This past week, I was blessed with a phenomenal opportunity to get away to the Caribbean, courtesy of an amazing person! Due to the 2 tropical storms brewing at the time of planning, we had to make some decisions based on safety and projected paths. I am also beyond grateful that my guy puts as much time as he does into planning, whether we're talking about a meal or now, he has shown that he puts the same (ok reality check this requires more) planning into a vacation, in order for me to eat gluten free. He looked into several resorts, reading reviews, looking at how recent they were, etc. For those of you that think it's hard for people who have to eat gluten free to do the planning, let me say that it is in fact possible even for those haven't spent years doing this t learn quickly. He decided on Breezes super inclusive resort. After I also looked into reviews I could find. (Yes, it's our first vacation with him planning, so I still needed the reassurance of looking. I'm going n record now as saying when he says he's got it, he has proven that now includes international travel. He had more data than I found.) Our trip was a quick 3 days (about 48 hours), but the perfect getaway at just the right time.


To get to the hotel, there are two options: either get a cab or pay for a round trip shuttle ride. We knew nothing about the shuttle option until we were set to leave. The cab fare was $29 to the hotel and $25 back to the airport. We were greeted with some awesome fruit juice cocktail at checkin and then went to our room. I felt spoiled just getting to go on this vacation in the first place. I will brag and say that my man is incredible! The room was decent. I forgot to take pics. The hotel seemed to be doing some updates while we were there, but with all that Baha Mar doing all of their updates, Breezes is going to have to step it up in order to compete. The hotel is more established and there were multiple points where the age shows from the rooms with some paint peeling to the dusty lamps to little things, but overall, I think we are aware of how harsh the humidity can be on beach places. We also visited the Baha Mar and saw what all the fuss is about.
To be transparent, usually even when I travel, I still have 1-2 of my meal replacement shakes per day, especially if I am going to have any alcoholic drinks, simply as a matter of keeping my inflammation down. They fill me up and keep me from feeling super bloated, which are important for multiple reasons. They also keep everything moving for those of us who have slow digestion when traveling. Since this was an all inclusive resort and I wanted to give the best assessment of the options, I actually tried to minimize substituting meals with shakes so I could give you the best feedback.

As far as the food goes, my frame of reference was based on my experience 2 years ago with Secrets Resorts in Jamaica. We arrived on Monday between lunch and dinner. The front desk has the hotel restaurant seating times and days posted each week. In addition, there is a buffet offered downstairs. The day we arrived though, they happened to be painting inside and set up the buffet outside on the beach. We figured it would be perfect for a gorgeous view and watching the sunset, after speaking with the chef who walked me through the line, showing me the gluten free labels and assuring me they understood cross contamination. There was nothing safe for dessert, so he offered to make me something. They made it seem like no big deal for the buffet, despite the rather unclear suggestion from the front desk to call ahead of time regarding food allergies, but not telling us what number to dial or with whom to speak. He guided us that I just needed to speak with the chef when I went to dine and even told me that at breakfast I could get gluten free pancakes. I was a little happy. :-)





Dinner was definitely good. I absolutely found plenty to eat and I think I might have even nibbled some off of my guy's plate when he went back for seconds and that plate was completely safe. A word to the wise for the non trained livers: they are all about the rum drinks and they make them strong. Since it's all inclusive, they figure everyone wants a heavy pour. Proceed with caution when it comes to drinking.
The next morning, we went to breakfast in the restaurant. Neither one of us thought to bring our phones down to eat, so I didn't capture the breakfast. There's a picture below of my omelette from Wednesday morning, which I also had on Tuesday morning. To be clear, any time there is a safe omelette option, I am always going to say yes! As far as service goes, we actually were never even greeted for breakfast, never received an offer for coffee, tea, etc, and I couldn't find anybody on Tuesday to ask about the gluten free pancakes, so I just had my omelette and some fruit.
Tuesday's lunch selection was lacking in options for the buffet. The sweet potato fries had a sign that said gluten free, but I wondered if they truly were. I had a few bites and made sure to have my probiotic. No, I really didn't eat all that cheese. I nibbled on my plate, was underwhelmed and we took some water back to the room for me to make myself a chocolate shake for lunch. It was safer, had more nutrition, and tasted better than the limited options from which I had to choose. (Pic below.)

