Tag: FOOD

Served expired food on my honeymoon cruise – am I owed anything?

By Christopher Elliott |

2013-12-11 14.39.11Cruise lines aren’t exactly known for their culinary experiences, but Moshe Wealcatch’s story takes the cake, as they say.

Sure, every now and then you have an outstanding meal on a cruise. I’m thinking of Remy on the Disney Dream which was easily the best meal I had all year. But generally speaking, cruise passengers are fed from buffet lines featuring fried food — and lots of it.

One thing you can count on, though, is that the fare is reasonably fresh. But Wealcatch, who honeymooned on the Norwegian Sky with his wife, Shira, says he discovered you can’t even count on that. In keeping with their religious beliefs, the couple made arrangements months before their departure to have kosher meals.

The food wasn’t what they expected.
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Who’s to blame for this tourist trap?

By Christopher Elliott |

Monhegan Island, Me., is almost too pretty for words. That’s probably how the problem started; everyone wanted to go there.

It isn’t easy or inexpensive. A one-hour ferry ride from Port Clyde, on Maine’s rugged middle coast, will set you back $32 roundtrip.
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Yuck! Carnival served me dinner with a side order of chewing gum

By Christopher Elliott |

Maybe I should have had the mashed potatoes instead?
When Marilyn Sweeney bit into a serving of sweet potato casserole during her seven-day Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Valor she tasted something unusual. It was rubbery, with a faint mint flavor.

“I did not recognize it at first,” she says. “I thought it was food.”

It wasn’t. It was chewing gum. Used chewing gum.
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Can this trip be saved? “My wife got salmonella poisoning at a Mexican resort”

By Christopher Elliott |

Chris and Shelley Harper had hoped for a week of R&R with their two young children at the Riu Tequila, an all-inclusive resort in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. But instead, Shelley ended up in the emergency room with apparent food poisoning.

I won’t bury the lede, as they say in journalism. She made a full recovery. The Harper’s bank account, however, is $1,849 poorer. (Wow, those Mexican hospitals are not cheap.) Who is responsible for her hospitalization, and who should pay?

Those are excellent questions, to which the Harpers still don’t have an acceptable answer.
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Southwest Airlines strikes out in airline food survey; Continental tops the list

By Christopher Elliott |

nutsAirline food. No, that’s not the punchline to a joke.

Air carriers serve meals, and where there’s food, there can’t be a restaurant critic too far behind. Just in time for the buys travel holiday season, DietDetective.com has released its annual airline food investigation. Continental Airlines topped this year’s rankings, winning accolades for its “free, low-calorie, high-impact meals,” while Southwest Airlines rated the lowest for offering “not much in terms of nutritional value.”
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