<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

This is in regard to my Princess cruisetour to Alaska a couple of weeks ago, which included a week on land from Fairbanks to Anchorage/Whittier (staying at Princess lodges) and then a cruise on the Diamond Princess from Whittier through the Inside Passage to Vancouver. 

Steps to take
1. When you make your reservation, make sure you tell them you are gluten-free, so it goes in your itinerary.
2. Follow their instructions to fax a note to Princess saying you're gluten-free.
3. Go online to the Princess personalizer and make sure it says gluten-free for you.
4. If you're doing the land portion, where you stay at lodges, phone each lodge a week or so in advance. (Princess says they'll notify the lodges, but the chefs say they don't get the info or don't read it.) Ask for the food manager or head chef. Don't just ask if they do gluten-free. You'll get a blanket, "of course", answer. Be specific if you're expecting bread or muffins or whatever...or it will NOT be there.
5. At the lodges, introduce yourself to the chef when you get there. On the ship, speak to the maitr' d'hotel of your dining room when you get there. (You'll find a note in your cabin.)
A couple of listmates said to tip the maitr'd'hotel and head waiter at the start of the ship. This is wasted money. If they know gf, they'll bend over backwards to do their job and you can tip them at the end. If they don't know gf (as was the case with our head waiter, whom I tipped at the start, darn it), you're wasting your money.
6. Keep your guard up as you would eating at any restaurant. Aks questions. It's your dime.
7. Bring your own emergency stash. If nothing else, you may need it on side excursions or at the airports.


Bottom line. We loved Alaska. I'd go again, perhaps even with Princess, but only with caveats. What I ate (when it was gluten-free), was great.  But I'd be remiss in not telling you about the glitches. I must emphasize that I am not a demanding customer. I do not like ordering something totally special. I prefer eating off the menu with minor accommodations. I do not demand bread. (I don't eat bread at home.) I was told it would be there. I do not demand desserts or bring mixes expecting them to prepare them. Just tell me what's on your menu that is either gf or can be made so, without much ado. Bread only became of interest on this trip because if you're going out on side excursions, you may need something to take with you. You can't go food shopping in the Denali wilderness on the land tours, and when you go ashore from the ships, you may not have time to hunt down a restaurant!

Here are the glitches....

1. First night in Fairbanks Princess Lodge, I was glutened and made ill for the first time in YEARS! Their Food & Bev. Manager is evidently gluten-free and knew I was coming...yet no-one knew where the gf stuff she promised was and they had to go shopping for bread the next day. I never got to meet her. She never returned my calls....and of late, has not replied to my recent email. The chef who helped me select a salad for dinner was WRONG about what was gf and got me sick. I'm a very cautious diner. I'm not accustomed to being blindsided. Head chef was concerned, but defensive the next day. No apologies offered. The best help I got was from one of the tour desk "outfitters", and food isn't her domain. The outfitter called ahead to the next lodge and made sure I had bread to take with me into Denali. Despite knowing I was made ill, no-one followed up to see if I was o.k. 

2. On the ship...first night...waitress and head waiter brought me bread, sounded welcoming; then they told me that the chocolate mousse is the designated gluten-free dessert...no need to question, according to them. But I questioned and ended up in a sort of argument that the Kellogg's Rice Krispies in the dessert base are NOT gluten-free. I took the matter to the maitr' d'hotel, saying...hey, if they're giving that to celiac people and saying it's gluten-free, they're making folks sick. Well, that head waiter never got to serve us again, and I never did eat the chocolate mousse. (Actually, I had ice cream, sorbet, or fruit for dessert, when I did have dessert.)

3. On the ship, you will be invited to select from the lunch and dinner menus the night before, to make sure your meal is gluten-free...and the choices are really excellent. Uh...But on Italian night, the waitress brought out fettuccini that didn't look right. The sauce looked different from what I pre-ordered, so I questioned it. It turned out to be regular pasta, a.k.a. wheat. Wrong dish. Good thing I caught it. That's why I prefer not to order specialty things...like gf pasta and desserts that are wheat look-a-likes. We're safer with recognizable foods...like vegetables and fruit.

