I tell you one thing I always do when going to buffet restaurants at WDW or anywhere else for that matter. I will always go wash my hands after going through the line and before eating my food. If I go back through the line then I will go wash them again. This is one of the biggest potentials for the spread of bacteria, viruses, and other food borne illnesses. It is the number one spreader of the Noro Virus on the ships too hence why they now serve you during high risk periods. Handing you a wipe does little good to combat germs on untensils on the buffet lines. People lick their fingers, etc, then go back through the line handling all the utensils. Last year at Boma I saw a woman sample food and lick her fingers between each pod while serving herself on the line. That's just sick! I saw the same thing on the Wonder at Topsiders a week later.
The OP most certainly could have, and most likely, had food poisoning. The time span was dead on. Pathogens such as Salmonella, Ecoli 0157, Listeria, and others must grow. This takes time. However, don't always blame it on the chicken, etc. The chicken, etc, gets cooked and is most likely fine. It was probably the knive that cut the chicken that didn't get washed that then cut the lettuce that didn't go through a "kill cycle" before getting served. This is called "cross contamination" and is the biggest culprit in the food service industry.
Also, if you get systemically ill within a couple hours of eating somewhere you had better look at where you ate the meal before that. Many get blamed that are not guilty. I never forget when we got blamed for food poisoning by a lady once. It was 2-hours after she ate. Upon further investigation she had eaten at Burger King the night before. When she called them 6-people had reported being sick. They traced it down to contaminated lettuce due to poor prepping procedures described above. It was Salmonella, hit her about 18 hours later. Often it won't hit until after the next meal so you blame them.
Staph and chemical poisoning are about the only things that can hit you in a very short period. With Staph, which is very common, you don't throw up usually. The other happens with cramping and it's over very quickly, can hit in about 45-minutes. It's often confused as indigestion. In fact about 70% of indigestion is food borne illness, just not enough to make you systemically ill. It all depends on how much of the toxin you ingest and how well YOUR body is able to fight it. This is why some people get ill that ate the same thing and others don't.
For the most part, I feel Disney does a great job especially with a fully implemented HACCP plan in place. This is a very rigid plan with lots of checks and balances and procedures in place. It's VERY expensive to implement.
Moral of the story? Wash your hands alot. This will go along ways to stop you from getting sick. And remember, some of those bacterial wipes actually promote pathogen growth. Washing is much better...
Food borne illness lesson over for now
Ted.
. He should consider himself lucky!!
