I’ve been writing about what we ate on a Viking ocean cruise in Central America. I’m vegan and my husband has severe food allergies. I’ve covered breakfast and lunch/snacks. I hope you ate a lot then because for vegans dinner is rough.
On our first night we went to the sit down restaurant. There was a vegan option on the menu. I was glad to see that. That night it was a cauliflower steak. It was good but it was more oily than I tend to eat. Also, we weren’t a fan of the ambience of the restaurant. It was too loud and the tables were so close that you could hear your neighbor’s conversation but not your dinner partner’s.
There is an Italian restaurant on board but it didn’t seem to have vegan options. There is also room service and it has a veggie burger in case all else fails.
We were back to the World Cafe and the buffet for all our dinners.
For some reason, the excellent salad bar options of the lunch buffet were gone at dinner. They remove them to have room for more meat options. Vegans will be eating some sort of bean dish, a grain, and hopefully some vegetables are made without butter.
There is still some fruit available at times.
The picture above stands out to me as how limited the food choices were. The husband’s allergies are such that I never eat any kind of Asian dishes around him. I was eating fried rice and spring rolls for dinner. They were good but I wouldn’t have done that if there were other options. If I remember correctly they weren’t labeled for his major allergen but may have had some of his minor ones.
The husband usually would have been eating mostly vegetarian but on this cruise he ended up eating meat because it was safer for him at dinner.
One time there was a 2 vegan dessert day!
They did have ice cream and always had one plant-based option.
Vegans aren’t going to starve but there was always a moment of panic when I walked in and looked at the buffet. It would be overflowing with food I couldn’t eat. My mind would start spinning with, “There’s nothing to eat!!!” I’d make myself take a breath and then really look. Find the one bean dish without meat and the grain. Sometimes it is hard to find your perspective when you are surrounded by people overindulging and you are so limited. But everything was really tasty. Much better than anything on the river cruises. I just made sure that lunch was my major meal of the day and considered dinner more of a light meal. It didn’t always help with the grumpiness though.
I think if I had ever gotten really stuck I could have asked for help. The kitchen probably would have made me something. They did offer to make the husband food if he was concerned about anything getting cross contaminated on the buffet. He had been talking to the staff about ingredients all along so they knew his concerns. That’s what’s nice about a small boat. Kitchen staff start to recognize you.
He never had any issues with cross contamination. The travelers on the cruise were civilized at the buffet and didn’t swap utensils. I appreciated that. Everything stayed clean.
I also like the hand washing stations before you come into the buffet. Yes, everyone uses them.
