Special dietary needs

[rn2b]

Hi everyone,
Looks like we'll be traveling to WDW at a time when one of us will not be able to eat Dairy-in all forms, Eggs in all forms, Wheat in all forms, Seafood, Soy in all forms and Nuts.
Does anyone have any experience dining at the sit down rests. where the chefs were able to offer ANYthing? Just looks so restrictive, but I know this person willl be very unhappy if not able to eat along with everyone else.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts, I see that they can accomadate a simply Gluten free request I am just wondering if eliminating this many ingrediants will be impossible for them to help.
Thanks!

 

[SueM in MN]

Follow the link in my signature to the disABILITIES FAQs thread. In post number 3, you will find a section about special diet and allergies that includes contact information for WDW dietary departments.

 

[clanmcculloch]

While you obviously need to check with Special Diets to find out the latest information, I can assure you that you will be able to eat. I was just there in December. Between my kids, they can't have gluten, milk, eggs, yeast, citrus, sesame, certain nuts, cranberry, blueberry or MSG.

The allergy chicken nuggest that WDW now carries are free of all of your listed allergens. There are CS locations that carry these and many TS locations do as well (though if I'm eating at a TS location, I sure want something better than what I can get at a CS location but that's just me).

Desserts: Many places (CS and TS) carry Rice Dream ice cream. None of the allergy baked good will work for you unfortunately. Well, there is one exception to this. At Chef Mickey, the chef told us that the cupcakes that he gave us are something that he always keeps in supply. They're gluten, milk, egg, nut and soy free. I don't recall if he said seafood or not but I can't imagine him using ingredients that contain any seafood. They had both chocolate and vanilla and they were even iced. At LeCellier, they had a wonderful raspberry sorbet. I believe that the Itzkadoozie popsicles at the ice cream carts are safe. I'm not 100% sure because they're something we can't eat due to the citrus issues but it's certainly worth investigating as they'd make a wonderful refreshing snack that's easy to find when wandering the parks. The popcorn all over the place has been safe for us but I don't know if it has soy. It's also worth investigating since it's also found all over the place.

The gluten free buns that WDW carries will not be safe for you. If we're at a park and want a CS meal, we pretty much stick with what we'd do at home; a bunless burger with a large piece of lettuce to wrap around it. It's boring but it's safe. If they have the chicken fingers then those are preferable. The info from Special Diets will tell you which parks carry the chicken fingers.

We really prefer to eat CS meals at our resort. Our past several trips, Special Diets has had a chef from the resort call us. This time, the chef at POFQ made a huge batch of brownies just for our girls. They also made special pizzas that were safe (the cheese was soy so not safe for you). The point is that at your resort, the chefs have a much greater opportunity to make special foods.

Chefs everywhere can make waffles that are safe (dedicated allergy safe Mickey waffle press). They use apple sauce instead of eggs and apple juice instead of milk. They use Bob's Red Mill gluten free mix. It's VERY yummy. We've gotten them at our resort food court and they're also available at many TS locations. Crystal Palace and Cinderella's Royal Table I believe use Van's gluten free waffles which should also be safe (we use these at home and they're tasty).

Take a look at the menus on allears.net. If they carry meat dishes then they should be able to make some kind of meat based dish for you.

At this point, we only eat at Disney owned restaurants. I feel confident that the TS locations owned by Disney will have at least something tasty to eat. The non-Disney places, I'm not so sure.

The only Disney owned place I'd personally avoid is the Wave but that's because DD11 got very sick from eating there. Thank goodness my kids don't have anaphylactic reactions but throwing up all night certainly wasn't pleasant. To make things worse, they didn't even take any responsibility. I just won't ever eat there again.

We really like to make our reservations for off times. At home we eat dinner around 4:30 so eating around this time at WDW is what we shoot for. Not many people like to eat this early. This gives the chefs a bit of extra time to be able to dedicate to us which is something I really appreciate.

If the person with the restriction is a child, you might want to consider skipping buffets. It's very hard for a child to see all sorts of wonderful food that he/she can't eat. Not only that, but waiting for their food while they're staring at all that food that's visible on the buffet can be very difficult. Family style meals are fine (the chef will bring a plate just for the allergy sufferer so no worries about cross contamination). If the sufferer is an adult then no worries about buffets since the chef will get the food for the allergy sufferer from the kitchen to avoid any concerns about cross contamination.

 

[jmartinez1895]

What a great rew=view of some of the options for you. I just wanted to add that the person in your group can bring in ther own food for snaking just be sure to tell secruity that it is for a special diet and they will let who ever bring it in with no trouble.

 

[rn2b]

Thank you everyone!!! Great ideas, and I had no idea that WDW had so many different things it can do, I knew that alot of places would have sugar free for the diabetics, but wow, I am feeling a little better about traveling with the diet now, might actually be easier than me making it at home!

 

[snorris49]

There is also a gluten free, dairy free, egg free, nut free, and soy free chocolate cake that they make at Crystal Palace which they served with rice dream ice cream for me. It was out of this world! It would also be a really fun place for kids (winnie the pooh characters, etc) and I did see quite a few kids who had special foods brought out by the chefs.

