Freighter Travel

Food - MEALS ON A FREIGHTER

What Is On A Cargo Ship's Menu?

On the standard 12-passenger freighter cruises, your meals will be the same as the officers. If you are on ship flagged to a partcular country, you will be eating the cuisine of that country. There is plenty of food usually. If you ever want more of anything all you need do is ask for it.

There is usually little choice on the menu at any particular meal. Dick Ahern says "On most German ships 'sweet' deserts are usually not common. However, there is usually a wide variety of cold cuts and cheese at every meal that Germans seem to prefer in lieu of deserts."

Freighter Ship Meal Logistics

A typical schedule may be:

Breakfast 7:30 – 8:30; Lunch 12:00 – 1:00; Dinner 6:00 - 7:00.

The mess is usually located on either the main deck, or one or two decks above the main deck, depending on the size of the ship. You may have stairs to confront to get to the mess from your cabin. The galley can be as much as four or five decks below your cabin.

The mess steward or officers' cabin steward will be serving you as well as the officers as you eat in the officer's mess. You'll be sharing a table with the other passengers. For example, the captain, the chief engineer and first officer may sit at one table, the passengers at another, and the other officers at the other tables. Seating is the decision of the captain.

Eating With The Freighter Ship's Crew

Often the crew will have different meals, depending on their country of origin, and passengers can eat with the crew in their mess, but you serve yourself. The crew can eat exactly the same food as the officers. The officers mess has the fineries of linen table clothes and napkins, the crew's mess doesn't.

Freighter Ship Food Quality

The quality and variety of food can range from edible to excellent. There are good cooks and bad cooks, but generally the bad ones don't last long being cooped up with their victims for long voyages.

Food Outside Of Meal Times On A Cargo Ship

If you want an evening snack it will be on a self make and self serve basis. There is no room service. Evening visits to the galley are usually no problem. There is probably a small refrigerator in the cabins, so so you can store food from meals or the galley there.

Dick Ahern says: "the most important person on the ship is the cook, at least from the passengers perspective? The captain commands the ship, bit the cook commands your attention at meal time. For my tastes, Filipino cooks under cook vegetables and over cook meat. If I like a steak cooked medium, I tell steward or cook, I want it rare. An exception is bacon, which always seems to be under cooked. Remember, if you think you will need a snack around 2300 hrs., ask the steward to save you a dish of ice cream or cake, or what ever, from lunch or diner."