Dinner on Tuesday made us really wish that on Monday we had paid attention to the restaurant options on Monday night. Dinner Monday was good, but Tuesday, that was the kind of meal we were both looking for, amazing! And we loved the atmosphere! We followed the rule to show up 30 minutes prior to seating for dinner and tell the staff right away about food allergies. Yes, they were on top of it! I was able to have Eve's Rendezvous for the appetizer, either salad, minus the bread (for both), no soup, any of the entrees, and the gluten free dessert.

I absolutely loved my dinner! I had Eve's Rendezvous for The Beginning, Garden of Desire for In the Garden (yes, I had him go back and get the cheese, but had already cut my whole salad up), Eve's Betrayal for The Temptation, and Forbidden for the Conclusion. All I can say is it was absolutely perfect. While our waiter wasn't super informed about what gluten free means, he was well guided by the kitchen staff. We also were able to have nice wine with dinner, instead of the spring break chug some rum with dinner feel at the buffet restaurant.

Because my boyfriend's dinner looked so yummy, yes, we took pictures of his dinner too. His entree was gluten free. He had Adam's Loin for The Beginning, The Moment for The Serpent's Brew ( we forgot to take pics, oops), The Devil's Own for The Temptation (super yummy) and Reflection for the Conclusion. The waiter also brought him about 2 weeks worth of rolls. He had 1 and I offered the rest of the basket to the college boys sitting behind us. He also thoroughly enjoyed his dinner.

We came across some cross contamination issues wandering back through the buffet area after dinner and at breakfast the next morning. Bot the flour tortillas and the corn taco shells were placed in the same container for dinner. That would of course be a big no no for those of us with celiac, so I would recommend that you have them bring one fresh from the back and use clean gloves if you're in the mood. Breakfast also offered pork loin sausage labeled gluten free. It was however sitting on top of pieces of bread, which of course means that they might have started gluten free, but that was no longer the case.

On our final morning, I had another omelette for breakfast and then decided I would give the gluten free pancake I had been told about a try. This might have been a flashback to remembering how good they were in Jamaica and I wanted to give them a try since the chef mentioned them on the first night. I am sad to say that our final meal ended in disappointment. I asked the chefs at the omelette station about the gluten free pancakes and was told that I was supposed to call ahead to request this. Again, we weren't given number to call and so far, the only consistent thing here is that it wasn't consistent. We were told they would prepare some in the back and asked where we would be sitting. We told them and sat where my guy had a direct line of vision to the chefs. As we were just about finished with breakfast, we asked our waiter to please check on the gluten free pancakes and we were informed that they were going to look into it and it would be about another 30 minutes. We had already been there close to that amount of time and decided to forego waiting any longer. That was a bit disappointing. I had eaten about half of my omelette and had a partial shake when we got back to the room.

All in all, I would say the resort in its hay day was probably amazing. I wouldn't doubt however if the resort next door managed to snag some of their best talent away. The fine dining restaurants I think are probably the best option for delicious gluten free features. These are the trips that remind me why I always come prepared with my yummy meal replacement shakes and bars, for that just in case and also so that I can eat similarly to how I do when I am home, not packing on the pounds. Overall, I would say that I have to give my boyfriend major props for learning how to research like a ninja and proving to me that he is more than capable of planning an awesome trip! The information online made the options look a bit better than what we experienced, but it was a good quick trip. We both agreed that it was important to present both sides of what we experienced. I stayed safe. We found good options for all meals, but would rate the sated dining experience with the staff as much more pleasant and on par with what we expect of a resort. We already committed that Baha Mar is most definitely going to have to go on the list of places to visit and review!
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