Family of 4 Gluten Free

[minniejack]

Day 1: arrived and talked with chef Michael at Yacht Club level who let's us know that they will bring up gluten free room service to our room at no charge. Drinks we would have to go to club room to get or we would be charged as they were already gluten free. We could call for Frito products for afternoon and let him know what we wanted for evening appetizers. When we returned from the park there was message that the evening apps were already gluten free. All days they were gf so we never had to call again. From small lobster salads, chicken on a stick, bacon wrapped scallops, ahi tuna (wished I would've brought a couple of packets of gf soy sauce for dipping--but still good), oysters in a half shell, fruit, swedish fish, drinks, wine. My only complaint was that if they have pop in cans that gets wasted, than why not water in cans--Big Sky LaCroix both make water in cans.
The Mickey waffles were just okay--could've been better if maybe they'd used Pamelas or even Kinnikinnick. They brought way too much food. We switched to having them bring up gf brownies with the waffles after day 2 because I just couldn't choke down the waffles anymore.

Teppan Edo Decent sit down gf Japanese meal. Everyone but me liked it. I thought the portions were small and all that had was gf soy sauce for dipping. The chef wasn't exactly a showman either--not Benihana's or Myabi's in Myrtle Beach at all. But at least we had Japanese without having to have 10 people which is what my local Japanese requires to bring your own sauce. Basically just steak, shrimp and chicken seasoned with salt and pepper and cooked on a hot grill by a grumpy Japanese guy.

Tapioca rolls at all sit downs, but Narcoosees were the freshest and they told us at Yachtsman Steak house that they were hand made and they truly did taste more like yeast than all of the rest and they were the best.

California grill. Sushi it was good, but the portion sizes look nothing like what we've seen on another site--pretty tiny. The cheese plate was also good. DD16 and I split the filet and it was delicious. DS14 and DH split a lamb chop and it was also delish. View of the fireworks were incredible.

I looked up and saw a man walking somewhat cockily and looking around with a does anyone know me type of walk. I said to my family, "Hey, there's Brendan Fraser." DH said, "Who's Brendan Fraser?" After the family kept joking to me that I was nuts, I turned to the family behind me and repeated the question. The English woman replied, "Who is Brendan Fraser?" I then asked the waiter and he said he hadn't seen anyone. At the end of the night, he told me that it was Brendan that he just wasn't allowed to say anything. Then me, him and another waitress tried to think of movies beside Mummy and George of the Jungle that he acted in--poor man--no one recognized him.

I'll have to get out the bill and look at rest of the days and add more.

 

[clanmcculloch]

Wow, that's wonderful service at the YC CL. Great to know. Thanks for sharing. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your review when I get home (I promise everybody, I'll post a dining review too when I get back).

Brendan Frasier movies besides the Mummy series & George of the Jungle in no particular order: Inkheart, Blast from the Past (one of my all time favourite movies), Journey to the Center of the Earth, Encino Man, School Ties, Crash, Looney Tunes Back in Action, Bedazzled, Dudley Do-Right, the Quiet American, Airheads, plus a several episode arc on Scrubs. I know there are some others but this is what's coming to mind right now. I've had a crush on him since I was a teenager, can you tell? LOL

 

[minniejack]

Wow, that's wonderful service at the YC CL. Great to know. Thanks for sharing. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your review when I get home (I promise everybody, I'll post a dining review too when I get back).

Brendan Frasier movies besides the Mummy series & George of the Jungle in no particular order: Inkheart, Blast from the Past (one of my all time favourite movies), Journey to the Center of the Earth, Encino Man, School Ties, Crash, Looney Tunes Back in Action, Bedazzled, Dudley Do-Right, the Quiet American, Airheads, plus a several episode arc on Scrubs. I know there are some others but this is what's coming to mind right now. I've had a crush on him since I was a teenager, can you tell? LOL

that's the one that the kids knew--we wondered if he has a new movie coming out

I promise, I'll work on this tomorrow. Major headache and a last minute b-day invite so I haven't had time to remember.

