Gluten-free and Dairy-free at Walt Disney World, December 9 - 14

[Wonder2008]

I'm Robert, and my family and I visited Walt Disney World from December 9 to 14 and stayed at Disney's All-Star Music Resort. We had a great time, but I'll limit this to our restaurant experiences. I'm gluten-free and my sister is dairy-free, including rice milk. I'm just going to list the restaurants we ate at and what we ate there.

All-Star Music food court - breakfast

We ate breakfast here every morning. Two of our mornings we had pancakes, and two other mornings we had the smaller Mickey waffles. We asked for them to be both gluten- and dairy-free in case they got accidentally mixed up. We have to be careful what we say to a chef because my sister can not have rice milk - we can't just say "dairy free". So, the chef used water instead. I've seen a lot of variation from resort to resort and chef to chef for breakfast, but these pancakes and waffles were very good. And, we never had to wait more than 10 minutes for them.

All-Star Music food court - dinner

We ate dinner here twice. First, I had a make-your-own salad which I really liked - you just tell them what you want on the salad and, for me, they took the ingredients from a separate area. The salad comes with salmon or steak on top, and I chose salmon. The second time, I had a turkey platter with corn and garlic mashed potatoes. The only thing that had to be left out was the gravy, but the turkey was seasoned so it still tasted good. My sister got a ham and turkey sandwich which I think was actually combining two menu items into one.

Kona Cafe - lunch

We hadn't been to Kona Cafe in a long time, so it was nice to be back. I got the Polynesian platter with teriyaki steak. The chef said he had a gluten-free sauce and substituted the macaroni salad it came with for French fries. My sister got the island chicken. I don't think it had to be modified much, but she did get chocolate Tofutti for dessert.

Babycakes - Downtown Disney

Yes, I have discovered Babycakes. I was unsure if I would like their products, so for my first trip there I just got one chocolate chip cookie and one gingerbread man. I really enjoyed it and I got three more cookies for our trip home. I think the cookies could have been a bit thicker, however. One thing though is that a lot of their products use rice milk, so my sister could not eat there.

Sci-Fi Dine-In Theatre - lunch

This wasn't my favorite meal of the trip. Our chef was great, but my turkey sandwich came on Udi's flatbread. I tried the flatbread, didn't like it, and wound up eating the sandwich open-face. Except for that, it was good. My sister got a chicken sandwich, again not modified much, and a Tofutti milkshake. We did have an abnormally long wait here, though.

Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe - dinner

This was a great meal (but not a good place to see fireworks from). We spoke to a manager, not a chef. We both got barbecue pork sandwiches. My sister's was not modified but mine had the tapioca roll. I'm not a big fan of those, but the sauce was so strong I hardly tasted the roll! In addition, I opted for a bag of grapes instead of fries, and we brought over a pickle from the Liberty Square market.

To be continued...

 

[Wonder2008]

Continued...

Flame Tree Barbecue - lunch

This was pretty similar to Starlight Cafe. We both got pork sandwiches, but I got mine with no roll at all. I think I prefer the Starlight Cafe pork over this one, however. Here, however, the manager showed us the ingredients before we ordered anything.

Lotus Blossom Cafe (Epcot's China) - dinner

This meal was just ok, but good. I hadn't eaten here in years. I got the shrimp fried rice with a Sprite substituted for the egg roll it came with. The fried rice was just ok - I remember it being tastier in the past. The shrimps were quite generous and well-sized. It was a bit pricey for just fried rice, though.

Sunshine Seasons - lunch

Unfortunately, this wasn't a hit. The chef said that everything in "The Grill" area is gluten-free, which is great, but I remember in the past that I was able to pretty much customize my meal by choosing one main dish and two sides or something like that. This time, I ordered the fish which was mahi-mahi and came with steamed vegetables. I was ok with that, but it came with some black something on top of it. I have no idea what it was and I was told I would have to wait 10 minutes for a plain one. Instead I got chicken with yellow rice, which was just ok. My sister got one of the sandwiches, and I think her roll had to be substituted because it had dairy in it.

Contempo Cafe - lunch

This lunch was definitely a hit! We spoke with a fantastic manager - my sister got a chicken sandwich that needed to be modified more that other meals, though, but the manager was quite flexible. I got a hot turkey sandwich with apple slices, lettuce, and brie on Udi's bread. If I had this bread at Sci-Fi (see first post), it would have been much, much better. One great thing about this manager was that she came to our table as we ate to check in on us. On a related but separate note, my sister later got two of the gingerbread ornaments from the Contemporary's Christmas display - amazingly, they had no dairy and she really enjoyed those.

Beaches and Cream - dessert

We wanted to have a full meal at Beaches and Cream, but wound up just having desserts so we wouldn't totally miss the opportunity to eat there. We sat at the counter - initially there was some confusion since our waitress was talking with a chef who we didn't see and it sounded like the ice cream had gluten in it. I didn't really want to just leave, but a manager was nearby and straightened everything out. My sister got a Tofutti sundae with a lot of toppings, and I got a mint chip sundae. Our orders took a while, so it wasn't a really efficient way to just have dessert. The manager was good, though.

Snacks

At the Magic Kingdom, we had desserts at the Plaza Ice Cream parlor. My sister got chocolate Tofutti - we had to wait a little since apparently only a manager can serve Tofutti. I had the Plaza ice cream sundae, in a bowl instead of a waffle dish - all I did was ask the cashier if I could order it without the waffle. Also we both had Dole whip. Unfortunately, we did not see any of the French Meadow brownies that my sister liked. We got the OMG cookies though. They list "rice flour" in the ingredients, though, so we thought it would be best for my sister not to have them. The cookie itself was pretty good, though a little messy and the package was hard to open.

I'm sure I'm leaving something out, but those are the highlights. One interesting thing was that I never asked for the gluten-free pizza. It had been a favorite of mine in the past, but this year I looked at it as if it were my "back-up plan" (that is, my sister was able to eat at a particular restaurant and there were no options at all for me). I much prefer to simply modify an existing menu item rather than order a "special meal".

Of course, everyone is different and allergies vary widely from person to person, but most of our meals were great. If any of you have comments or questions, I'd be happy to hear them and to try to answer your questions.

Robert

 

[curemyreed]

Thanks for posting these reviews. We do not eat gluten or dairy & sure appreciate hearing your opinions!

 

[Talking Hands]

Robert I totally agree with modifying a meal rather than getting a special one. Sometimes just leaving off an item is the easiest solution for me. I am dairy free as well as shellfish and mango free. It is really easy to ask that cheese be left off burgers and salads. And I for pasta I just ask for garlic and olive oil. As for hot dog buns I only use them to hold the dog not to eat with it.

 

[Wonder2008]

Talking Hands and curemyreed - Thanks for writing back! I feel like I'm not missing out on as much if I just get a "modified" meal as opposed to something just for those with special diets.

If you don't mind me asking, when you both say "dairy free", do you mean all dairy or just certain types (rice, soy, etc)?

Robert

 

[nfceagles]

Excuse me for butting in, but my DS has been dairy free for 5+ years and to me the term means cow's milk free. Not being able to drink rice milk would suggest an additional rice allergy to me, but maybe there's something else in rice milk your sister can't tolerate??

We often find people who think dairy includes eggs because they're in the "dairy" department at the grocery store and DS is also allergic to eggs, but eggs are not dairy.