If you’re like most people, dining and drinks are top factors when choosing a cruise. Cuisine is one of the cruise lines most important and expensive offerings, with the six leading cruise lines spending $2 billion on food and beverage supplies – every year!

No wonder, when cruise lines serve up ever-more imaginative culinary programs every year to keep up with cruise travelers’ growing tastes. Gone are the days when a lobster tail served in the main dining room on formal night and a festive service of flaming Baked Alaska as a special goodbye dessert on the final evening of your sailing provide cruise diners with culinary awe to write home about – or post to social media.

More specialty restaurants, more celebrity and celebrated chef partnerships and branded-restaurants, interactive onboard culinary experiences and culinary demonstrations, more local flavors and hands-on local gastronomic, wine, spirits and food producer visits – the foodie fun of cruising just keeps growing.

Recently, one cruise industry survey of cruise food, beverage and hotel operations managers, as well as companies who provide the incredible amounts of culinary supplies needed to keep ship food and beverage programs literally afloat! – revealed some of the latest trends for the next year in three ‘priority sectors’ of cuisine at sea.

How many of these do you want – or even expect? - to see on your next cruise?

You might predict that “Instagrammable” dining experiences top savvy cruise food professionals’ lists, but that was not the case.

•   37% said sourcing and providing craft spirits was important;

•   And the same number said providing health supplement drinks was an increasingly important trend meet their ships’ guests’ tastes and lifestyles.