 

[gr8mommy]

poor man--no one recognized him

I think that's to his advantage--he's more of a character actor, and can become whoever he is playing more easily. Tom Cruise is a 'leading man' is no matter what movie he is in, I see 'Tom Cruise'. Well, when I don't think 'man, he's crazycakes', anyway

 

[keishashadow]

hey mj, im soooo jealous

not of BFraser (although he's hot or used to be, heard he's not aging wellwhat do u think?)

club level!!!

 

[minniejack]

Day 1 Teppan Edo and California Grill
Day 2 Captains Grille YC
Day 3 Fries Magic Kingdom Frontier Land; Le Chefs De France
Day 4 Brown Derby
Day 5 AK Fruit stands/Pizza Fari
Day 6 Kouzzina by Cat Cora at BW
Day 7 Narcoosee's GF
Day 8 Snack Shack, Typhoon Tilly's Typhoon Lagoon and OHana's
Day 9 Yachtman's Steak



Day 2 Captains Grille I ordered a salad that was so big that all 4 of us shared and there was still some left over. DD had the best gelato of her life she said. I can't remember what the men had, so when they wake up/get home from work this will be edited. Also, if I don't have what I ordered either, I'll have to have them jog my memory--I just wanted to get as much down before I forget even that!Okay we think we all got steak--DD and I definitely split one and the salad was huge. The meal was very good--we just can't remember the details. We know that we said we would definitely go back again on future trips.

Day 3 Fries I was a little leery about these fries because when I first walked past the guy outside the little shack, I asked him if the fries were gluten free and repeated it about 4 times and his reply was: "I don't know about giving them to you free, but they're really good." DH asked about a dedicated frier once he got to the front and they were yummy. Went back and ordered 2 more.

Chefs De France I had read some reviews on these forums about not being so great.Believe them. Waiter not attentive at all until he wanted the tip. Don't you just hate waiters like that--they get all nice and chirpy when they're presenting the bill to you--as if you suddenly forgot how rude they just were? They were right. Escargo was decent. Tapioca rolls were okay. Me???? The worst creme brulee of my life--tasted like pudding cups.

Day 4 Brown Derby Lunch with an Imagineer Wonderful conversation and fantastic food. The chef made a new batch just for us of Creamy White Onion Soup--it was awesome even DD who hates onion soup loved this one. Individual classic cobb salad with finely chopped greens, turkey breast, bacon, egg, tomatoes, avocado and cobb dressing--they just left off the bleu cheese.

We had choice of entree: Char-grilled filet of beef over a creamy black diamond cheddar and sweet corn polenta with sun-dried tomato chimichurri, and green tomato salsa. This is what most of the ten in our group had and it was fantastic.

There was a Noodle Bowl with a grilled breast of chicken, soy beans, sugar snap peas, bok choy, and shiitake mushrooms in a red curry broth. And it could have been made with gf noodles if that's what we wanted.

Spice-rubbed black grouper with Sauteed haricots verts and sunchokes, rainbow carrot slaw and citrus butter. DH and Joe Warren, the Imagineer, both got this and they said it was wonderful.

Desserts was a choice of grapefruit cake (non gf), Double vanilla bean creme brulee with dark chocolate dipped biscotti for my DH it had strawberries on it instead--this was definitely better than the French place that tasted like pudding.

And the waiter came to our table and said the chef would make us a special double dark chocolate flourless cake--which he made for several at our table. Really decadent, similar to P F Changs without the raspberry sauce. He added fresh strawberries and a swirl of chocolate so that the presentation looked like a mouse.

Dinner lasted about 3 hours and we were so stuffed that we only ate a few appetizers in CL and cancelled our evening reservations. And the reason I could tell you exactly what we had was they gave us souvenir menus. One had the food listing and one had a picture of all the participants and the Imagineer. My DS had a special picture inside his with him as a star because he had his B-Day button on.

