Coeliacs/Celiacs - Disney and Universal

[ChelleFeegan]

Hello All,

I recently received emails from both Disney and Universal regarding what allowances they make for coeliacs/celiacs...

I've copied the emails below for your reference in case anyone else wanted the information.

Disney

Thank you for contacting the Special Diets Team at the Walt Disney World Resort.

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Food & Beverage team is committed to offering a wide range of options to accommodate Guests with food allergies or intolerances. When booking your dining reservations, please be sure to advise the Cast Member of your special dietary restrictions. If you book online, please make sure you include your dietary restrictions on each reservation. If you have already booked your reservations and you are not sure if you included the restrictions, please contact our Disney Reservation Center at 407-WDW-Dine or 407-939-3463. Guests are also welcome to speak to a Chef or a Manager on duty when arriving at the dining location.

Whether dining at a table-service or quick-service restaurant, Guest food allergy or intolerance requirements will be addressed when brought to our attention. Due to the large volume of meals we serve, vendors and suppliers occasionally swap out product. Therefore menu items and preparation is often updated.

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts will use reasonable efforts to prevent the introduction of the allergen of concern into the food through close attention during our sourcing, preparation and handling processes. However, it is ultimately up to the Guest to use his or her individual discretion to make an informed choice regarding whether to order any particular items. Walt Disney Parks and Resorts cannot guarantee that allergens may not have been introduced during another stage of the food chain process or, even inadvertently, during preparation. We do not have separate kitchens to prepare allergen-free items or separate dining areas for Guests with allergies or intolerances.

Most Table-Service locations and Quick-Service locations in the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts offer no-gluten added products for the main menu items with or without prior notice. For instance, if a location has waffles as the main menu item, they will generally offer gluten-free waffles as well.

Table-service restaurants that accept reservations at the Walt Disney World Resort can accommodate most food allergies or intolerances.

Common Food Allergies include:

- gluten or wheat
- shellfish
- soy
- lactose or dairy
- peanuts and tree nuts
- fish
- eggs
- corn

If a member of your party has any of the common food allergies listed above, please speak with a Chef or Manager on duty when arriving at the dining location. They will be happy to assist with your selection and provide product labels and ingredients for menu items.

The quick-service locations listed below have menu items or products that, upon request, may accommodate common food allergy or intolerance requirements.

Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park:
- Restaurantosaurus
- Flame Tree Barbecue
- Pizzafari

Disney's Hollywood Studios:
- Backlot Express
- Studios Catering Co.
- ABC Commissary
- Toy Story Pizza Planet

Epcot:
- Liberty Inn
- Sunshine Seasons
- Electric Umbrella

Magic Kingdom Park:
- Be Our Guest (Lunch Only)
- Cosmic Ray's Starlight Café
- Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn & Café
- Columbia Harbour House
- The Pinocchio Village Haus
- Casey’s Corner

Most quick-service locations in the Walt Disney Resort Hotels are able to accommodate special dietary needs and provide menu items and ingredients upon request. All of our Quick Service Chefs and Managers are happy to discuss and attempt to accommodate all dietary requests once you arrive in the location in which you plan to dine. In order to ensure the safety of our Guests, at each Quick Service location there are specific people who have been trained to take and fill special dietary orders. Each of these Cast Members has taken extensive training to better understand and handle special dietary needs. Because of menu changes, availability of special dietary products, and possible cross-contamination of which the cashiers and front of line Cast Members might not be aware; each location has specific people on hand to give the safest service possible. The larger Quick Service locations tend to have more items on hand and a Chef or a Manager is generally more readily availa ble.

For prepackaged items, we recommend that Guests read the ingredient list on the label before purchasing any product.

All Chefs in our Theme Parks and Resorts are trained to handle allergies and take every precaution against any cross contact. As mentioned previously, due to the large volume of meals we serve, vendors and suppliers occasionally swap out product. Therefore, menu items and preparation are often updated. We stress that you ask to speak to a Chef or Manager when you arrive at each location. They will be happy to assist with your selection and provide product labels and ingredients for menu items.

The restaurants will do their best to accommodate Guest dietary requirements, but cannot guarantee they will be able to meet all requests. For additional information, we encourage you to visit our website
http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/faq/dining/

We look forward to your visit!

Sincerely,

Alana Reynolds
Special Diets Team
Guest Experience Services
Walt Disney World Resort


Universal

Hi, in Universal Studios. We have fruit stands in the parks with apples, oranges, grapes, watermelon on them. Also have lemon and strawberry slush carts which will be ok, also have turkey legs on carts that are just smoke plain. We have a full service unit it is Lombard's landing and Finnegan’s, We have a chef in each unit have the server bring the chef to the table and he can go over all the things he can do for you In Islands of Adventure we have 2 full service units one called Confisco's and one is Mytho's, We have Chefs in both of those units, have server bring Chef to table and he can go over the things he can do for you,. I have another walk up unit it is Thunder Falls, I have smoke chicken, smoke ribs, and roasted corn on cob and roasted potatoes with fresh herbs and salt and pepper, also have French fries all natural cooked in soy blend oil that is the only thing cooked in those fryers too. If you need any more information or help feel free to give me a call at 321-388-2123, Chef Bob. I will also say no desserts at all from any of the restaurants too. Thanks Chef Bob
We also have three broomsticks which have smoked chicken and smoked pork ribs, roasted corn on cob, baked potatoes, roasted potatoes with onions, garlic, salt and pepper, and fresh herbs and some salads too.


