Azamara Club Cruises has joined Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises with a dedicated vegan menu, as well as an expanded selection of Italian cuisines in its Aqualina specialty restaurant.

The expanded dining options have been made available across the fleet, but the new vegan menu is less expansive that those introduced by Oceania and Regent.

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The vegan menu includes just 16 vegan main courses, six appetizers, four soups and eight side dishes and will only be available at lunch and dinner in the Discoveries main restaurant.

The vegan choices, which include dishes such as Tofu Satay with Nasi Goreng, Pesto Pasta with Olives and Sundried Tomatoes and Moroccan Spiced Kebab with Almond Couscous Salad Mint and Lemon, will also be served into the Prime C and Aqualina specialty restaurants.

In addition, several new dishes are now also available at Aqualina, its fine-dining Italian specialty restaurant, across the fleet.

These include authentic Italian cuisine options like Gnocchi con Salsiccia and Aragosta con Linguine al nero di seppia e Frutti di Mare.

The enhanced dining options wont impact prices either, the per-person fee for dining at either Aqualina or Prime C remains US $30 per person regardless of whether you order from the vegan menu, and in Discoveries all food is of course complimentary.

Passengers staying in suites will continue to dine for free.

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The introduction of a vegan menu for lunch and dinner expands upon Azamara Club Cruises’ incorporation of plant-based diets into its breakfast menus back in 2017, when a new breakfast menu was introduced at their Discoveries restaurant.

Even before that, though, Azamara Club Cruises had been making an effort to incorporate varied dietary needs into its menus, but vegan passengers had to let the cruise line know in advance of such preferences.

According to Donnie’s Blog, published via the Azamara Club Cruises website in 2016, Mario Kucko, Restaurant Manager of the Azamara Quest, and Iwan Pennings, Executive Chef of the Azamara Quest, encouraged guests to let the cruise line know their needs before the cruise.

“Two months prior to each voyage, the ship receives a report with a list of upcoming guests’ special dietary needs. Why is it so far in advance? Because this is when the “grocery list” for a voyage is prepared,” the blog reported.

“It all revolves around trust. Trust is very important in all matters of food and service. As long as the guest gives us proper information, their needs will be met. We never compromise when it comes to food allergies or religious diets,” said Iwan Pennings, Executive Chef of the Azamara Quest.

Now, however, the need to inform the cruise line ahead of time has been removed for vegan guests, which will no doubt welcome news for those that follow a plant-based diet.