Seas and was very excited for me because Royal Caribbean had added gluten free options marked on all their menus.  As you can imagine, we were excited to try these menu options.   To our dismay, our excitement was short lived.

There is really no need to discuss breakfast.  As you know, there are many options available (eggs, bacon, grits, etc) The only thing I will mention, is that it would be nice if they offered GF pancakes.  Sometimes you just need a" break" from the eggs...lol.

Lunch at the Windjammer - Just like any cruise, the first day on the ship, lunch time is pretty crowded.  As we were walking around trying to decide what we could eat, we were pleasantly surprised that there was a small section that was designated Gluten Free.  The only issue was that they didn't replenish the items once they were depleted.  Great idea, no follow through.  To make matters worse, we experienced the same issue everyday at lunch and were never able to sample these GF items.

Overall Experience: F (Fill it up)
Gluten Free Knowledge: (at least they had a designated GF area)

Dinner in the Main Dining Room - There were some ups and a lot of downs during our dining experiences throughout the week.

Here are the highlights:

• Bread!  They actually had bread for us everyday and a couple days we had options.  This was a great start to our dinner.  If only our assistant waiter could have remembered we were gluten free it would have been better.
• That's it...Did we mention this was a Royal Mess?

Here are the low-lights:

• When you have any type of food allergy, the Chef likes you to select your dinner for the next day in advance.  They brought us a typed menu and told us to select our meals from this sheet.  We were surprised by some of the options, but didn't think too much of it.  After we made our selections, we were then told we chose items that they could not make gluten free,  This piece of paper was the entire menu not just items that could be made gluten free.  On the regular menus, the Gluten Free marking doesn't mean it's GF; they just remove whatever the gluten is and you get the rest.  For example, when I ordered Horseradish Crusted Salmon, I received Salmon with butter sauce.  When Dave ordered Pork with Mojo sauce, he received beef with a baked potato..Huh? 
• Salad & Dressing - We ordered a Spinach salad and received spinach leaves, three Roma tomato slices and a bottle of Olive Oil and Balsamic (make your own dressing).  Are you kidding me?
• Lobster Bisque- We were surprised we could have this option and then lived to regret it.  It was saltier than salt (if that's possible).  It was brown and just flat out inedible.  When we tried to send it back, they brought us another option: Rice noodles covered in the same Lobster mess.  Seriously?  I think I just threw up a little in my mouth recalling this experience...blah.
• After demonstrating my frustration with the meals that were offered to us, they asked me to tell them what I would like to have and they would prepare it for me.  I asked for a simple Lemon Butter Caper Sauce on  Salmon.  Sounds simple right?  Guess what I received?  They brought me the Salmon with the sauce on the side; but it was not a sauce but a salsa: Mango I think with capers...to top it off, it was warm.  I tried the "Sauce" and it wasn't bad, by itself.  When I put a little on the Salmon, totally different story...words can not describe how bad it was.  Just because something tastes good on its own, doesn't mean it pairs well with other items.  Does the chef not taste what he serves?  
• These are just a few examples of the struggles we faced in the dining room.  I don't want to bore you with dry pork, fish, chicken and lobster.  

• Overall the issue with the dining room is that even when you preselect your gluten free meal, they are not altering the ingredients to give you a similar meal; they are just removing the items that are contain gluten (gravy, sauces, breading, etc.)  When I started learning how to cook my favorite dishes gluten free I didn't take anything away from the flavor; I replaced gluten products with non-gluten products while keeping the flavor profile the same.  It's not that hard and I don't understand why a Chef can't figure that out.

Overall Experience: D- (The bread saved them from an F)
Gluten Free Knowledge:

Jade Sushi - Since we were having no luck in the Main Dining Room, we decided to enjoy one of our favorite things: Sushi.  We were told that it was delicious...we must have gotten bad advice because that wasn't our experience.  There were very limited options  and all rolls.  NO Sashimi For You!  The rolls were mostly cooked fish and the rice was from last week..at least that is how it tasted.  I could only eat 1 1/2 pieces before I called it quits.  Literally the worst Sushi I have ever experienced.

Overall Experience: F
Gluten Free Knowledge: N/A

Sorrento's Pizza - Our second best dining experience.  It was so nice being able to order gluten free pizza that was ready in 5 minutes.  It was delicious.  No hassle and great Italian flavor.  They are the best for a midnight snack!!!  Major Yum.

Overall Experience: A
Gluten Free Knowledge:   

Sabor (In Spanish it means Flavor) - You had to pay a cover charge to dine here, but it was well worth it.   This was our Best Dining Experience from flavor, to ambiance, to service to menu options.  We started our dinner with a table side guacamole.  It was the most flavorful guacamole we have ever had. The server even showed us how to make it; too bad I didn't write it down.  I ordered fish tacos and Dave ordered Tamales.  Both meals were exceptionally delicious and we topped it off with a Cucumber Mojto.  No complaints here. 

Outside of Sabor

Overall Experience: A+
Gluten Free Knowledge:   
What we learned in Austin (see last blog), is that you don't have to lose flavor or an experience to be gluten free.  The chefs on Royal Caribbean ships need to be taught this.  With more and more people becoming gluten free due to allergy or choice, the travel industry really needs to step up to the Plate (pun intended...lol).  Seriously, it is time to start making changes so that the gluten free community doesn't feel deprived of flavor and menu options.

Please don't mistake this as I am not a fan of cruising with Royal Caribbean or other cruise lines.  I love cruising!  Here are some fun pics of us on board...

Flowrider...So much fun!

Dave after a few drinks...lol

Sail Away Party