 

[toi]

My son can't have soy, milk, nuts, peanuts, eggs, wheat, shellfish, fish, or sweet potatoes, and my daughter has 1 additional allergy. We are going to be at WDW in 3 weeks. If you're going after then, I'm happy to post where we ate and what he was served.

We have turned in the form with all of our reservation information and restrictions, so I feel comfortable that everything will be fine. We have traveled there before with only a couple of food allergies and had no problems.

If you contact the special dietary requests office, they will email you pages of information. Going through it, you will find that they have access to many of the products that those with such limited diets would use at home: Enjoy Life products, rice pasta, rice dream milk and ice cream, allergy friendly chicken tenders, safe hamburgers and hotdogs at some location, etc. I think someone posted about the Vann's waffles. Be careful with those. We can't have them, and I can't remember if it is because of soy or something else.

Anyway, let me know if you'd like a trip report, and I'll be happy to post when we get back.

 

[chaoslobster]

The chefs are always just SO sweet and nice about dietary restrictions.

Last year my little sister joined me at Disney for several days, and we had reservations at O'Hana. She's pretty severely lactose intolerant and usually avoids dairy when possible, but she carries lactaid pills for "special" meals or when she just can't stand it any longer and NEEDS a little comfort from her main men, Ben & Jerry's. Her intolerance is bad enough that she has to take up to six pills at a time to avoid spending the whole night locked in the bathroom. Unfortunately on the afternoon before we were to eat at O'Hana, we had a little incident on Splash Mountain involving a supposedly waterproof carry-bag... long story short, her wallet got absolutely soaked and in it were the lactaid pills. She only managed to salvage two pills that hadn't disintegrated totally, and that's nowhere near enough for her to eat dairy safely. We made some frantic phone calls but it turns out there's nowhere on Disney property including the first aid stations that carries lactaid pills, and we didn't have a car.

So we trudged into O'Hana anyway, disappointed but vowing to make the most of it. We weren't expecting to be able to get any sort of special meal for her, as we hadn't called ahead to notify the restaurant -- we didn't know we'd be unable to get any more lactaid pills until about an hour before our reservation. We figured we'd just ask the server if he or she could find out from the kitchen which of the foods contained dairy, and avoid eating any of that. Well, after explaining the problem to our waitress, she promptly informed the chef and he came out to our table personally to talk to us. I felt so bad because we hadn't called ahead, and tried to tell him that we didn't want to be a bother or take up extra time on a busy night, but he insisted on it! He wanted to listen to the whole story of the drowned wallet, and then told us we were in luck because he was going to make a whole platter of dairy-free skewers (the food at O'Hana is primarily different meats on skewers, and apparently the sauces are made with butter, which is a no-no for the lactose intolerant or dairy allergies). He even asked how she liked her meat prepared, and personally brought out a huge platter of skewers cooked extra-rare. Not merely prepared without any sauce which would have been much simpler, but made with a special butter-free sauce. Not only that, but after we couldn't eat a single shrimp more, he then presented us with a dessert that I later named The Leaning Tower of Fruit, as it was the biggest fruit sculpture I have ever seen in my life. It had peanut butter sauce and non-dairy whipped topping and cocoa powder. It was gigantic and extravagant, it contained not the slightest molecule of dairy, and we ate the whole thing.

Obviously, a simple case of lactose intolerance isn't quite the same thing as a life-threatening allergy to almost every food known to man -- but I wanted to reassure you as to how very kind and accommodating the Disney chefs are, even when you try to stop them!

 

[SueM in MN]

What a great rew=view of some of the options for you. I just wanted to add that the person in your group can bring in ther own food for snaking just be sure to tell secruity that it is for a special diet and they will let who ever bring it in with no trouble.

I just wanted to mention that security is looking for things that could be dangerous. The only food or drink concerns they would have would be alcohol in any form or glass bottles/ jars.
You also would not be able to bring in a large cooler because there would be no place to put it. Large ROLLING coolers, backpacks or suitcases are also not allowd because they are a tripping hazard for other guests.

We have been bringing in snacks for DD for many years without problem and have never told security or had security make any comment about them.

Just keep in mind that things do change from time to time, so it's very important to contact the dietary needs department each time to make sure foods that were previously safe are still safe.
And, as a previous poster pointed out - the chef will be helpful to you whether you called earlier or not. The counter service restaurants have a large book which lists ingredients for the products they sell. People who have used it have posted that it is available on request and is quite large (and not the easist to look through).

In addition to the menus on allearsnet.com , the DIS site also has menu information. I suggest using both because, depending on when the information was updated, one may be more up to date on one restaurant and another at a different restaurant. Checking both will give most up to date info.

Links to both websites are listed in post #3 of the disABILITIES FAQs thread, in the dietary information listed under specific conditions and concerns.

ALSO, restaurants ARE allowed to charge extra for making special food if the food is more expensive (such as allergy free chicken fingers may be more expensive for the restaurant to buy than 'standard' chicken fingers).
Clarificatin to the ADA (Americans with Disabities Act) does allow this if the ingredients cost more or the preparation is more than just ommitting a sauce or ingredient. I am typing on my iPod now and not able to post a link, but will post one later today.
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