Five
Seriously. Five. That’s all.
I normally dread this part of the countdown as the days just seem to drag. not so much this time. I woke up a few moments ago, or so it seems, and now it’s nine o’clock at night and I’m writing this with a nice glass of some weird blend or other after a slightly more stressful day than anticipated.
We tend to be at the higher part of the organised spectrum. Ok, ok, we’re way up there at the top. I’ve spent the day compiling four documents to take with us. One is a day-by-day itinerary for the cruise and our trip to Orlando afterwards, one is a copy of our ID, a third contains copies of the endless pages of stuff provided by Sixthman, NCL and Virgin. The final document is all about food.
Yep, food.
As a few of you know already, Lady Trish has Coeliac Disease. In it’s most basic terms, it can be described as an allergy to wheat, barley, rye or oats. The actual truth is that her body has an intolerance to gluten, the protein molecule that makes bread all stretchy and delicious. If Trish eats anything larger than a breadcrumb, it makes her ill. All day in bed with stomach cramps ill. It can takes weeks to feel right again.
We cruised on Ships and Dip III just two months after finding out the reason why Trish was so tired all day. We were new to the problem and more than a little scared at the future. A ship presents a particular problem; it’s not like you can go eat someplace else if they cannot cater for you.
So, we had some problems. The buffet was right out. If someone moved a spoon from the pasta into the veg, it could be enough to contaminate. Yep, it’s that sensitive. The language barrier was fun too. I’ve always maintained the service and level of care offered by the rich tapestry of multinationals on board has been excellent on both cruises, but I cannot expect someone from Bosnia to understand advanced medical terms! Trish spent a lot of the cruise hungry.
A year on and we’re wiser. We’ve been talking with NCL on and off for over six months and we reckon the ‘freestyle’ cruising is going to suit a lot better. More full-service restaurants means a better chance of uncontaminated food. NCL have kindly stocked up on gluten-free products and allowed Trish to bring some GF-beer on board. (Beer = Barley = No-no)
We’ve even got an iPhone app that displays an explanation of coeliacs disease in 40 different languages!
In Orlando we’re done all the research and found many places that do a full GF menu and Disney were excellent last year in making Trish feel comfortable and safe. It’s something else when you go to a restaurant scared.
It’s hard to balance spontaneity with safety and ensuring a full tum. “Let’s go to this town today” “Cool, I’ll just phone all the restaurants to see who can feed me. Gimme an hour…”. We have good friends on board who showed amazing and generous patience when we spent some time with them in August last year. I hope that if we are fortunate enough to have a bite with you this year, you’ll understand if we’re a little fussy about our food!