The butterbeer is gluten free


Hope this helps someone

 

[PixyDst]

I have always loved how accommodating Disney is for gluten free! I found out I had to go gluten free my senior year of high school, and went on a Disney trip that fall - they were great about making sure my food was safe, and I felt "normal" again. They definitely go out of their way to make it magical.

In fact, I have better eating experiences during my week at Disney each year than during the other 51 weeks of the year!

 

[sleepingbean]

We found options at universal walk and at the main Universal hotels, too (in link). But we didn't make it to the Harry Potter World...yet~

 

[nfceagles]

I received an identical email from Chef Bob at Universal in March, minus the part about Butter Beer being gluten free (since DS isn't Gluten Free). We went the end of March and while it was no Disney, we managed with DS's milk, egg, and nut allergies.

We had the roast chicken and roast potatoes at Three Broomsticks. It was very good. We also had a really nice meal at Emeril's in City Walk. They were very kind and helpful.

 

[KristenFNJ]

I also received a very similar email from Chef Bob, a few years ago. I actually even met Chef Bob at the Thunder Falls restaurant.

I have read in a few places recently that there is a designated fryer for french fries at Thunder Falls now, but when we went in 2009, there was NOT-you had to call in the morning and tell someone you wanted gf fries at Thunder Falls for lunch, or they would not save a separate fryer and you'd be out of luck. However, Chef Bob neglected to put that in the email. We certainly didn't starve, and the food we did get was really good. The lovely cashier (literally, lovely!) who took our order told me this, and she was surprised when I showed her the print-out of the email which left this little tidbit of info out. This was going to be the first time my guys could order fries since their DX in 2007, so they were pretty excited... then really bummed that we missed the boat because we weren't given all of the info.

So, just then Chef Bob walks in with his entourage and she calls him over-he was very nice and seemed to clearly want to be accommodating. He apologized about the omission in the email, and reassured me about all the other things that were safe. He said the BBQ sauce was Ken's and was safe-a brand I know well, they are gf unless there's soy sauce. I've never used Ken's BBQ sauce so I asked to make sure it had no soy sauce... he suddenly hesitated and said he had to check. This was after he already assured me it was gf. Indeed, it was in fact free of soy sauce and was gluten free and safe. I'm very grateful he eagerly went back to double-check for me, and I appreciate that he did that. But it makes me nervous that told me it was gluten free (and he truly believed it-he wasn't just yes-ing me) without realizing it could have ingredients that are not. I know, he could have yessed me again, and he didn't. He was genuinely trying. But when your family's health is based entirely on your confidence in someone's competence, an experience like this is unnerving.

Chef Bob really was very nice and truly wanted to accommodate my family safely. But in 2009, I felt like he hardly had his shtuff together. While again, super nice, it made me VERY nervous. Look at the difference in the 2 emails in the OP... in Chef Bob's email, 2/3 of the punctuation is wrong or missing. This "Special Diets" email should be well-thought-out and edited, both for grammar and content. The appearance of a run-on, train-of-thought response leaves me wondering if he's forgotten anything (again). No Desserts is an afterthought (which, really, in 2 huge parks, not a single scoop of plain vanilla ice cream? but that's another rant), and their entire new restaurant is an after-afterthought. Not exactly confidence-inspiring.

It was odd to me back in 2009 that there was no one else in charge of fielding questions about special diets, that the head chef was the one with this responsibility in addition to being the head chef. I would've thought that 5 years later, Universal would've gotten the memo-special diet needs are growing, not shrinking. I'm amazed (not in a good way) that Chef Bob is still answering these emails, not a person whose job it is to know what is being served in the parks and answer special diet questions.

So, all that as evidence to say... it might be worth double-checking any parts of Chef Bob's emails that are really important to your enjoyment of your time at Universal. If you call, I'm certain he will be very nice. But be very specific, and ask questions you think you already know the answer to.

 

[utterrandomness]

It was odd to me back in 2009 that there was no one else in charge of fielding questions about special diets, that the head chef was the one with this responsibility in addition to being the head chef.

That is part of the job of a head chef in general. The head chef is in charge of the kitchen, in charge of what goes into the food. It's the head chef who goes over potential allergens with the kitchen staff, and in some cases with the wait staff as well.

I agree that in a theme park it should be more centralized, but knowing what's in the food is in no way outside of the responsibilities of the head chef.