Oh and when they were giving a tour of the restaurant, we were told that just the night before that they DID have a celebrity dine with them. I said who--Brendan Fraser?? Yupp--the host looked a little disappointed that I stole his thunder.


Day 5 Fruit stand near safari at AK. We got drinks, 3 bags of chips and a fruit bowl Ka-ching $31.85

AK Pizza Fari 2 Amy's cheese Pizza--not a fan after Against the Grain or Udi's, but a decent mid-day snack--about $10 each. DS got the best deal when they gave him macaroni that included grapes and a gf cookie for around $5.

Kouzzina We had several appetizers in CL so we weren't even hungry, but DH can't stand to go anywhere without a REAL MEAL. So at 9:20 pm, we trekked over to the Boarwalk. DD got a weird lemon chicken soup that had a ton of lemon--neither she nor I could eat it. We shared basically a bite of a grape leaf appetizer filled with goat cheese (we never saw that it said goat cheese--we thought it had lamb--oh, well teaches you to read) DS also had calamari in a lemon butter sauce that he said was really good and loved dipping his roll in it. I had this fantastic seafood bowl with a savory red sauce--I think this was truly the best meal that I had anywhere at Disney. Both DS and DH got lamb and it, too came similar to a stew and the meat just melted in your mouth. Really good food. Even though we had our share of wine from CL, we had the Bacchus wine flight that somehow just went down our throats before we realized it--they were really smooth.

 

[minniejack]

2 of the best to come and the worst and you probably already know which was the worst....

 

[minniejack]

Also, while we were there, CL hours changed to 24 hour service. I stopped at concierge desk and mentioned that it was nice of them to do that, but having fruit out would be even better because we couldn't eat the chocolate covered pretzels that were there. When we got home from the parks that day, the concierge had left a huge fruit basket in our room and sent our suggestions to management.

We also mentioned on the last night there that we wished that there were gluten free options during cookie time. Voila....they appeared at our door with a plate of French Meadow Choc Chip Cookies.

I know you are all wondering why we didn't just call when we were told that we could, but we spent so much time in the parks that we really weren't there for cookie time and felt that the breakfast and evening appetizers really made our stay.

 

[minniejack]

Day 7 Happy 15th B-day Luke at Narcoosees

Wonderful window table with a view of the night time parade and fireworks. Table was sprinkled with glitter Mickeys. DS had his own keepsake menu. He had Surf and Turf. I tasted the lobster and it was really cooked just right. I had salmon over potatoes and asparagus. DH wanted whatever the fish of the day that was crab crusted, but I guess they do those up all in advance so the chef said he could do tilapia with a crab crust--he said it was heavenly. DD just had a cesaer salad w/o croutons that was so big that she couldn't eat it.

For dessert we had a pre-ordered cake from Pat at the Grand Floridian that coincidentally matched our clothes which were teal. It was a gluten free white cake with strawberries and mousse. It had musical notes in fondant around the bottom and a white chocolate Mickey Mouse as a conductor on top with flowers and a gold trim on bottom. Cost of cake was $77 as it was Chefs choice. Very yummy and made for a good breakfast.

 

[minniejack]

Day 8 Wonderful fruit smoothies and fruit bowls that you could choose whatever fruit you wanted for about $7. Right next door they had a dedicated frier for french fries.

Ohanas Now I had read the poor reviews of Ohanas and food allergies on this board and I was a little leery, but this was one of our favorite restaurants pre no gluten days and when you are on vacation you forget all the reviews. Sad part is that I had just told my husband how great Disney had been with not getting any of us sick and that I was so glad to have chosen them for our vacation this year.

