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Whether your kid prefers chicken fingers or caviar, he will definitely find food he'll like on a cruise. On the biggest ships, the main dining room will typically have a kids menu with all the staples (pizza, pasta, chicken fingers, fish sticks, etc.), and the buffet will usually have a pasta station, deli sandwich station (plus fixings for PB&J) and a pizza counter.
Fruit, ice cream and dessert are plentiful, and breakfast favorites (hot and cold cereal, eggs, pancakes, waffles, yogurt) will satisfy anyone.
If your child is more adventurous, she can order off the adult menu (request a half portion if necessary) or dine with you at specialty restaurants serving Asian, Italian, French, Brazilian and other cuisines. On some lines, kids can eat for a discounted rate at the extra-fee venues.
Cruise lines are aware of a whole host of dietary restrictions and do their best to accommodate. If your child is vegetarian or vegan, gluten-free or diabetic, or has any other food allergy or restriction, simply let your cruise line know in advance of sailing, and talk to the maitre d' on embarkation day.
Dining staff onboard can point you toward safe food choices. They can even bring you the next day's menu early so you can indicate what you'd like to order, and the chefs can adapt it to your kids' requirements. (Same goes for adults, too!)
Dinners in cruise ship main dining rooms and specialty restaurants usually run more than an hour -- longer than the typical family meal at home. Older children might handle this just fine, and you can always bring a book or portable video game (as long as it can be used with headphones) to entertain fidgety kids.
If you think your little ones won't make it through, talk to the dining staff about expediting service. (You might need to put in your food orders in advance.) Or ask if they can have a fruit salad ready for your child as soon as dinner begins. Try to request an early dinner seating, or show up early for anytime dining, if you have young children used to eating early.
If your kid just can't last through a formal dining experience, you still have plenty of choices. You can eat at the buffet restaurant or order room service to your cabin, though room service dinner might incur a fee on some lines. (Many parents will feed their kids early in a casual venue, send them to evening activities in the kids club and then enjoy a leisurely dinner on their own.)
Some cruise lines, such as Royal Caribbean, offer a program in which kids and parents go to the dining room together, the kids get served quickly, and then they're picked up by youth program staff, who take them to the kids club for activities while parents enjoy the rest of their meal. Other lines might have special kid lunches and dinners as part of the youth programming, though typically kids clubs close during mealtimes.
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