Easy Gluten-Free Vacation

I’m baaaaaaaaaack.

I want to take a quick second to apologize for having disappeared for several weeks. I was in the midst of the busiest time of the year at work and the final hoop-jumping to complete my thesis process. However, work has slowed down (a little), I finally finished that beast of a paper – and I’m graduating on Saturday! It’s a very happy time for me right now.

To celebrate my impending graduation, The Hubby and I took a fabulous vacation: a 7-night Southern Caribbean cruise! We visited Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Maarten, and St. Croix (pictured). Heaven! We’re already planning our next cruise.

We chose the Royal Caribbean line for several reasons, one being that it’s the favorite of The Hubby’s cruise-enthusiast parents. The other reason? You can opt for gluten-free meals when you book your cruise. 


I did have to inform our dinner waiter on the first night (you have the same one every night, for those of you that haven’t cruised before) that I was on a gluten-free diet, but that’s all I had to do. The wait staff was informed and took it very seriously. In fact, each night after dinner I was presented with the following night’s menu so I could make my choices beforehand, allowing the cooks to alter and prepare my meal separately. I felt like royalty.

Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of any of the meals – I couldn’t bring myself to pull out my camera and take pictures of my food while seated with a tableful of strangers. Plus, we were having a good time! I will say, though, that the food was excellent – we were even served lobster on the second-to-last night. Awesome.

Now, granted, I realize that dinner is not the only meal of the day. Fortunately, eating is a major part of cruising. I didn’t believe this when The Hubby told me (this was my first cruise, but not his) but I kid you not, there’s food available any time, day or night. The main café onboard was our favorite – it consisted of a huge buffet with tons of options, and the dining area was flanked by huge windows as well as a large outdoor dining area overlooking the ocean. I have to say, it was an amazing way to have breakfast every morning.

Speaking of breakfast, this is what I ate pretty much every morning:

Watermelon, cantaloupe, pineapple, grapes, a hard-boiled egg, grilled tomato, and smoked salmon enjoyed with cream cheese so I could pretend I was eating bagels and lox. YUM.

Lunch usually involved more fruit and either a big salad from the salad bar, some sort of deconstructed sandwich-like creation of meats and cheeses, or a random assortment of things I could eat. Not a big meal, but always followed by another visit to the buffet a few hours later for a snack.

I was a little nervous about the food situation before the trip since I had never cruised before; I even packed an emergency stash of Larabars so I’d have something to eat. I only ended up eating one of them the whole time.

All in all, the trip was a huge success. Each of the ports were beautiful, the food was wonderful, and I SO enjoyed being away from work, email, my phone, etc and focusing on my sweet Hubby for a week.

I’ll leave you with this – my favorite picture from the whole trip (taken by The Hubby himself):

Maho Beach in St. Maarten

Until next time –
Kelly