Gluten Free at Disney

[luvwdwfla2]

I just returned from a trip to WDW. It is the first time I went with food allergies. I have been Gluten Free for about 2 months so I am still learning the ropes. I just wanted to say I thought Disney was fantastic and would reccomend it to anyone traveling with food allergies. Every TS restaurant had a chef come out and speak with me. They were great at offering ideas and working with me. I even had a lot of luck with CS speaking with someone in charge. You just need to be patient and give them some extra time to prepare your food. I had done some research with the help of online menus and Brenda in the special diets dept so I knew which CS and TS would have more options for me.

Just wanted to let you all know what a great experience I had.

 

[clanmcculloch]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I have to absolutely 100% agree with you. Disney really is fantastic. The majority of our future vacations will likely be to some kind of Disney location (WDW, DL, Disney Cruise) simply because of how great they are with both food allergies and with handling special needs associated with autism (my oldest has both issues). Disney knows their business and "gets" that there are many of us who do still have money to spend and that we'll choose to spend it somewhere that makes it easy, stress free and of course fun to spend our time.

 

[mechurchlady]

I agree and have never had a gluten reaction at DLR. They spoil me so much. I am saving up for my next DLR trip.

 

[CrabbyPatty]

Is there a special person to contact at Disney who can provide information on what meals are GF? I thought I'd read somewhere on DIS that you can get information on which meals throughout Disney are GF. Thanks so much!

 

[mechurchlady]

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=595713
That is this boards FAQs and has WDW dining special number to contact and they can get you a list of GF places and the chefs at each table service restaurant can make you special GF meals.

I have somewhere the info for Disneyland.

 

[luvwdwfla2]

I emailed Brenda.Bennett@disney.com Her office hours are M-Th 7:30-6
There is also the email specialdiets@disneyworld.com
and I think her number is 407-824-5967

When I first contacted her She emailed a bunch of papers and a form to fax/email back about where/ when I was eating. At first I thought, this is the generic response to gluten request, but when I emailed her with other questions she got back to me within a few hours. I believe I heard she is now getting more help, so I hope alll the great service stays the same.

PS- Read all the info it really helped me know which counter services were best and where to get snacks. I did pack a bunch of my favorite Gluten free snacks to bring with me. Also I had her make sure my resort CS would have gluten free options available.

 

[CrabbyPatty]

I sent Brenda an email a few days ago and she replied with the allergy form and some additional information. I'll be providing her with my ADRs once I make them on Thursdsay and then do some thinking on which additional CS meals I'll be eating so there may be some GF alternatives there.

Have you had good luck with getting GF alternatives at the CS meals? I've read some posts that say that yes, it was fairly easy to get them, and then others have said it was a bit cumbersome or took a long time. Any CS places you've found that were particularly easy?

 

[mechurchlady]

Have you had good luck with getting GF alternatives at the CS meals? I've read some posts that say that yes, it was fairly easy to get them, and then others have said it was a bit cumbersome or took a long time. Any CS places you've found that were particularly easy?

It depends on the severity of the allergy/sensitivity, type of allergen, and number of allergens. A person who gets gassy from cheese can easily look at a menu and avoid cheese. A person who goes into shock from inhalation or touch would have to make sure that all utensils and cookware was free of the allergen, that the chef was not off making a dish with the allergen while preparing the person's food, and the complexity of the allergens. No shellfish is pretty easy to find on a label but no corn may find corn in natural additives, dextrose, maltodextrose, and lots of other things.

Each place that is counter service and each bakery and candy store that sells on site made food that is not labelled will have a list of ingredients. At DLR the chef comes out and will discuss ingredients and have shown me the label from the ingredients. Usually you look at the binder and read the ingredients to see what you can have or alter at WDW.

Summation is that it depends on the person and how much time they want to spend reading labels and binders. It depends on how allergic you are as I will eat something with a bit of certain allergens that take the time to read labels.

 

[ekatiel]

We took our first trip to WDW in early May and had a WONDERFUL time. My ODS is allergic to wheat, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, barley and rye. We plan on going back in Sept 2010 for free dining! I am writing a dining review of our trip if anyone's interested. Here's the link: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2172872 Disney definitely has our vacation business from now on!

Have you had good luck with getting GF alternatives at the CS meals? I've read some posts that say that yes, it was fairly easy to get them, and then others have said it was a bit cumbersome or took a long time. Any CS places you've found that were particularly easy?

It did take a while to get our food at most CS service places, but you have to remember that they are preparing something especially for you/your child. So, they can't just roll it out like they would any other order. In most cases, the manager came out to us and showed us the big binder of ingredients of what was available. We chose the meal, ordered it with the cashier, and the manager prepared DS's food him/herself. It did take longer for us to get our food than other people, but I stood there waiting with a smile on my face the whole time b/c my kiddo was getting the chance to eat pizza in a restaurant or to eat a hamburger with a bun on it . Waiting a few extra minutes was no problem IMO. We always found the CM's to be extremely helpful and nice, even if it did take us a bit longer to get our food. We also tried to eat lunch right at 11am most days so that the CS restaurants weren't too busy yet. HTH! --Katie

 

[clanmcculloch]

Have you had good luck with getting GF alternatives at the CS meals? I've read some posts that say that yes, it was fairly easy to get them, and then others have said it was a bit cumbersome or took a long time. Any CS places you've found that were particularly easy?

While all of the chefs will try their best to accomodate, I'm a big believer in finding out ahead of time which places stock what foods. I comb through the lists from Brenda and create my own list of which CS locations carry which foods at each park. I review the list before heading out in the morning and carry it with me in the parks. The reason for reviewing ahead of time is so that I can kind of guide my family around meal time to the general area of a place that I know has something that my daughter will safely enjoy. Because she's also autistic, it helps to be able to give my daughter a fixed list of what foods she can choose from rather than saying "lets see what the chef HERE can do" and ending up with meltdowns because they can only make burgers when she wants mac & cheese (random examples just for the sake of an example). I also do this pre-planning because I've found that when I get to the cashiers, many times they aren't even aware of what is available in the CS location so if I know that they have Tofutti ice cream at a specific location then I don't need to worry about whether or not the cashier is aware as all they need to do is call a manager to serve us (that did happen to me a few times where I knew better than the cashiers what the CS location carries, all because of my preplanning).