Wonder of the Seas
Over the course of many years and many cruises we’ve noticed that the quality of the food even on the same cruiseline and ship often depends on that ship’s current chef. My first sailing on Holland America’s Veendam brought the best cruise ship food I’ve ever had, but sailing again on the very same ship several years later the food was just ordinary. On Symphony of the Seas the chef came up with all sorts of fancy, tasty, and sometimes off-menu desserts that were both gluten and dairy free, but the chef on Wonder of the Seas was apparently not so talented. On that ship they said it was impossible to make such things.
dining room
The head waiter was awesome, but he can’t magically make food appear that the chef won’t cook. The dining room food was generally good, and they did take pre-orders for the next night so they could make gluten and lactose free versions of dinners that otherwise are not, so it was just special-order desserts that were lacking.
pizza at Sorrentos
The pizza at Sorrentos was quite good and they made gluten free without any problems. They do have a limited selection of toppings, but that’s for everyone, not just gluten-free. On Wonder you could have the same toppings as anyone else on a gluten-free pizza, unlike Quantum, another of Royal Caribbean’s ships where gluten-free pizzas were only offered in plain cheese even though they had other toppings available for regular pizzas. Lines could get quite long at Sorrentos, but we beat the crowd and got right in the day we had lunch there. Lines at the start of lunchtime on Wonder were even longer at El Loco Fresh, which had been our favorite lunch spot on Symphony. We tried going there later one day after the line had cleared and the food was as tasty as I remembered.
lunch buffet at the Solarium Bistrp
The Solarium Bistro kind of turned out to be our go-to lunch spot on this ship. It had good food served buffet style, though much smaller than the main buffet. It also did not have the crowds that some of the other places had at lunchtime which was one of the reasons we liked to go there. The line was not very long and we could always get a table.
Solarium Bistro
Table cleaning wasn’t generally done promptly at any of Wonder’s eateries. Maybe they weren’t able to expand the post-covid workforce as fast as they increased the passenger count or couldn’t find any experienced people who knew to go clean them often, or perhaps just hadn’t had time to find a balance in the workforce on a fairly new ship. There were about 400 new crew that came aboard the same day we did. Perhaps a lot of them were new to working on cruise ships and didn’t really know what to do yet, which seems likely as the tables did get cleaned more frequently toward the end of the cruise than they had at the beginning.
buffet on Wonder of the Seas
The other Royal Caribbean ships we’ve been on each had a whole gluten free section in the buffet, but Wonder did not. Being their biggest ship at that time you would think it would have the biggest buffet, but it actually seemed quite small and often crowded with empty tables hard to come by, dirty or not. On the deck plans it looks about the same size as Symphony’s buffet, but it felt a lot smaller. Whether that was due to the different layout, or to the fact that there were a lot more people onboard Wonder than there were when I was on Symphony I don’t know.
Wonderland is an Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant with a view of the boardwalk
Wonder has quite a lot of premium (aka pay-extra) eateries, but we didn’t try any of them so I can’t say whether they are worth the extra money or not. Premium eateries on the ship include The Mason Jar, which serves southern comfort food, Chops Grille steakhouse, Giovanni’s Italian Kitchen, Izumi sushi and Japanese food, Hooked seafood, 150 Central Park for seasonal and elegant dinners, Johnny Rockets for burgers, fries, & milkshakes, Wonderland for imaginative cuisine, Vitality Café at the spa, which is a juice bar with healthy juices and smoothies and homemade granola, and a candy shop called Sugar Beach.
Sorrentos
There are also a lot of places that serve food at no extra cost. The main ones are of course the dining room and buffet, or for suite guests the Coastal Kitchen. Other free eateries besides the already mentioned Sorrentos pizza, El Loco Fresh Mexican, and Solarium Bistro are the Dog House hot dogs, Central Park Café, and a soft-serve ice cream station near the pools.
promenade cafe
The Promenade Cafe has free sandwiches and desserts, but the specialty coffee and tea there costs extra. The one on Symphony always had several gluten free dessert options, but the one on Wonder never had any.
duck a l’orange in the dining room
Like most cruise ships, it would be hard to go hungry on this one. There are so many different options of places to eat and varieties of types of food that pretty much anyone should be able to find something they like. Even people who are on very restrictive diets can find food by having all of their meals in the dining room and ordering ahead so food can be altered to meet their needs.
lamb in the dining room
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