Dining Report for Lactose Intolerance

[29apr00]

We just returned from our quick trip to Disney and i just wanted to report back on my dealings with my son's LI and Disney Meals.

First, Brenda at WDW Special Diets was a huge help!! I must have emailed her every week for a month trying to figure out menu's and what he could and couldn't eat. (His LI was just recently diagnosed and we were in the process of cutting dairy out completely, to determine what he could and couldn't tolerate). With her help, i was able to map out which foods were safe at which restaurants, and safe snacks too. It was a huge help to contact her!!

Also, wanted to give big to Grand Floridian Bakery for making an OUTSTANDING dairy free cake! Dh and I were celebrating our 8th anniversary this trip, and I had a special cake arranged before we found out about DS's LI. abuot 10 days before our trip, i contacted GFB and had them change my cake order to dairy free. It was a chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream and it was sooooo good! Really tasted totally normal and was very moist and light. Big props to them for that special cake!!

Ok, so we had confirmed TS at 1900 Park Fare, Crystal Palace, and Hollywood and Vine. Brenda had notified all restauants about our dairy restriction prior to our arrival, and at check in, each CM mentioned it to us, and said the waitress would have the chef come talk to us once we were seated.

For our other meals, we had selected Cosmic Rays (because i could get the Kosher chicken nugget meal for him), Pizza Planet, Plaza Restaurant and Yak and Yeti.

I felt fortunate in teh fact that my son will eat a lot of fruit and salad stuff, and isn't too much of a meat eater. Unfortunatly, his favourite meal happens to be mashed potatotes, so that was a challenge. but i figured we/disney could handle it.

OK let's start!

Arrival day, we were supposed to just relax at our hotel, POP, then head to GF for dinner at 1900 Park Fare. Well, we got there so early, we decided to hop to Epcot for a quick 1/2 day visit. unfortunatly, I had done NO PLANNING at all for eating at Epcot!! I quickly grabbed my Passporter guide to see what i thought would be safe for him. Quickly glancing thru, I thought Electric Umbrella would be ok. Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn and we ended up at Sunshine Seasons instead. It wasn't bad, as they did have the PB&J kids meal with Carrots and Grapes, Which I already knew from Brenda was the Smuckers Uncrustable's, where were safe for him. Of course, all he ate of the meal were the grapes and carrots, but oh well. I did have to get him juice, which i don't like the kids to drink, because SS didn't offer Soy milk, but better than Pop.

Also thanks to Brenda, I knew from my snack sheet, that it was safe for him to eat the Frozen Juice Bars adn Itzakadozi bars on the carts, and if we wanted to, they had Dairy-Free Ice cream in the American Pavalian. So even though i didn't get to do any planning, i was still pretty comfortable about eating there.

From there we went to 1900 Park Fare for our Cinderella Dinner. As I said before, the host mentioned our LI at check in, and our waitress also knew of it, and said the chef would be out to speak with us. She did offer Soy Milk , but this time i opted for Lemonade in the light up Hook Cup. The chef came to our table before she was done taking drink orders! He walked me over to the buffet and pointed out every single item as Dairy or no Dairy. Besides the obvious Pizza and Mac-n-cheese, there were also some cold salads, a few veggie and fish dishes, and unfortunatley, the mashed potatoes that he couldn't eat. I didn't ask them to make potatoes for him, as their fruit selection was plenty for him, and he was happily munching away on his croutons. The chef (i'm so horrible that i don't remember his name ) did offer tofutti or rice dream for dessert, but we had the special cake so it wasn't necessary. Overall we were very pleased with this meal and had no problems at all with his LI hindernig our meal.

The next morning our plan was to grab a quick bite at the POP food court before heading out to MK. unfortunately, we woke up late and were going to miss DD's appt at BBB, so we ate the Pop tarts i had packed, just for that occassion. We grabbed a snack of Lemonade and Banana's from Skuttles Landing while in an obxniously slow moving line to see Ariel. I have to say i'm really pleased to see all the fruit and veggies on the carts in teh parks. Nothing like 7 days of burgers, fries, hot dogs, candy and pretzels to make the stomach revolt! I'm glad they have some good healthy options now too! And like I said earlier, my kids LOVE fruit so the banana was a welcome treat!

For lunch we ate at Comsic Rays, and I got the Kosher chix nuggets for the kids to share, with applesauce and grapes. The only complaint is that there were no dairy free dessert options. The had brownies, cookies and pudding. Since we were on teh DDP, of course, all meals come with dessert, and he couldn't have any of it. Since they include dessert on the DDP, they should make more dessert's available for Food Allergies. I had that huge 1/2 chicken and ribs combo that comes with potatoes and veggies. WOW that's a lot of food. He ate a few bites of my chicken and most of my beans, which were suprsingly very good! They were very crisp, with a light buttery taste. Yummy! I should have told them no potatoes, but forgot to, so he did steal a few tiny bites. Thank goodness his LI isn't a serious LTFA.

