We sailed with the Norwegian Joy over Christmas week 2019. When we made reservation about 8 months in advance, we asked about vegan food and were told it was no problem. That was a total sales pitch with no truth behind it. Two of us have been vegan for more than 6 years and are used to navigating non-vegan environments, but this was over the top unpleasant and difficult. Other members of our family remarked that it seemed that Norwegian Cruise Lines just didn't want us on the ship by the way they make it so incredibly awkward to have a balanced meal.

The Garden Cafe (cafeteria/buffet) didn't label anything as vegan or list ingredients and servers didn't know what was in the dishes, so every buffet meal required standing around until the chef could come out and let us know. And the answer usually was that something was made with dairy, including a lot of the Indian food. We complained at guest services and were told that green labels meant vegan. Then I showed them a photo of ham with a green label.

The main dining rooms were maximally awkward: staff handed us menus for the next day and asked us to special order in advance. Every menu on the ship was really meat heavy, so they'd be handing us a menu with choices like beef wellington, turkey medallions, chicken piccata, and then ask us what we wanted even though the menu didn't contain any vegan dishes and the maitre'd couldn't make any suggestions. That was so rude! Each night, we had to play the guessing game as to which sides could be made vegan and the maitre'd would run back and forth asking the chef what was possible. It didn't occur to them to actually offer us a vegan choice instead of making us do the work to plan our meal based on the sides. Read more