1st Time Disney Cruiser looking for advice (food allergy ? too)

[cmph]

Either things have been improved, or we got lucky, but DH had no trouble on our recent 7 night Wonder (Dec/Jan over New Year's). Maybe they had training sessions while in dry dock...

He has celiac, not an allergy, but the slightest cross-contamination and he will be sick for 2-3 days. It's unmistakable; the symptoms he suffers do not line up with anything infectious, and we're always able to track back to the cause. Once it was from an oat-derived ingredient in a new brand of vitamin he bought... and oats themselves do not contain gluten, they're just often processed alongside wheat. Like I said - sensitive!

So, only one thing to be concerned about (gluten), which does simplify things, but his experience was really quite good. We faxed the special health form thing in advance, and our TA had it noted on our res anyway, but I still double-checked when we boarded to make sure it was on the res (it was). We had embarkation lunch in Triton's, and the waitress went to great efforts to explain their double-checking process when making allergy orders. No prob there. In the MDRs at dinner, everything went very smoothly. Gluten-free is marked on the menus now, and one night my mom ordered the same entree as DH. It was a large pile of meat, and she asked our waiter if she could give some to DH. He very vehemently said no, no, allergy orders are prepared in a separate area, please don't share with him. On the pool deck, Daisy's D-lites staff was up-front and said they would not be able to guarantee a lack of cross-contamination; a bummer, but better to know. He went to Pete's Boiler Bites for burgers and fries instead. He waited longer, sure, but he always was passed to a chef/assistant chef, who would take down his name and stateroom number for record keeping purposes. Fries were freshly prepared away from the standard fryer. He had no trouble in Cabanas at breakfast or lunch either, always had help from staff to select his food, and Palo was fine, as expected.

I'm very sorry others have had so many troubles, but I did want to chime in that we had a great experience on the Wonder. I've read the horror stories, too, and we were prepared to deal with that, but it was honestly very positive. It seems like a lot of the horror stories were 2015 and earlier, so maybe they have implemented new training, or maybe the dry dock gave them time to redesign the kitchen prep area, who knows. He eats a LOT, as he is a weight lifter, so we're talking 2 Cabanas meals per day (except for Palo brunch day), one on deck, and MDR dinner, and none of them "light" meals; lots of chances for cross-contamination or accidents.

 

[kiford]

As I read through these...I am really convinced that food allergy people have the best luck on the Dream Class ships. The "horror stories" and bad experiences all seem to happen on the Wonder and Magic, and quite consistently over the years. If we ever take another DCL cruise...I think we will only consider Dream class itineraries.

The Dream and Fantasy have separate kitchens for allergy preparations; the Magic and Wonder have separate sections of the kitchen for allergy preparation. So those with multiple or severe allergies may find that the Dream and Fantasy are better equipped to handle these issues. I have only seafood and spinach allergies so I've not had a problem on any of the ships other than the occasional cross contamination in Cabanas where someone use a spoon for seafood on a non-seafood item that I ate. Fortunately, in that case it was a seafood that I'm only moderately allergic to (my reaction depends on the type of seafood) so I just had some gastric distress for a few hours rather than a major problem. Now I only pick something from Cabanas if there isn't seafood close to it as it is less likely that someone mixed the spoons. Minor cross-contamination in the kitchen isn't normally an issue for me, depending on what it is and how it is cooked.

 

[Delbs75]

On our first cruise I was super worried about that. I'm allergic to gluten, dairy, soy and eggs. It was included in our reservation but I went straight to the dining room when we boarded and just confirmed everything. They had all my food allergies listed.

On our first night at dinner, the server went over the menu with me and helped me choose a safe meal. Then I ordered all 3 meals for the next day and continued that every day. You can order each meal the night before.

You will have problems at the fast serve places though. They can't do anything special so you'll have to rely on the main dining areas. And you'll want to chat with someone if you choose the buffet and just find safe foods.

One morning I ordered something that contained eggs and they refused to make it for me until they confirmed that I wanted it. My egg allergy was new at the time and I forgot. So they do look out for you.

