How Your Food Is Made - Behind the Scenes Look of the Kitchens & Bottomless Brunch - Royal Caribbean

Have you ever been on a cruise and see the staff bring out loads and loads of food at a time and wondered "was this pre-prepared?" Have you ever been on a cruise so long that the food starts making your stomach hurt and you wonder "is this even real food or was it frozen and then reheated?" I am guilty of both. As a former over eater my first foodie experience was actually in the formal dining room of Carnival Cruise Line in 2006. That was the first time I was actually wowed by food and started to appreciate it.

 I come from years of "fine dining" or maybe "upscale dining" as a teen- and I don't mean that in a condescending way. I actually was friends with someone who's parents always took everyone to high end restaurants; So, as a result of that and my age I did not really gain an appreciation for the food that was being served to me.

As I got older the cruise food started to aggravate me and I started switching up cruise lines trying to find one that had "real food". I have been on about 5 different cruise lines and I stopped at Royal Caribbean because everyone kept telling me their food is the best.

While on my last cruise I got to actually go in the kitchen and see how the food is prepared and how its made. Surprisingly, it wasn't what I expected or what my husband expected. All those perfect dishes they bring out in droves are just made to perfection. They aren't microwave dinners as a lot of people suspect. I watched them plate a lot of food and every single one looked exactly the same.
The kitchen I was in was actually a smaller kitchen (because it was the smallest ship in the RC Fleet). And they have the ability to cook unto 500 chickens at once on the stove tops, same with fish, and steak.

There are separate areas such as the main kitchen, the bakery, the dessert area, and the first kitchen I was in below where they were prepping hundreds of shrimp cocktails. We got a lot of fun facts like how many drinks did they serve us on our cruise to Cuba? It was 23,400. How many eggs did they cook us for breakfast or how many bags of flour do they go through in one trip. I even got to see how they handle gluten free orders as well.

So, what you see here are meals that are waiting to be expedited for our bottomless mimosa brunch. I am glad we took the tour because I personally had a rough week trying to enjoy my dinners. I don't know why the food has a very homogenous look, flavor, and texture. All I can guess is that they can't taste the food while they cook it so it ends up lacking flavor sometimes. A few dishes were entirely too salty like the salt fish fritters. I personally would have thrown in the towel on ever cruising again after ten (and I have done 6 while being a Celiac) because I wasn't getting good food options.

Seeing how much work they put into making the meals and just seeing how our waiter (he is in the very first photo leading the tour) went out of their way to find me something- anything to eat after seeing me not eat 2-3 nights in a row, it made me re-think my original assessments.

 I do want to add, they will try pretty hard to work with you to get you fed. They give you the menu the night before and ask you what you want to eat and if they can make it gluten free they will- and in most cases they can. 

They have gluten free breads, pastas, waffles, and cornmeal. For me towards the end of my trip I was getting worn out because breakfast was not good and I was eating bare salad for lunch because for some reason they did not have a full salad bar. So, by the time dinner came around I had been hungry all day and inevitably in a bad mood. So, when you top that with food that doesn't taste good I was like "I just won't eat". Some nights there just weren't good options so it just turned into a mess, but I photographed all the food we had and I think there was only 2 dishes I completely turned away.

Also, I have made several gluten free YouTube videos for all of the cruise lines that I have been on in the last 13 years. If you search for the tag gluten free cruise or just go to my second YouTube channel "Thefashionablefoodiva" you will find them there.

Bottomless Brunch

By the time the bottomless brunch came around I was so hungry I ordered a steak because I basically had had very little to eat the whole week. The steak was great and I managed to eat the whole thing!

My steak

Hubby's steak with poached eggs

Key Lime Pie Filling. They left off the crust so I could have it.

I did not ask for all these mimosas they just kept bringing them to me!