We were a little late arriving since we miscalculated our time to get there, so we had to wait about 15 mins. I had told the hostess that our entire party needed to be gluten free. I again told our server and he said he would send out the chef. The chef came about 10 minutes later and said it was not a problem and that he could prepare all of the same meats for us. No problem. A short time later a man appeared with dumplings, chicken wings, and 3 kinds of sauces. I kept asking him: Are those for us? Are those gluten free? He could barely speak English and kept repeating how good they were. My DH finally said that since the chef said he was sending us out gluten free food, then they must be for us, so dig in. (It was around 9:30 and we were pretty hungry by then.) I told the kids to still stay away from the dumplings, but most chicken wings without breading is usually safe--at least in my neck of the woods. So we had a few.

Then a woman comes around with chicken on a skewer. Again I repeatedly ask if that's gluten free. She completely ignores my questions. All but me get the chicken--I guess she didn't want to come close to me?

Then the chef comes out with our food. And you know the rest--everything we just had was glutened with soy. Within the hour DD was in the restroom. This is 5 days later DS is still being an a** and the emotional idiot that he gets and my female problems started and a headache that started that night that just won't go away. I'm still having some stomach issues, but they've calmed down somewhat. DH's problems are more subtle and I really can't post them here and he, too, has anger management problems when glutened.

We did ask to not be charged for DD's meal and was comped for that and our alcoholic beverages, but we will never go back there. On top of it, the meat wasn't good. A lot of it, but basically the shrimp, pork, steak, and chicken were just cooked on skewers and then a sauce dumped on them. A huge mound of sticky rice and broccoli accompanied the meats.

And we feel that all of this could be avoided if they would somehow post a little flag or put something on the table that any server could see to show them that there is an allergy at that table. Or better yet, use wheat free Tamari--they sell it in 5 gallon jugs for restaurants.

We immediately went back to the room and each of us took several doses of sublingual B complex vitamins and I had ordered the Trienza from Amazon especially for this trip and each of us took 2 pills. I think this helped because our problems weren't as bad as normally with gluten. Thank God that this happened at the tail end of our trip. I hope the behavior problems subside before school. I don't want DS to start his freshman year of high school and be labeled as anything, but the smart young man that he is.

 

[minniejack]

Day 9 Yachtman's Steak at YC Happy 17th B-day Victoria

Now, looking back at the pics of this night, I'm still peeved. You can see the difference in my size from Wednesday at Luke's b-day to Friday the day after my glutening. I look like I'm 5 months pregnant.

I digress.

We had a wonderful waiter named Al, who unfortunately was a huge Rutger's fan. Just kidding. (Let's Gooooo Mountaineers and put them in the dirt again this year.)

My DH's father is retired and raises Angus, so we know our steak and love good steak. This was good steak.

DH had Rib eye, me and the kids all had porterhouse. Yummmmmmmy.
DS again got escargot--better than the stinking French place. They all came with what tasted like scalloped potatoes in a square.

And the parmesan on them made the bread really, really good. The rolls LOOKED like Ener-G rolls, but they said that the chef made them himself and they really did taste more like a yeast roll.

All of the TS restaurants had different salts on their butters. Contemporary had way too much, Narcoosees used Himalayan Pink Sea Salt, Kouzzina's used Black Sea Salt, I'm not sure what the Yachtsman used, but theirs was the tastiest.

Luckily there had been some confusion on our cake order and I had cancelled our cake at the Grand Floridian after the cake on Wednesday. Then Thursday evening, we were trying to just get a Tink cake topper ordered, but the Grand wouldn't deliver to the YC. About 8:30 p.m. on the way to the Poly, we got a phone call that there was to be a gluten free Tink cake to be made by the YC bakery. IPO told me months ago that they couldn't do that. So, when you think about it, I did the Grand Floridian a favor by canceling their cake because the IPO office must've had the order in at both places.

Victoria's cake was a dark chocolate cake with white mousse filling covered in green fondant with a handpainted Tink with flowers and vines $100. It was simply wonderful. If any of you remember Oreos, that's what it tasted like. Truly delicious.