I was pleasantly surprised and had no issues. GL

Thanks so much for your response. Lots of other people on here are bad mouthing the staff and they're making me very nervous about my upcoming trip. I'm beyond paranoid with my sons allergies and always double and triple check before he eats something. I appreciate your advice, that will be one of our first stops once we board.

 

[Delbs75]

Either things have been improved, or we got lucky, but DH had no trouble on our recent 7 night Wonder (Dec/Jan over New Year's). Maybe they had training sessions while in dry dock...

He has celiac, not an allergy, but the slightest cross-contamination and he will be sick for 2-3 days. It's unmistakable; the symptoms he suffers do not line up with anything infectious, and we're always able to track back to the cause. Once it was from an oat-derived ingredient in a new brand of vitamin he bought... and oats themselves do not contain gluten, they're just often processed alongside wheat. Like I said - sensitive!

So, only one thing to be concerned about (gluten), which does simplify things, but his experience was really quite good. We faxed the special health form thing in advance, and our TA had it noted on our res anyway, but I still double-checked when we boarded to make sure it was on the res (it was). We had embarkation lunch in Triton's, and the waitress went to great efforts to explain their double-checking process when making allergy orders. No prob there. In the MDRs at dinner, everything went very smoothly. Gluten-free is marked on the menus now, and one night my mom ordered the same entree as DH. It was a large pile of meat, and she asked our waiter if she could give some to DH. He very vehemently said no, no, allergy orders are prepared in a separate area, please don't share with him. On the pool deck, Daisy's D-lites staff was up-front and said they would not be able to guarantee a lack of cross-contamination; a bummer, but better to know. He went to Pete's Boiler Bites for burgers and fries instead. He waited longer, sure, but he always was passed to a chef/assistant chef, who would take down his name and stateroom number for record keeping purposes. Fries were freshly prepared away from the standard fryer. He had no trouble in Cabanas at breakfast or lunch either, always had help from staff to select his food, and Palo was fine, as expected.

I'm very sorry others have had so many troubles, but I did want to chime in that we had a great experience on the Wonder. I've read the horror stories, too, and we were prepared to deal with that, but it was honestly very positive. It seems like a lot of the horror stories were 2015 and earlier, so maybe they have implemented new training, or maybe the dry dock gave them time to redesign the kitchen prep area, who knows. He eats a LOT, as he is a weight lifter, so we're talking 2 Cabanas meals per day (except for Palo brunch day), one on deck, and MDR dinner, and none of them "light" meals; lots of chances for cross-contamination or accidents.

Thanks so much for the info you've provided. Again, others on here did not give me the warm and fuzzier for our upcoming cruise. I appreciate your input!

 

[cmph]

Thanks so much for the info you've provided. Again, others on here did not give me the warm and fuzzier for our upcoming cruise. I appreciate your input!

No prob! I should also have mentioned that they actually label the MDR menu items that are dairy free (not just gluten free) on the menus now. I'm lactose intolerant but can just take a Lactaid if I'm eating most dairy, so that was super helpful that the make a point of having dairy-free items listed. It should simplify ordering for you a good bit, too. Actually, it's kind of funny, b/c you can put lactose-intolerance on your res online, which I did, and then regretted. I completely freaked out my servers the first night, who were trying to help me order things that would be lactose-free... I had a really hard time explaining that I could just take a pill, and that I didn't realize dairy would already be noted on the menu! They're so used to allergies, it didn't make sense to them. I think the most irritating part for DH is the whole "which things seem like they're most likely to be ok?" questions, prior to ordering, which leads to a lot of back and forth. At least you can narrow it down a bit first. The menus are ALL on the app as soon as you embark, so pre-ordering for the following day isn't as tedious as it probably sounds.

