Cruise holiday cuisine

To help you choose the ideal holiday, vegan Mike asked a range of popular cruise lines how well they can accommodate vegetarians and vegans.

Would you be tempted by a cruise holiday? If you were, you'd be joining more than 1.5 million people from the UK who enjoy shore excursions each year. This number has grown rapidly in recent years as the cost of cruise holidays has fallen, brand new luxurious ships have launched, and the range of destinations has expanded.

Current trends suggest people like to combine a hotel stay with their cruise – for example a few nights' stay at a luxury hotel in Barbados before cruising the Caribbean. Another strong trend is for life on board to become much more relaxed and informal. Many commentators refer to this style of cruising as ‘American’ and contrast it with what was seen as a more formal ‘British' style.

For dining, this means that there are no longer formal sittings in one or two large restaurants. Instead, there are numerous restaurants on each ship and they will usually serve food throughout the day. And many of these restaurants will be names that you have heard of such as Jamie’s Italian, which you can find on Royal Caribbean cruise liners.

Combined with the cruise industry’s reputation for excellent customer service, vegetarians are promised an excellent and mouthwatering choice of meals. For example, vegetarian dishes served on Princess Cruises include leek and ricotta cheese tart with vegetable ratatouille, tomato sauce and basil oil; and spinach & potato flan, spicy tomato sauce with asparagus spears, zucchini batons, cherry tomatoes, and roast potatoes.

For vegans, some cruise lines require advance notice of your diet, but once this is known, the hope is that you'll then be offered a delicious and varied choice of meals. The providers just generally aren't transparent about what exactly these meals are.

We asked some of the cruise lines that are particularly popular with UK holidaymakers about their catering provisions for vegetarians and vegans. Each had the option of providing additional information, such as sample menus. We’ve summarised their replies below. We hope that you might reflect on their commitment to veg*n catering, and draw your own conclusions.

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So that is what the cruise providers tell us, but what do you think? Please share your thoughts on how well they are doing – and your catering experiences, good or bad – in the comments below.