Bringing your own food to Disneyland

[Nauseated]

It said on the DL website that only people with dietary restrictions can take in their own food. How do I do that? I never thought to get an MD note, I could easily have gotten one, but now it's too late as I am not in my home state. What can I do?

Also, off topic, where can I get a map that shows every single ride at both parks so we don't miss out on any kiddie rides I can actually ride. Thanks!

 

[mesaboy2]

It said on the DL website that only people with dietary restrictions can take in their own food. How do I do that? I never thought to get an MD note, I could easily have gotten one, but now it's too late as I am not in my home state. What can I do?

Also, off topic, where can I get a map that shows every single ride at both parks so we don't miss out on any kiddie rides I can actually ride. Thanks!

Below is a link to the Disneyland forum--this one is about Disney World.

http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=26

 

[SMD]

Here's a recent thread about bringing in your own food.
http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3122753

Basically, if you want to bring a prepared sandwich or a few snacks that's fine. You cannot bring in components to assemble your own sandwich. Also, if your food needs to be cold, you can put it in a small, soft-sided cooler that will fit 6 cans or less. If you bring anything bigger or a hard plastic cooler they will direct you to store your food in the picnic area outside of the park.

Have you checked to see if Disney sells food that fits your dietary restrictions?

 

[perlster]

It looks like a moderator on "the other side" moved what is really a Disneyland thread to the Southern California Theme Parks forum again. There is a Disneyland forum - linked two posts above

 

[DisneyMarvelStarWars]

I have severe Crohn's Disease and cannot eat any animal proteins. My body just does not digest it and I can become very ill if I come into contact with even traces of meat or dairy. So I am pretty much a vegan because of it. I am also allergic to certain breads, have trouble with cous cous, certain vegetable and fruit skins, dried mushrooms, and food that isn't "wet" enough. I am able to find enough food in the park but I do supplement with Clif Bars, trail mix, and dried fruit that I consume with water that I buy in the parks. I don't bring in large quantities and they have never questioned me or had me present a note.

 

[krispin41]

And you can get park maps at the entrance of each park, and many other locations as well.

 

[kugelette]

We brought in yesterday: ziplock bag FULL of PB cracker sandwiches, large bag of mixed raisins, several singles packs of almonds, half a dozen fruit leathers, half a dozenbgranola bars, one of those sabra pretzel chips plus chumus, a large bag of graham crackers, a bag of Annie's bunny crackers, several singles packs of fruit snacks, a banana, an apple, and an orange. Also two full water bottles. My purse was literally stuffed with food, and they did not blink at it, just waved us through.

 

[jamalana]

Annual passholder for 10 years here. We have brought food in lots of times, and the only time they have ever said anything was when we lumped 5 McDonalds cheeseburgers (1 for DH, 1 for myself, 1 each for 2 nieces, and 1 for my nephew) in one soft sided insulated bag. Even then, they still let us in with it, but they made a comment about using the picnic area next time. All the other previous times when we brought our nieces and nephew, we each carried our own food and they never said anything about it. After that one time, we went back to everyone carrying their own food.

 

[rramstad]

My perception of this is that if each member of the party is carrying a reasonable quantity of snacks for a person, they absolutely won't even blink. Where they get a bit more hinky is if it appears you are bringing in a full picnic meal for an entire family i.e. basically large coolers are not going to fly, but everything else is fine.

Honestly, we brought in a full picnic meal for our entire family on our last short getaway day last year in July 2012. We had checked out of the hotel, and would be going straight to the airport from DL, so my wife and my mom brought all the leftover food they could carry to DL to meet up with me and the kids, with an emphasis on liquids that couldn't go on the plane, bulky stuff, and leftovers from takeout. Amazingly, no problems at all, and we had a great lunch on Tom Sawyer Island. No coolers, but two backpacks (one per person) stuffed to the gills with food and drinks. YMMV.

 

[Gisele]

Man that really sounds tasty too. Let me know the next time you guys have an awesome buffet like that again. Well hopefully I would be in the area at the time of course.

 

[bcla]

My perception of this is that if each member of the party is carrying a reasonable quantity of snacks for a person, they absolutely won't even blink. Where they get a bit more hinky is if it appears you are bringing in a full picnic meal for an entire family i.e. basically large coolers are not going to fly, but everything else is fine.

Honestly, we brought in a full picnic meal for our entire family on our last short getaway day last year in July 2012. We had checked out of the hotel, and would be going straight to the airport from DL, so my wife and my mom brought all the leftover food they could carry to DL to meet up with me and the kids, with an emphasis on liquids that couldn't go on the plane, bulky stuff, and leftovers from takeout. Amazingly, no problems at all, and we had a great lunch on Tom Sawyer Island. No coolers, but two backpacks (one per person) stuffed to the gills with food and drinks. YMMV.

The deal is that they have an official policy (buried in the dining section of the DL website) even though enforcement of that policy varies. I can't think of anyone who would be denied a sandwich, 2 oz bag of Doritoes, or a can of soda. However, beyond that is where the judgement calls come in.

So I guess the key is don't be surprised if they say it's too much, and don't be surprised if they let the stuff in. That's the thing about unofficial policies - that security can enforce it pretty much any way it wants.

 

[rramstad]

The deal is that they have an official policy (buried in the dining section of the DL website) even though enforcement of that policy varies. I can't think of anyone who would be denied a sandwich, 2 oz bag of Doritoes, or a can of soda. However, beyond that is where the judgement calls come in.

So I guess the key is don't be surprised if they say it's too much, and don't be surprised if they let the stuff in. That's the thing about unofficial policies - that security can enforce it pretty much any way it wants.

Yep. I should add the caveat that my family was under strict orders that if the security folks had ANY problems with any of the stuff we were bringing in that they should just throw it away, and bring what they could. We did not want to create any sort of problem or hassle, it was more that we preferred to not throw things away if we didn't have to.

I had assumed we'd be able to bring in some food and drinks, and that they might draw the line somewhere i.e. with the half pizza that we had as leftovers, or items like that, but they didn't care at all, from what I was told.

Perhaps an isolated incident, but the only situations I've personally seen of someone being turned away were situations where someone had an actual cooler and that was obviously not allowed.

 

[mamaCta]

The last time we went we took in a full picnic lunch including sandwiches and snacks for the whole family. No one ever said a thing.
We had rented a house. So to save money we ate breakfast at the house, packed a lunch and snacks, then only bought dinner in the parks.