Later that afternoon we had Ice cream sundeas from the Plaza Ice Cream Parlor yummy!

We had ADR for Crystal Palace that night, and again the Chef came to our table very quickly. I did order Soy milk for him there, and he had slices of Roast Beef, Beans and more fruit, oh yeah and more croutons. I also ordered him their Dairy Free Brownie and a bowl of Toffuti for dessert, both of which he nibbled.

We grabbed a box of popcorn to eat while watching Spectromagic because Brenda told me their butter is artifical flavoring, so dairy free.

The next morning we had ADR for Hollywood and Vine. This one i wasn't too impressed with. I figured Breakfast would be GREAT, knowing that there would be eggs and breakfast meats, lots of fruits, and of course, I was assured by Brenda that H&V could make him a dairy free waffle or pancake. So we check in, again, the Hostess mentions our LI and the waitress offers to have the chef come out. Incidently, the table next to us also had a milk allergy, so the chef was running between both of our tables. I ordered him Soy Milk again for breakfast, and went with the chef. First off, ALL of their pastries were made with dairy. Not even a dairy free muffin or croissant availble. he could have had a plain bagel, but they didn't have dairy free butter available. Then their breakfast eggs had cheese in them, and again potatoes with cheese. They did have fruit available, and dry cereal which he ate. I asked him to make a mickey waffle or pancake for him, as did the other table. 2 minutes later the chef comes out with a plate of an eggo waffle and some strawberries!! Are you kidding me?!?!? This was their great "dairy free waffles" frozen toaster waffles? He didn't touch it, but gobbled up the strawberries, and then was screaming for more. We ended up getting him a bowl of the mushed strawberries they had on the pancake station and he ate them with a spoon. (incidently, i looked at the other table, he didn't eat the waffle either.) I don't know, maybe my expectations were too high. Did anyone else know they gave you a frozen waffle??

We had been told by Brenda that Pizza Planet makes their pizza's fresh, so they would be able to accomadate a dairy free request, it would just take a few extra minutes to cook. So we tried to get there early, so as not to be int eh middle of the lunch rush. I think we got there about 1145am. I told the cashier i needed a dairy free pizza. "so do you want me to have them take the cheese off?" Ah no, thanks, i'll just talk to the manager about it. So she runs off to get the manager. He comes back with the Energy pita bread, and some dairy free mozerella and the book with the labels. All looked good, so we went ahead with it. He said it would take 20 minutes to cook. Long story short, there were 3 of us waiting for special order pizza's, and the CM behind the counter was a mentally handicapped person and he was the one handing out the pizza's. my pizza had gone to a woman who requested no sauce on her's. She brings it back up to the counter, tells the manager it's not right, as she PICKING AT IT AND EATING MY DAIRY FREE CHEESE!?!?!?! Lady, get off my pizza!! Obviously, they had to make another one, another 10 minute wait. While it's great that disney employees individuals with certain handicaps, there should be a bit better supervision when they are working with food.

We left DHS after lunch, went back to the resort to rest and get ready for P&PP that night. We ended up just grabbing hotdogs at Casey's for dinner, because Plaza Restauant had closed already! Joey doesn't eat teh bun on his hot dog anyway, so it's no big deal, but i don't think it was a dairy free bun. Since Casey's hot dogs were definalty not on my planning guide, I didn't inquire about those at all.

Our last day we went to AK. Had again, planned on eating really quick at POP, but after the disappointing breakfast we had at H&V, i figured POP would just give us the frozen waffle also, so we just ate our poptarts on teh way to AK and figured we get something better there. And we did, after we got our FP for KS we grabbed some yummy muffins from Kusafari Bakery in Africa. OMG they were Huge!!! Jackie got a bluberry muffin, i had a choclate chip muffin and DH had an apple turnover. Mostly Joey at the apples from DH's turnover, and a few small bites of the muffin, not enought to affect his LI. I'm sure there was dairy in his muffins, but since he had his pop-tart, i knew he wouldn't eat too much of it anyway.

Our plans for lunch were to go to Yak and Yeti for the CS meal. My kids love chinese food and the pork egg roll on the kids menu sounded perfect for them. Unfortunatly, we were in Dinoland when meltdown appeared on the horizon. As we had been meltdown free all week, we didn't see any need to run halfway across the park for food. So we eat at Restaurantasaurus. I know, I know, McD's is definately NOT dairy free. But we didn't get fries, we got the apple dippers. and I can pick the coating off his nuggets because he doesn't eat that anyway. So that does cut down big time on teh amount of dairy in his meal there.

