Gluten free on the child quick service dining plan....

[pittsburghmom]

How does this work? Do they make a child's portion of whatever is offered on the allergen menu? Does it work the same whether or not you have the quick service plan? THANKS!

 

[cgncga]

How does this work? Do they make a child's portion of whatever is offered on the allergen menu? Does it work the same whether or not you have the quick service plan? THANKS!

If I remember correctly, the allergy menu will also show the gluten free childrens options. My gluten free daughter is 12 (so on the adult plan) but the adult meals are often too large for her (yet she hates to waste food and will force herself to eat more than she really needs) so we did purchase quite a few gluten free kids meals for her--especially at the resort. I know she had childrens orders of gluten free waffles, gluten free spaghetti and gluten free fish & chips (from Cookes of Dublin) on our August trip. In the past, I know she has had the kids gluten free chicken fingers, pizza and burgers, too.

 

[DisneyMim]

I can not answer you about the kid's meals, but I need to eat gluten free and I can tell you they Disney is wonderful with it! All the chefs I have talked to go above and beyond. This August we went over to AOA for dinner our first night. We don't make any reservations for out first night and just wing it. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries. The chef walked me all around the food court telling me what I could eat. He was awesome! Also every other place I ate was equally great. I would imagine they would go the same for kid's meals. I really don't think you have anything to worry about. Have a wonderful vacation!

 

[pittsburghmom]

If I remember correctly, the allergy menu will also show the gluten free childrens options. My gluten free daughter is 12 (so on the adult plan) but the adult meals are often too large for her (yet she hates to waste food and will force herself to eat more than she really needs) so we did purchase quite a few gluten free kids meals for her--especially at the resort. I know she had childrens orders of gluten free waffles, gluten free spaghetti and gluten free fish & chips (from Cookes of Dublin) on our August trip. In the past, I know she has had the kids gluten free chicken fingers, pizza and burgers, too.

I will need to do some digging to find some pictures of the allergy menus. I know there is a thread on here somewhere lol. I wasnt sure if the allergy menu was broken down by adult vs. child. I guess we could always pay out of pocket if there wasn't anything on the child's allergy menu that was appealing.

 

[pittsburghmom]

I can not answer you about the kid's meals, but I need to eat gluten free and I can tell you they Disney is wonderful with it! All the chefs I have talked to go above and beyond. This August we went over to AOA for dinner our first night. We don't make any reservations for out first night and just wing it. I ordered a cheeseburger and fries. The chef walked me all around the food court telling me what I could eat. He was awesome! Also every other place I ate was equally great. I would imagine they would go the same for kid's meals. I really don't think you have anything to worry about. Have a wonderful vacation!

I am really looking forward to him being able to have such a great experience. We rarely eat out, so this is going to be a huge treat for him. Thanks for the feedback =)

 

[zumbergc]

Just a heads up. There is additional time involved in getting your gluten free meals. If its the counter service. You have to wait for the chef. Maybe a few minutes may be 15 minutes. Then you have to wait additional time for them to prepare your meal. I'm just letting you know up front. When people with no allergies go in a fast food line, it takes a reasonable amount of time.

At sit down buffets, there is additional wait. If you have a split party some allergies, some not. There is a good chance they will be done eating by the time you get your food, or almost done.

At regular sit down meals. Its still is a wait. You wait extra for the chef to come out and then they prepare the meal once they get back, so again it takes more time. Here they bring everyone's food out at once.

I have a 5 and 2 yr old. So, patience isn't huge. We tend to bring food in the parks for that reason. My kids aren't great at waiting, and you have a wait a long time. Of course they are really investigating all your bags at entrances to the parks now a days too.
So just keep that in mind.

 

[Sagginit]

So I haven't been to the world in a few years but have been to DL twice in a year (because when you are a celiac you go where the GF food is). In DL they upgraded the binders to allergen menus which I believe they have at WDW now from what I have read. The allergen menus I saw in DL all had children's options on them. I thought about ordering them as I didn't want to eat a full meal but it wasn't worth it in the end as in some cases there was no child's size GF bun (so a roast beef sandwich was just a pile of roast beef) and the GF sides for children were more limited as children get less side options to begin with but they will typically have fruit or carrot sticks in most places. So for out of pocket $8 for a pile of roasted beef with carrot sticks and chocolate milk seemed silly. If you are on the DP you will be getting those meals anyway so will just have to roll with what they have or take the time to pick a place in advance with better options. I used an app called Gluten Free Disney Dining and for that reason it was the best $1.99 spent on my trip planning as I could open the app and browse QS GF menu options before even arriving at the location. I also found it was highly accurate but to be safe I cross reference regular menus to make sure there was no discrepancies which I only found once.

I have found it can take longer for a GF meal at QS places when I am in WDW, however DL it was much faster. Now I don't know if they have upgraded their wait time in WDW but in DL I think this has to do with having the menu right there and the buttons on the register so it goes straight to the kitchen without finding a chef. Just ask if you are pressed for time as some items take long as they are frozen (chicken nuggest, pizza, mac &cheese) so they can only cook so fast. When I was in WDW I found out one place took so long (30min) as they baked both the chicken nuggets and fries as they didn't have a safe fryer and as they had so much gluten in the kitchen they had a chef personally prepare the meal. Next trip I found places that just had GF buns so I could grab a burger with a side of veggies/fruits when we were pressed for time. If you have any safety concerns you can let them know its an allergy not a preference, I have had some restaurants ask me that which is wonderful as they want to know if you need them to take the extra care/time or if you can just have your meal prepared off the menu without worry of CC. Also my last tip is I found better options at the moderate resorts food courts. We often would take an afternoon break anyway so we would have lunch at the hotel instead of the parks at that time. Guess what? We found most of the time there almost no one there eating as everyone eats lunch at the parks so we often had the chef all to ourselves right away.