Now it's time for everyone's favorite cruise topic - food! How does Viking deal with food allergies?

One of the most popular questions I see asked is how does insert cruise line here handle passengers with food allergies, intolerances, and sensitivities? Our experience on Viking Octantis mostly impressed me and very minorly perplexed me. 

On embarkation day, we had this letter amongst our welcome paperwork in the cabin. It confirmed Dad's avoidance of seafood and offers instructions for pre-ordering his evening meal. For the record, he never bothered to pre-order so I can't speak to whether anything would have been tweaked to fit his choosing, i.e. using a different sauce. Pre-ordering is a great option for those with gluten allergies because that often requires the extra step of preparing separately from the same cooktop that is used for everyone else.

For each day that we had made a reservation for dinner in one of the non World Cafe venues, a printout of the day's menu for that venue was left tucked into the cabin number light box. It was always folded up and stuffed inside an envelope so complete discretion was provided. 

My only two small notes that I'd suggest tweaking is thus - there was no further explanation on the menu pointing out what dishes had the allergy item. I often have the task at meals of "translating" what a food or cooking term means to Dad. He's told many a waiter "Hold on a moment please, she has to tell me what I would like." We had a discussion the other day after overhearing a couple debate whether a vegetable was eggplant or aubergine. Dad admitted he would have had no clue if he saw aubergine on the menu that it meant he was still ordering eggplant. I have no doubt that if we were concerned enough to ask the restaurant team in person to explain which dishes had the allergen, they would have been happy to go over the menu with us. If anyone would like to hire me for my onboard mealtime foodie translation services, I will be launching a new side business for the low low cost of a free cruise. All those years of watching the Food Network has to count for something right?

The second minor concern is the fact that said choices had to be turned in each day by 9AM. We never had the next day's menu left in our cabin slot until hours after nightly turndown service and we'd already returned to the cabin for bed. If we were even up before 9AM it was to head out of the cabin just in time to reach our meeting place for a shore excursion leaving no time to debate a menu and run it up to turn in. 

The menu printout for "The Restaurant" had the "Classics: Always Available" portion of the menu on the back. The items listed on the front of this printout is what changed each day.

Manfredi's is an included dining venue onboard but it keeps the same Italian themed menu every day. We ate here twice during the cruise and both times received a printout.

Another item I appreciated seeing was little signs above the stations in World Cafe that showed icons indicating whether the dish had known allergens like gluten or dairy.