 

[Delbs75]

Well, we just got back a few days ago from our cruise and all I have to say is that I truly think some of you purposefully tried to scare me regarding the food allergies. We had ABSOLUTELY NO ISSUES WHATSOEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot rave enough about how they were all over everything with my son. He's allergic to eggs, dairy, peanuts and shellfish. Our server Kiat was amazing and so was the head server, Ivan. I was literally sick to my stomach the first day because of what some of you scared me with. I quickly learned that they check everything with a fine toothed comb before they serve anything to someone with a food allergy. They fill out the tickets the day before and have them on file for the next day. At Castaway Cay, no issues either. My son has not eaten this great in years and was over the moon happy with the chocolate cake they made him every night! I was told that he could have a donut the next morning to only find out that it had egg in it and our server brought over the box that showed the ingredients. They would not serve it and thankfully they didn't and also had me check. I'm telling you, they were a well oiled machine when it came to my son and his allergies. I didn't have to wait at Cabana's either...maybe 10 minutes at the most. It was amazing and I cannot wait for our 2nd cruise!!!

 

[cmph]

Well, we just got back a few days ago from our cruise and all I have to say is that I truly think some of you purposefully tried to scare me regarding the food allergies. We had ABSOLUTELY NO ISSUES WHATSOEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot rave enough about how they were all over everything with my son. He's allergic to eggs, dairy, peanuts and shellfish. Our server Kiat was amazing and so was the head server, Ivan. I was literally sick to my stomach the first day because of what some of you scared me with. I quickly learned that they check everything with a fine toothed comb before they serve anything to someone with a food allergy. They fill out the tickets the day before and have them on file for the next day. At Castaway Cay, no issues either. My son has not eaten this great in years and was over the moon happy with the chocolate cake they made him every night! I was told that he could have a donut the next morning to only find out that it had egg in it and our server brought over the box that showed the ingredients. They would not serve it and thankfully they didn't and also had me check. I'm telling you, they were a well oiled machine when it came to my son and his allergies. I didn't have to wait at Cabana's either...maybe 10 minutes at the most. It was amazing and I cannot wait for our 2nd cruise!!!

I'm very happy your experienced mimicked ours!

 

[MyDisWorld]

Well, we just got back a few days ago from our cruise and all I have to say is that I truly think some of you purposefully tried to scare me regarding the food allergies. We had ABSOLUTELY NO ISSUES WHATSOEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot rave enough about how they were all over everything with my son. He's allergic to eggs, dairy, peanuts and shellfish. Our server Kiat was amazing and so was the head server, Ivan. I was literally sick to my stomach the first day because of what some of you scared me with. I quickly learned that they check everything with a fine toothed comb before they serve anything to someone with a food allergy. They fill out the tickets the day before and have them on file for the next day. At Castaway Cay, no issues either. My son has not eaten this great in years and was over the moon happy with the chocolate cake they made him every night! I was told that he could have a donut the next morning to only find out that it had egg in it and our server brought over the box that showed the ingredients. They would not serve it and thankfully they didn't and also had me check. I'm telling you, they were a well oiled machine when it came to my son and his allergies. I didn't have to wait at Cabana's either...maybe 10 minutes at the most. It was amazing and I cannot wait for our 2nd cruise!!!

This was our Experience also. We could not rave enough about the level of service and care the staff took in meeting our son's food allergy needs. We had a dedicated staff member that met us at the table for every meal. He went over my son's options, and then had him choose the next days meals ahead of time. He even brought his food separately to the table, so it wouldn't get accidentally switched. Even if we went to the Buffet, he met us at the Buffet, and they made our son's food separately. They really did go above and beyond most places, including Disney World, and Disneyland. That being said, in our 11 years of dealing with our Son's food allergies, things have vastly improved in terms of options (food), especially with Gluten Free items. Disney was one of the first, and is still the best at handling food allergies.

Some people can be alarmists, but when it comes to food allergies, it is better to be safe than sorry. But now you know what to expect.

We booked our 2018 Cruise on the Fantasy (Dream last time), so I hope we have a similar experience. Currently, because of our Son's allergies, we will only sail on Disney Ships. It is also good to know the Dream Class ships fare better than the others.

Glad your trip was excellent.