Later in teh afternoon we stopped at the Dinobites and got him the frozen Orange Juice bar while we had frozen choclate bananas! Yummy!!

So that was our trip. We never once ate at the Pop food court, and except for breakfast at H&V, i was very impressed with our TS meals. My complaint with the CS meals is the serious lack of dessert options. Sure, i can get my kid a PB&J anywere, but there is only 1 restaurtant in each park that can give him a dairy free brownie, cookie or ice cream. And only 1 or 2 quick kiosks that offer Soy Milk, and of course, they AREN'T the ones that have a good dairy free meal. I'm glad that i can have a little bit of leway when it comes to his diet, ie letting in a tiny bit of milk. If we had to actually been totally dairy free (as was the plan before the trip) our menu choices would have been a lot more limited. I can see looking back thru this report, we got pretty lax as the week wore on.

Jennifer

 

[Selket]

Thanks for the report. Although my son has different allergies (peanut and tree nut and he is anaphylactic) I enjoy reading about others experiences.

Had you heard of the Divvies products? http://www.divvies.com/ They are dairy free and they sell the choc. chip cookies at most of the food courts now - and they are awesome cookies. They also carry the jellybeans and caramel corn at different places in the parks (like the MK Bakery). Check those out next time you are there. We often use those cookies for the CS dessert - you have to buy them and bring with though.

 

[itsallaboutme]

Jennifer,

Thank you for sharing your report. I have LI and will be going on my first trip to WDW in August. I didn't know I had to call and let them know. Do you call the same number for dining reservations? Also, what did you have them note on your reservations - simply LI? Mine seems to be the same as your son's, I can take very, very little and be ok... Also, how do I find out what items will be okay at the parks? Oh and glad to know about the dairy free cake as I wanted to get a cake for my birthday! Thank you very much for the help!

 

[29apr00]

I called Brenda from Special diets and she noted a milk allergy on all our ADR's, she also forwared me information on what Quick Service meals were available with no dairy.

good luck!

 

[LauraVV]

Hi,

Is your son lactose intolerant or milk protein allergic? For those who are lactose intolerant you don't have to avoid all milk. My daughter is severely lactose intolerant. It was so bad that she refused all food before we discovered she had a problem with lactose. She was tube fed for many years. She couldn't even tolerate Pediasure. It's lactose free but milk based. After we removed milk products she started being able to eat.

We got a list of low lactose items. Our daughter drinks ultra pasteurized real milk. She doesn't drink soy milk. It's, well, gross. Ultra pasteurized milk breaks the bond of lactose sugar into galatose and glucose. Glucose is what we think of as table sugar. Ultra pasteurized milk tastes like regular milk that's been sweetened.

You can get lactose free ice cream. I'd recommend getting lists of the lactose content of various foods. American cheese, for example, contains more lactose than Cheddar Cheese. Butter doesn't have much lactose at all. Our daughter actually eats ice cream from ice cream stands. We just have to be careful. If she has some ice cream she can't have any cheese that day. She knows that she needs to be very careful. She had a Nissen fundoplication for GERD so can't tolerate gas at all. She has to be careful.

Here's a link to a list of the lactose content of foods http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stevecarper/percent.htm

 

[Halbleib1]

I know what you mean about avoiding all dairy at Disney World. It is hard but not impossible. We have a son with galactosemia- a metabolic genetic disorder, he can not have any dairy or organ meats at all. We also ordered some of the Kosher meals from the counter service places and I agree they need to have more options at these places esp. for dessert. We brought snacks from home as well as I knew it would be hard to find dairy free snacks for him. It would be nice if all the ice cream and counter service places carried dairy free dessert items. The waffles they gave your son were probably not eggo as they do have milk in them. We buy my son Vans waffles- you do have to watch which kind you get though as some of these do have milk in them. Thank you for the tip about the pizza though as I did not think that there was a place that made pizza to order like that. We will have to try this on our next trip. Most places we have found that even if we could special order without cheese the crust almost always ends up having dairy in it either that or the sauce has cheese already in it. So it will be nice to be able to get him pizza for lunch while we are there.

You might not have to worry about this... but you do have to watch when things say that they are made with artificial flavorings if you are avoiding all dairy because some of the artificial flavorings do contain fillers that contain dairy in them. We have only been able to find one kind of microwave popcorn that is acceptable for my son that is butter flavored and not just plain popcorn as the rest contain dairy in the artificial flavorings. Sometimes this is not known without calling the company and asking. It is getting easier though with more and more compaines highlighting this in the ingredents.

