parmesan crusted chicken

Food is always a big part of cruising. There are a lot of consistencies when sailing on the same line from one cruise to another, but even on the same ship there will be some differences whether due to the itinerary, the current head chef, or changes made by the cruiseline. Often all three. Some chefs are just better than others, some meals are itinerary specific, and cruiselines like to switch things around sometimes.

this chef never made gluten free pie crust

Differences in chefs are especially noticeable when requesting special diets. Gluten free for instance, sometimes they just send out food with no sauces or any other sort of topping and have maybe one thing available for dessert that is the same every day. Other times you get a gluten free version that is pretty much the same as whatever the regular one is. Some of them can make some pretty impressive desserts with something different every night too. Others not so much. The best we ever had was on Symphony of the Seas when ships first started sailing right after covid and there was hardly anyone onboard. The chef on that ship made different special desserts every night that were both gluten and dairy free. He even made a gluten and dairy free Grand Marnier soufflé and it was fantastic. The next year we went on Wonder of the Seas and the chef on that ship did not make any gluten free desserts. There we were told even simple gluten free desserts were impossible for them to make. One extreme to the other on similar ships both from Royal Caribbean, a line which normally has a gluten free section in the buffet, but on Wonder it did not.

pastry squares

Our cruise to Antarctica for the most part had different pastries at breakfast than what are the usual standard on cruise ships. The were denser, not as soft, flakey, or good as the usual ones. They also had a little blob of filling in the center on top rather than having filling inside of the entire pastry. They did still have normal croissants and pains au chocolate, which were better than the new type of pastry. It may be that the regular ones aren’t available in South America rather than that the cruiseline made changes. Some of the usual sort did appear at the very end of the cruise after a port where they onloaded new supplies.

serving soup in the dining room

On Holland America the main food onboard is the free food options at the main dining room, which is open every day for breakfast and dinner and on sea days at lunch and the buffet which serves breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a late-night snack daily. Breakfast is same menu every day. Dinner has some things that are the same every day and some that change from day to day in both the dining room and at the lido buffet. The lunch menu also varies, but the buffet has some everyday items then too.

duck starter in the dining room

Free food is also available at the dive-in poolside burger grill which is open noon to 6, and a taco bar next to the dive in. There are also sometimes free pastries or cookies available at the Crow’s Nest bar, but the drinks there cost extra. Premium eateries on the Oosterdam are the Pinnacle Grill which serves breakfast and lunch at an extra cost, and Canaletto which serves Italian food at dinner for a fee in a reserved section of the Lido buffet.

nachos from the taco bar

At the Dive-In you don’t have to order the burgers specified on the menu. You can add or subtract toppings or change the patty to one offered in a different burger like if you want chicken instead of beef. They also have the option of substituting beyond meat patties and gluten free buns for what’s on the menu. Food is free there, but milkshakes cost extra.

4 renditions of flourless chocolate cake

Special diets can order meals ahead in the dining room. Mostly they do a good job, but sometimes they aren’t accurate. No salt meals sometimes came salted and requesting small portions often came with larger portions than people who didn’t. They weren’t very good at gluten free desserts. Mostly anything involving cake was just some sort of rendition of their standard flourless chocolate cake and anything involving pie meant a bowl of the filling served pudding-like with no crust. Once they made what was supposed to be pecan pie with a chocolate cake bottom that wasn’t the flourless one which proved they can actually make a gluten free cake or something that resembles a slice of pie, but that was the only time they ever did anything like that. It was the best gluten free dessert of the entire cruise and I didn’t get a picture of it.

this is what you get when ordering gluten free pie

If you have more than one person on a special diet, make sure they give you separate papers to request it on. They tried making us use one paper with person A and person B the first night, but the result was if both people ordered the same thing we got one serving. And one of those happened to be that pie that was the one and only really good gluten free dessert that they made during the entire cruise so we had to share one little piece. They can accommodate special diets at anytime dining, but it works out better with a set time and table so you always have the same waitstaff who know what your needs are.

afternoon tea

Afternoon tea is available in the dining room. People are seated with random other people in the order they enter the room. Waiters pour tea for everyone and little stands of goodies are placed on each table for people to eat what they want from them. Tables with more people get more stands of goodies. There are tea sandwiches on the bottom, scones in the middle, and sweets on top. None of that was gluten free.

hot drink and pastry at the Crow’s Nest

Some things to drink are available at the Lido 24 hours a day. Pastries are available at the buffet earlier than when the rest of the buffet opens. There’s just one coffee bar in the Crows Nest for specialty hot drinks available at any time of day, but the Pinnacle Bar serves coffee in the morning.

Mariner Lunch

Sometimes there are special food events. There’s normally a Mariner Lunch at some point during any Holland America cruise. This is a special lunch in the dining room where anyone who has previously sailed with Holland America is invited. So everyone who is not on their first cruise with Holland America. The menu on this cruise had several starters to choose from, 3 mains, and everyone got the same dessert. Starters were soup, salad, or shrimp and mains were beef, fish, or vegetarian.

all kinds of cakes

One day they had an event called Cake Me Away with one station full of cakes in the Lido buffet at lunchtime. For about the first 15 minutes after lunch started they had had the cake station roped off so people could take photos of all the cakes before they started serving them. It wasn’t too crowded then, but once it opened it was a madhouse with people crowding the entire area anywhere near that station.

mini cupcakes at the chocolate surprise

On the same evening of the day with the cakes they had their chocolate surprise event. Since this was a long cruise with a lot of sea days it seemed like pretty poor planning to have both of their special dessert events on the same day. Especially since they also had a Carnival games event that very same afternoon featuring popcorn along with the games. The chocolate surprise evening is when groups of kitchen crew bring out trays of various chocolate goodies and pass them out to whoever is in the area. Finding the door where they come out with the trays is a better way to score a variety of options then hanging out where the cruise director says to be. The lounge where he said to wait on this cruise was quite a ways away from where the people with trays came out. After about 10 or 15 minutes past when the event was supposed to start a couple people with trays finally made it to that lounge. I figured it would be the same with other items so went down the hall in the direction they came from, past another lounge full of people, and on to a nondescript door in the wall where I happened to see the next batch come out. Waiting by that door was the place to be. Each time it opened a group of about 15 or so came out, all with trays of the same thing. Later another group would come out with something different. There weren’t a lot of batches of different things on this cruise, maybe 5 or 6 items. Chocolate options that I saw were mini cupcakes, chocolate with what looked like peanuts dusted in cocoa powder, white chocolate rice krispie bites, and chocolate covered cheerios. Those looked like chocolate covered raisins, but the people with the trays said they were cheerios. That was the last thing to come out and apparently not very popular because unlike the other items where people returned with empty trays, this group came back with a lot left.

too much chicken

Dinners in the dining room (and lunches too) have 3 courses with starters, mains, and desserts. Sometimes the starter portions are just a bite or two and sometimes a lot more. Mains are often way too much food. Regular desserts are generally a small portion, but for some reason they made the gluten free ones way too big. Even when asking for small portions I was usually served way too much.

breakfast breads at the buffet

Food on Holland America is generally pretty good and the Oosterdam met expectations.

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