2024 Updated Menu Items

We just came back from a 9 night cruise on Explorer of the Seas (the week before yeshiva week), and I decided to update this post since the food has changed a lot from when this post was first written. Here is a view of the “standard” kosher food when there is no “deluxe” fresh kosher program available.
While we requested Kosher food (and have the email confirmation from Royal Caribbean as proof), our request was lost and the chefs had to search for whatever food was available on the ship, so the menu was a little smaller then we had on our prior cruises. After many cruises that is the first time this has happened. We were the only family on the cruise getting the kosher food option (the following cruise had ~330 kosher requests). They also ran out of their normal paper plates on our last day on the ship.

As I have offered in the prior post below, if anyone from Royal Caribbean or the caterer wants to discuss the kosher food more I am more than happy to discuss.

Some of the food items (I think it was all of the food from Belgium) came in a doubled aluminum container with a doubled lid, this was nicer to have on the table than the ones covered in a plastic “bag”. There was far less mess on the table from opening all of the packaging to eat.

A quick disappointing note is that the Coconut Chicken Curry from the former kosher food supplier is no longer on the menu. That was always one of the best kosher meals on the menu. However the addition of dairy items does offset that disappointment.

Now that you know all about the food, see here for ideas about cruising on Shabbat.

Pre 2024 Menu Items

Big Update (Feb & March 2023): Back in 2022 I had a few items from Sterling, this cruise all of the kosher food was from Sterling. A large improvement is the addition of breakfast to the menu. Some of the items were turkey, brisket, salisbury steak, chicken marsala, chicken fingers, short ribs, and a dairy lasagna. Overall the food quality is the same, however it is nice having breakfast and dairy options now.

Update (June 2022, Quantum of the Seas): Cereal and milk are back to being US based packages with hechshers. The chumous no longer has babba ganoush mixed in, much better. Also had a chicken leg packaged from Sterling again, it was of similiar quality to existing food choices.

Update (March 2022, Wonder of the Seas): All of the cereal and milk were European or from Mexico sources and had no hechsher, with the exception of the Fruit Loops. This was a bit disappointing for having more limits for a Kosher breakfast. The menu was the same as in the past, however there was an interesting change. Some of the food items were from Sterling and not from Borenstein. The Sterling items were labeled Sample. The Sterling items tasted a little better than Borenstein items, however those with a long memory will remember when Royal Caribbean switched from Sterling to Borenstien a number of years ago (presumably) due to poor food quality/taste.

Update (Dec 2021): The menu is still just about the same as back in 2018. The only real difference is that the mushroom chicken has mashed potatoes instead of kugel. The other big thing to note is the butter and most of the milk is from Europe (cholev stam issues) and does not have a kosher symbol. It is also a bit disappointing that the menu has not improved since then (Royal Caribbean, if you read this I would love to discuss this with you).

Update (Feb 2019 & Jan 2020): I went on more Royal Caribbean cruises (Oasis of the Seas & Anthem of the Seas) and the food options were pretty similiar. Also see here for ideas about cruising on Shabbat.

Hi all
I recently had the opportunity to visit the Bahamas on a cruise from Royal Caribbean (January 2018) leaving from Miami, Florida. The cruise was amazing and lots of fun. When planning the trip it was easy to reserve kosher food (you call/email the cruise line in advance), however it was difficult to find out what the actual kosher food options were. So here is a post about the kosher food options onboard the ship.

Before we start, I need to mention that the staff onboard were fantastic. They were very helpful, friendly and went above and beyond with trying to feed us. If we ordered 1 item, they would often bring us 2 of them. Also I want to thank Royal Caribbean for having a Kosher food option on their ships.

One of the Windjammer officers from India spoke a decent Hebrew (I know it is called Ivrit) from his time working in Indian hotels and seeing Israelis visit after their army service.

There were approximately 870 staff working on the ship. Every single one that I interacted with was excellent. Out of the 870 staff, 13 were from the USA, and 0 were from Israel. Most staff were from places like China, India, and the Philippines.

Logistics and Food Service

On the first day of the cruise we went to the Windjammer (the large buffet style restaurant on Royal Caribbean ships) for lunch. At the Windjammer we asked an officer (someone in a captain looking uniform) about Kosher food. He sat us down at a table and said he would check what he had for lunch. He found several items and brought them out about 40 minutes later. The first day the food takes the longest as they need to prepare with the least warning. In the evening when we went to dinner in the main dining room a head waiter helped us with getting Kosher food and explaining the options. At dinner we also specified from a menu what food options we wanted the next day for lunch and dinner, as well as where we would eat it.