4. On the ship....Promised desserts, breakfast baked goods???? When I was given gf muffins (once!)...they were in saran wrap and still frozen.  I got some cookies half-way through the cruise, but was afraid to eat them, since they were the same cookies given to a tablemate the night before, and she's not gluten-free...and no-one thought they were gluten-free the night before. 

My assigned dining was in the International Dining Room on the Diamond Princess. We did go there for dinner every night. The supervisor who took care of our table was fabulous and he said I could try their other venues, but I was apprehensive. For lunch and breakfast, I did fine at the buffet, although their sous chef could have had better manners. I ran into him a couple of times and just asked if something at the buffet was gluten-free and he snapped at me that I should have let him know in advance that I was coming. Duh..I did everything except embroider gf on my forehead. This attitude was getting old, and I wasn't making a request, just asked a question.

What I find is that Princess literally harps on customer service at every turn. The waitstaff tells you how important passenger evaluations are.  But there is a disconnect. Maybe it's because they set the standards so high or had such an air of, "of course, we do it every day,"  and then glutened me, that I expected a better attitude and fewer glitches.

I met someone with celiac on the last night. She had the same types of experiences, although she managed to be spared getting glutened. A friend of mine who went a week later, also had three glitches. It ain't perfect. I don't expect perfection. I've even been glutened on so-called totally gluten-free tours. But there must be a better way of doing things. And the idea that one or more of those glitches can get you sick...for some folks, that's terrifying. Unfortunately, I doubt the problem exists only with Princess.

I did make several suggestions on their evaluations...
1.Use different patterned plates, like P.F. Changs does, for a meal that is specifically gluten-free (or something)....This is especially helpful when the staff speaks different languages.
2.Put a star on the food labels at buffets for major allergens or most common diets. (This was done when we visited Ulhuru in the Outback with Bob and Ruth's travel group. Can't do every diet, but gluten-free has become quite common, according to Princess.)
3.Do a better job of educating the kitchen from the top down. Kellogg's Rice Krispies should NOT be part of a "designated" gluten-free dessert. Having a big page in a notebook (I was shown) on gf is only good if the staff knows how to implement it or reads it. (The head waitress in Fairbanks' Edgewater Cafe says it's a list of all the specific foods I can eat. No, it's a list of what we can't eat...like the little cards we carry.)...and that also means knowing that the nuts on the salad are roasted in soy sauce...which we think is what got me the first night. (On the first night, they also brought the supposedly gf salad out with a huge wheat cracker on top. I sent it back for a new one. Could be, they gave me the contaminated salad, stirred up alittle. We'll never know......"What? Who me? We never make mistakes"...kind of attitude. That ticked me off more than the stomachache.  

But I'd go again. And I enjoyed the food I could eat. I know I blew my cholesterol out of the park, because I had eggs and bacon (until I saw bread below) for most breakfasts and crab legs quite a few times, because they were safe, no matter where I was eating. Alaska is salmon territory...but watch out for their propensity to glaze the fish with sauces we cannot eat.

One highlight...There is a covered wagon ride out of Denali Lodge. They do a meals in the bush. We did breakfast. Lynn, the owner, never got the message from the lodge about my being gf. (The chef said he'd call.) But despite everyone else eating piles of food, family style, when I told her I was gf, she said...don't touch it, she'll clean the grill and make mine special...and she cooks outdoors, in the bush. It was how she handled it that contrasted starkly with Princess' cocky attitude and mix-ups. I'd highly recommend that ride (the one specifically out of Denali Lodge) any time. I heard her dinner was fabulous, too, but didn't do the evening ride and never got to ask her about gf dinner.

Our airport experiences (Seattle...going) (Vancouver...returning) were nothing to talk about. I ended up with plain salads and my emergency tuna packs. The listmate (Thank you!) who offered to meet me in Vancouver airport with food would not have been allowed in. We did EZCheck with our luggage on the ship (luggage went straight from ship to our final destination, without our having to do anything), and we were literally driven from the ship to the tarmac, into the back of the airport, through security and customs. No one could have met us without a boarding pass. I can't figure out Vancouver Airport. It seems huge, but divided and you can't always get to the other half, at least not from where we were. The recommended restaurants were not on our side, nor was the hotel.

If any of you have specific questions about the Alaska Cruisetour, I'll answer them one on one. This posting is getting way too long.

Lin









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