My family thinks that hands down this was the best meal of the entire vacation.

 

[snorris49]

Thanks for the reviews. It sounds like club level at Yacht club was amazing! I had a terrible experience at the WL club level and have been leary to ever try this again.

I'm surprised you had a terrible experience at Ohana. I had an amazing one--though maybe it's b/c chef TJ who was so terrific with food allergies has gone. I'm crossing my fingers that this one turns out OK for me on the next trip.

Also love the stories about Brendan Fraser!

 

[minniejack]

Thanks for the reviews. It sounds like club level at Yacht club was amazing! I had a terrible experience at the WL club level and have been leary to ever try this again.

I'm surprised you had a terrible experience at Ohana. I had an amazing one--though maybe it's b/c chef TJ who was so terrific with food allergies has gone. I'm crossing my fingers that this one turns out OK for me on the next trip.

Also love the stories about Brendan Fraser!

We really can't blame the chef--we blame the people coming around with the food--there really needs to be a card or something to show when diners have allergies--especially in a place where the servers walk around with the different meats.

 

[snorris49]

We really can't blame the chef--we blame the people coming around with the food--there really needs to be a card or something to show when diners have allergies--especially in a place where the servers walk around with the different meats.

When I went, they gave me a flower to put at the table to show that I had allergies, then the other folks at the table had food brought to them, and the chef solely brought me separate food. I wasn't even offered food by the staff coming around. It's interesting how each experience can be different even at places that should be good with allergies. Sorry again about the rotten luck!

 

[dclfun]

I also am really surprised at the poor service at Ohana's. When my son dined their (renal diet) the chef came out and personally prepared all his food, bringing him yummy things that weren't on the regular menu. They were all very attentive, making sure he didn't eat anything else that was brought around. I think it's a real issue when those serving guests do not speak the same language. You asked if the food was gluten free and they had NO idea what you were talking about. At the very least they should have asked you for more information or said they'd get the chef. AND the chef should have spoken to them and had your table flagged. Definitely sounds like a wonderful experience at the YC CL and those cakes sound delicious. Thanks for the excellent report!---Kathy

 

[minniejack]

I just remembered that we had really good chili cheese hotdogs on a couple of days at the little stand at Hollywood studios where all the little food stands are--close to Tower of Terror.

The 1st time I asked for a hot dog w/o the bun. The guy in the back makes it; then, he asked the girl who took the order if it was for an allergy. I replied yes, then he rolls his eyes, huffs, tosses the hot dog out and puts on new gloves and makes my DS a new one. Then it tasted soooo good that I went back and ordered 2 more. He wasn't a happy camper.

The 2nd time, we ordered the same and was told there wasn't cheese on the chili hotdog. I replied that we just had it the day before, so they grudgingly made it for us.

Also, we paid cash--a lot of it (it was over $50) for 2 chicken ceasar salads and 2 roast chicken dishes that were huge at the food court near Soarin in Epcot. It wasn't memorable, but filled us up--definitely should have only ordered 2 meals because we threw a lot away. I remember that the women serving the chicken said everything was gluten free, but we still had to wait about 5 minutes for the chef to come over and tell us, "Everything is gluten free." Then, we could order.

 

[minniejack]

I forgot to mention that in DD's salad at Narcoosee's there was this little "bread" stick. I told the waiter about it and he said it was a parmesan stick. I replied, "It doesn't look like cheese." He said it was completely gluten free. It was fantastic.

So fantastic that I googled how to make them--you just put grated parmesan (not the canned kind)or any hard cheese on a baking sheet and flatten with palm of your hand and bake for 4-5 mins. I cheat and buy the big grated parmesan cheese from the meat section at Sam's Club, so I don't have to grate the cheese.

I've discovered that they're even crispier if you broil them for about 2 mins., then flip and broil for 2 mins. more.

Kids have been taking in their lunches for school and begging for more.