In the Windjammer for breakfast we mostly just selected items from the buffet. Kosher items included fresh fruit, Milk (OUD), Chocolate Milk (OUD) and several flavors of yogurt (OUD). For cereal they had large dispensers with name brand cereal (Cheerios, Fruit Loops, Special K, Frosted Flakes, etc..), however on request they could also bring you small individual boxes of cereal. Also if you ask for kosher food they automatically bring you paper goods for plates, silverware, etc.. They did not seem to have paper bowls, so we used large paper cups for cereal. All of the kosher buffet items were also on the free breakfast room service menu, if you prefer room service over the Windjammer.

For lunch we would go to the Windjammer and ask anyone in an officer uniform for the kosher food that was reserved with our cabin number. The food we selected the night before was prepared for us and held in warmers till we arrived. When at Coco Cay (an Island owned by Royal Caribbean) lunch was delivered to the island for us.

Dinner in the main dining room was nice. We reserved a time (6pm for the first seating) and everyday when we arrived they would take us to a table that was already set with paper goods.

The hot kosher food choices were all double wrapped. They had a sealed lid on the food tray, and then a clear plastic bag surrounding everything. In several cases the inner plastic lid was open a little bit from the heating process. The outer bag always remained sealed. After opening all of the plastic wrapped items you will have lots of trash on your table, the waiters usually take the plastic trash away as you generate it.

In addition to the kosher items that I will show below, for lunch and dinner there was always an option (and an offer from staff) to specially prepare things in the kitchen to compliment (or replace) the menu items. These things included whole vegetables, chopped salad (they add onion unless you request otherwise), double wrapped and baked vegetables, double wrapped and baked fish (salmon (with or without skin), tilapia, cod, etc..). For the most part we had whole vegetables that were double wrapped and baked at every meal. Some examples that we had were baked potato, baked sweet potato, carrots, and zucchini. Your kosher comfort level with vegetables, fish, etc.. is for you to determine. Also it is up to you to figure out Bishul Yisrael concerns (they will not let you in the kitchen).

One last note before we get into the food is what to do with kids. The childcare on the ship was really good and my kids kept asking to “go back to camp”. Most of the time we picked our kids up and brought them to meals with us. On one of the days my wife and I went on a shore excursion without the kids. By dinner the night before when we planned our food for the next day, we requested they bring the food items (in this case challah rolls, cream cheese, and fresh fruit) to the Windjammer where the kids eat. The childcare staff said they had never done this before with kosher food, but it worked well and was no problem.

The Food

Note: you can click images to enlarge

Appetizers

Challah Rolls

We ate far more challah rolls then I want to count. With soup, chicken, meat, butter, cream cheese, peanut butter, jelly, etc.. (not all at the same time)

Matzah Ball Soup

The chicken broth for the soup was a bit bland, but the matzah ball was decent. We had salt and pepper in the plastic silverware packets that helped with this.

As I write this my wife says she thought the soup was good.

Corn Chowder

The corn chowder was pretty good and I requested it multiple times.

Israeli Couscous & Rice and Beans

The Couscous was very moist, but overall it was fine. The Rice and Beans were pretty good and I enjoyed it.

Hummus and Baba Ganoush

This item was also a bit watery. The Chummus (I prefer this spelling), was good with the Challah rolls.

My kids thought it looked scary.

Entree

Coconut Chicken Curry

This was probably our favorite hot food option from the kosher menu.

Chicken w/ Mushroom Sauce

Braised Beef

Sorry, I lost this photo. This was tough and fatty beef cubes in a wine sauce. The sides of potato spears and green beans was good.

Beef Stew

Grilled Salmon

This salmon tasted weird. My wife and I thought it was the worst of all the food options.

Note: This is the prepackaged salmon meal. It is NOT the fresh salmon that the cruise staff will double wrap and bake for you.

Seared Flounder

Mushroom Ravioli

This tasted good and was a nice parave option.

Kids Menu

Pretzel Hotdog

Chicken Tenders

Sorry, I can not find the picture I took of this. But this was a really good item. It was breaded chicken fingers with corn (kind of creamy/salty flavored corn) on the side.

Desserts

All of the desserts were really good (by the worlds standard and not just because we were on a ship).

Pecan Brownie

Hazelnut Pafait

Chocolate Profiterole

Ice Cream

Not on the menu but always popular is ice cream. There were two sources of Ice cream on the ship.
1. Ben & Jerry’s (you need to pay extra for this)
2. Soft Serve ice cream machines near the pools. There were 3 flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. The hechsher (symbol) on the packages was KD. The package is poured direct in the machines with no other additives. The soft serve is Tiller brand Frozen Dessert Mix.

Alcohol

There are bars almost everywhere on the ship. For the most part I don’t drink alcohol, and have no idea what is kosher. But if you want to drink they probably have your beverage of choice, you just need to do your homework.

I hope you found this information useful. Leave comments below if you have any questions.

If you have questions about cruising on Shabbat see this: https://robotsforroboticists.com/cruising-on-shabbat/

Also I know this post is on a robotics blog and is a bit off topic.

Cheers and happy sailing.

The main featured image is from Wikipedia.