Y’all know I love to eat. But more than just eating, I can really appreciate it when chefs and cooks of all kinds take pride in their work, plate their creations beautifully, and anticipate your reaction to see if you love it as much as they do. This is the experience I had while on the Carnival Freedom. I was lucky enough to have a private galley tour of the main dining room right as they were getting ready for the first dinner seating. But let me first set the stage for you…
Where Does All of the Food Come From?
While in port in Galveston, the Carnival Freedom loaded up 14 trucks full of food onto the ship. This is enough food for all of the decks plus an additional amount for 3 extra days just in case the ship gets diverted or stalled or some other emergency like that. The food all gets onto the ship in Galveston so that it is all FDA approved and ready for consumption. Once loaded onto the ship, the 130 chefs get to prepping. Everything they make is from scratch. They make their own stocks, pastries, and sauces. It is all freshly made. Also, nothing is saved from day to day. Food that was not eaten on a certain day will be thrown out that evening – they do not reheat their foods and serve it the next day. Everything is fresh. Even in the 24-hour “Pizza Pirate”, you can watch the guys making the dough from scratch, forming it, and putting the toppings on (and boy, is that pizza good). The chefs make up the third largest group of crew members – waiters are the first largest and room stewards are the second largest.
There are many different places and options to eat while on a Carnival Cruise Ship.
Here’s a little look at the options:
Breakfast
- Room Service
- Continental Breakfast: Open 6:30-7:30am
- BlueIguana Cantina: Open 7:30-10:30am
- Breakfast tacos and burritos
- Lido Deck Buffet: Open 7:30 – 10:30am
- Late Risers Buffet: Open 10:30am-12pm
- Seaday Brunch (only available on days at sea): Open 8:30-1pm
Lunch
- BlueIguana Cantina: Open 12-2:30pm
- Street tacos, burritos, and taco bowls
- Chef’s Choice Buffet: Open 12-2:30pm
- Everyday this is a different cuisine like Italian, French, etc.
- Comfort Kitchen: Open 12-2:30pm
- Mongolian Wok: Open 12-2:30pm
- Ol’ Fashioned BBQ: Open 12-2:30pm
- Pulled pork, barbecue chicken, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, baked beans, etc
- Seafood Shack: Open 12-5pm
- Lobster rolls, fresh oysters, snow crab, etc.
- Sushi at Sea: Open 12-5pm
- Fresh sushi and sashimi made right in front of you!
- Guy’s Burger Joint: Open 12-6pm
- Guy Fieri branded burger joint that has the best hamburgers and fries – just make sure to get the truffle aioli from the Carnival Deli to dunk them in!
- Carnival Deli: Open 11am-11pm
- Freshly carved sandwiches, grilled cheese, and BLTs.
Dinner
- Seafood Shack: Open 5-10pm
- Sushi at Sea: Open 5-10pm
- Your Time Dining: Open 5:45pm to 9:30pm
- Early Dining: 6pm Reservation
- Late Dining: 8:15pm Reservation
- Sun King Steakhouse: 5:30-9:30pm by Reservation
- Lido Deck Buffet: Open 6-9:30pm
Anytime
- Pizza Pirate: Open 24 Hours
- Swirls Soft Serve and FroYo: Open 24 Hours
On Carnival cruise ships, you have the option to choose a seated 3 course dinner each night at either 6pm or 8:30pm (it’s like having reservations). You can also choose an “eat your way” option where you can go to the seated dinner at any time and choose where you sit each night (both options have the same menus, they’re just in different dining rooms). I prefer the reservation-type option because I like getting know the waitstaff, but I’ve done the your time dining option before when I was seated next to an annoying couple and didn’t want to necessarily sit next to them at dinner every night for the duration of the cruise.
The Galley Tour
One cool activity I was able to do on this last trip was have a private galley tour of the main dining room. This kitchen is solely responsible for all of the plated dinners served in the two dining rooms and is quite the busy scene during the dinner rush! It was SO cool! I met with Panda (Executive Chef), Santano (Senior Sous Chef for the main dining rooms), Gypson (Lido deck Sous Chef), Milind (Food Operations Manager), and Marius (Senior Maitre D’). These guys are first and foremost – insanely talented, but more than that, they welcomed this Texas girl into their kitchen with open arms.
They plated every meal on the dinner menu for that night for me to try. They also explained how they made each dish, what flavors I would be tasting, and what it entails to get so many hundreds of meals out all at the same time. The head chefs of the ship all were so accommodating – and their patience with my incessant photo taking was unmatched (I might have went a little camera happy). After this experience, I have such a new appreciation for what these guys do.
Random note: The galley has an escalator in it. How brilliant is that? This makes it to where the waitstaff can carry their heavy trays upstairs to the diners up on the second floor of the dining room easily. Cool, right?
Hopefully, this answered a few questions for you! So the next time you decide to go on a cruise, make sure to introduce yourself, be nice to your staff, and ask questions. There’s no end to the list of things you could learn!
The Famous Carnival Cruise Warm Chocolate Melting Cake Recipe
Yield: 8 Servings
Ingredients
- 7 oz Semi Sweet Chocolate (good quality)
- 7 oz Butter
- 6 Eggs
- 3 oz Sugar
- 4 oz Flour
Directions
Step One. Melt the chocolate and butter together.
Step Two. Mix 3 eggs and sugar and whisk for a few minutes and add flour. Then add in the remainder of the eggs.
Step Three. Add the egg mixture to the melted chocolate mixture. Pour the mixture into ramekin cups.
Step Four. Bake in the oven at 390 for 15 to 20 minutes.
Serve with vanilla ice cream