Thank you for your dining review and all of the helpful information.

 

[MELISAZACK]

My DS10 is LI as well for 2 years now - what an adjustment. We found a OTC called lactose intolerant by Digestive advantage for kids. you take 1 pill per day and it allows you to have dairy within reason. It has worked very well for my son. they are cherry chewables. you get 30 pills for about $8.00 easy place for me to find it is at walmart. I figured since we take those I won't make special diet restriction while a WDW. We pretty much know how much he can tolerate in a day or at a time. He will not do SOY or rice dream or any of those. He does drink Lactaid milk reg. instead of reg milk cause even with the pill that isn't a good option. That milk tastes EXACTLY like reg. milk no difference at all in taste. can't say that about the price though.
I wish they had that as a Drink option at WDW. I am not sure what we will do if he wants cereral for breakfast one day.

 

[29apr00]

Here's a link to a list of the lactose content of foods http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stevecarper/percent.htm

Thanks for that link!!! It will help alot!

It would be nice if all the ice cream and counter service places carried dairy free dessert items. The waffles they gave your son were probably not eggo as they do have milk in them. We buy my son Vans waffles- you do have to watch which kind you get though as some of these do have milk in them. Thank you for the tip about the pizza though as I did not think that there was a place that made pizza to order like that. We will have to try this on our next trip.
Thank you for your dining review and all of the helpful information.

I figured they weren't Eggo exactly, just an ego type, frozen instead of homemade! I expected more from them.

Yeah, pizza Planet was great! I'm so glad Brenda told me they could be able to do dairy free cheeze, AND the crust too! a great option for us!

My DS10 is LI as well for 2 years now - what an adjustment. We found a OTC called lactose intolerant by Digestive advantage for kids. you take 1 pill per day and it allows you to have dairy within reason. It has worked very well for my son. they are cherry chewables. you get 30 pills for about $8.00 easy place for me to find it is at walmart.

I have been looking for something like that!! But since he's only 2, i needed to find something chewable, or a liquid. I'll look at Walmart next time I'm there! Thanks!!

 

[momsavealot]

Jennifer,
Thanks for the report. We too have to deal with special dietary concerns and I agree with you about the mentally impaired CM handing out the meals. Some people have life threatening food allergies and your story made my heart skip a beat! Yikes!

 

[mykidsintow]

I am glad you guys had a good trip!

This makes me sooo thankful my DS isn't LI! He is allergic to all artificial colors and flavors. I couldn't imagine having to cut Dairy as well.... We would be left with next to nothing to eat! Your son could eat popcorn, but mine can't because its artificial, etc. So if we cut out artificial and dairy... eep! We would be living off fruits and veggies! None of us eat artificial because its not fair to DS (of course my DH picks up things at work for lunch sometimes, but as a family we all leave out the artificial stuff).

Good luck getting his diet straight! It has taken a *long* time to get the artificial gunk out of our food. Its very hard to travel, but we have learned to navigate it all...

 

[sherabby]

I am glad you guys had a good trip!

This makes me sooo thankful my DS isn't LI! He is allergic to all artificial colors and flavors. I couldn't imagine having to cut Dairy as well.... We would be left with next to nothing to eat! Your son could eat popcorn, but mine can't because its artificial, etc. So if we cut out artificial and dairy... eep! We would be living off fruits and veggies! None of us eat artificial because its not fair to DS (of course my DH picks up things at work for lunch sometimes, but as a family we all leave out the artificial stuff).

Good luck getting his diet straight! It has taken a *long* time to get the artificial gunk out of our food. Its very hard to travel, but we have learned to navigate it all...

My son is allergic to milk, peanuts and all fish including shellfish. He outgrew an egg and wheat allergy. Those first four years were some pretty tough years feeding him!
He just loves Disney because they really catored to him.

 

[Halbleib1]

Yeah I agree with you OP about the frozen waffles I would expect more from Disney as well. Sorry I did not say this in my first post. ( I only mentioned the Vans so that people looking for waffles at home could check them out. I also didn't want anyone to think that they could just go and buy a box of eggos for their kids.) We did not do any breakfasts last year so I do not know how they work that but everything that my son ordered for dinner they made fresh just for him except for the things he was allowed off from the buffet of course. Although at Chef Mickeys even though he could have certain things off from the buffet the Chef still made his fresh as he didnt want the food contaminated from other foods on the buffet. Of all the places we ate that week Chef Mickeys had the nicest chef. At 1900 Park Faire the Chef never did come out and talk with us even though I asked twice to speak with the Chef. I ended up finding things on the buffet that I knew were ok for him to eat which wasnt too much though. All in All Disney is great with this type of thing though and I am glad you had good results overall.

Thanks for posting.