Vegan and Allergy Dining Info

[HLAuburn]

We are going on the Dream in Oct. My brother is vegan and my daughter has an egg allergy. Do we need to let DCL know this ahead of time or will it be enough to let them know when we board?

Also, I've seen the vegetarian options on the menus, but what are the options for vegans?

Thanks!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

We are going on the Dream in Oct. My brother is vegan and my daughter has an egg allergy. Do we need to let DCL know this ahead of time or will it be enough to let them know when we board?

Also, I've seen the vegetarian options on the menus, but what are the options for vegans?

Thanks!

I'm sorry, but what's the difference?

 

[n8nally]

Vegetarians will eat dairy products and eggs, and sometimes even fish and seafood, whereas vegans avoid all animal products.

 

[RAHaws]

Vegans don't eat anything that's even animal related (dairy products, eggs, oils, etc.), while vegetarians don't eat meat, while still retaining the option to eat cheese, milk, and sometimes egg, and the like. It's really a personal preference for most people on how far they take it.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Vegetarians will eat dairy products and eggs, and sometimes even fish and seafood, whereas vegans avoid all animal products.

Vegans don't eat anything that's even animal related (dairy products, eggs, oils, etc.), while vegetarians don't eat meat, while still retaining the option to eat cheese, milk, and sometimes egg, and the like. It's really a personal preference for most people on how far they take it.

OK, thanks.

OP, the "vegetarian" options I've seen listed don't specify necessarily what's used to prepare the dish, but appear to be mostly non-animal. I could be wrong.

You should notify DCL about your daughter's allergy. You will meet with the head server and chef when you board to set up a diet plan. And each evening, your server will bring the next night menu to select the meal so it can be specially prepared with the restrictions. You can probably do the same with the vegan diet also.

 

[EvaSue]

I eat vegan at home, but I switch to vegetarian on the cruise, because choices are very limited for vegans. It can be done, but it's a bit of a hassle! I don't think any of the MDR vegetarian options are fully vegan. :-/

 

[lilpooh108]

We are going on the Dream in Oct. My brother is vegan and my daughter has an egg allergy. Do we need to let DCL know this ahead of time or will it be enough to let them know when we board?

Also, I've seen the vegetarian options on the menus, but what are the options for vegans?

Thanks!

My daughter has the same allergy and to be honest, her meal choices are extremely limited and Disney has gotten rid of some of the better choices from before (either their supplier doesn't supply anymore, or they changed vendors but there's alot of stuff that is not available).

Depending on what your child eats at home, she may not have very much variety.

For our egg/dairy/nut allergy, they usually repeat these same items:

1. pasta marinara --- you have to be careful. Some people will give you the mickey head shaped pasta and say it's ok, some will not. Since I have had chefs tell me that this is not egg allergy safe, I usually decline it. We try to get the regular non-egg pasta noodles

2. pasta bolognese

3. pan fried breaded chicken strips

4. fried rice with no egg

5. pizza with just marinara (but I'm sure your DD can have a better pizza than us, with cheese, etc).

6. baked fish of some sort, veggies & rice

There is only one type of bread that she can have, and its a dinner roll. They used to have enjoy life cookies and divvies at some point, but no more.

It used to be you can order at Flo's, but not any more since everything has to go through the allergy kitchen.

Do not go to the buffet on the first day, since you will have to wait for her food to be brought up from the allergy kitchen (this takes forever).

You should also fax in the special diets form so that they know you're coming. You'd remind them when you get seated and meet the head server, but we've always had better service when we prepared them ahead of time.

For your brother who is vegan, there won't be very many choices but they can grill veggies, grill tofu, make a pad thai tofu, fried rice tofu, salads and veggie curry (if the chef makes this, this is way off menu). I've also read of some black bean patty concoction that they make/have. It's really boring, actually.

Your DD might have a hard time finding snacks--- so we usually bring our own prepackaged ones (especially cookie related items, since it's hard for her to watch others eat this stuff).

Your head server may or may not remind you to order lunch (they always make you order dinner) ahead of time. I would do that. It was too hard dealing with people who weren't "allowed" to handle food allergies, and lunch took a while for those times that we forgot. They will pre-make your DD's food before Castaway Cay, and bring it to Cookies. That's the only place you can pick it up at, not at Cookies Too.

Good luck!

 

[MeLaNie9]

My son has a dairy allergy and last Aug (in fact I think Aug 5th was our embarkation day!) we ordered his food for the entire day at dinner the night before. We had breakfast at Cabanas most days (we were on the Dream) and it didn't take too long to find a CM and let them know that we had preordered breakfast and gave them our room number. The one day we went to EG for breakfast was not good compared to Cabanas. Lunch was the same way - we had 2 stops at CC and both days they brought out a big tray of allergy meals that you pick up at the side of Cookies BBQ, it was again under our room number.

Our main waiter handled all of our pre-ordering and he was a very busy guy so this took a lot of time each night. I didn't know better as it was our 1st cruise but I think it is really the head server who is supposed to help with this. Our head server was not helpful and I rarely even saw him around at dinnertime.

He was not able to have ANY bread products (including plain dinner rolls) which he was not happy about. He is not much for cookies/cakes/etc because even dairy-free versions often have (dairy-free) chocolate flavoring or chocolate chips and he just won't eat chocolate, so dessert was usually fruit.

One thing that I learned is that they will gladly give your child with an allergy something from the adult dinner menu if that works. One night my son had the prime rib. However, it was an ENORMOUS portion and there was no way he could even eat 1/4 of it!

We didn't even try to do Flo's because I just didn't think it would be possible, but I also did not realize that they have fresh fruit there.

We did not have a big problem with Cabanas on embarkation day, but we did have the earliest port time and so it was not very crowded. They did indeed make him an entire meal from the allergy kitchen but it was pretty quick. I think it was his favorite meal of the entire trip!

 

[ImprovGal]

I eat vegan at home, but I switch to vegetarian on the cruise, because choices are very limited for vegans. It can be done, but it's a bit of a hassle! I don't think any of the MDR vegetarian options are fully vegan. :-/

I don't know how accurate this information is, but I was told that when they did the menu redesign that listed the vegetarian options separately, each night's menu was designed to offer one lacto-ovo entree and one vegan entree. I suspect that while that may have been the original intent of the menu design, actual variations in ingredient availability may affect how vegan-friendly the standard prep of the dishes may actually be from one cruise to the next.

 

[EvaSue]

If that's true then that's awesome! it's not easy being green!

 

[phinz]

Vegetarian meals are something I've worried about. I'm vegetarian, but also can't eat sesame seeds, cabbage, iceberg lettuce, most nuts and several other items. I'm worried that I'm going to wind up going hungry as a general rule.

 

[cris0809]

Vegetarians will eat dairy products and eggs, and sometimes even fish and seafood, whereas vegans avoid all animal products.

Sorry, but you're not a vegetarian if you eat fish or seafood. That's a pescetarian.

I order the vegetarian selections often. They will work with you to create vegan options, but it is definitely something you'll want to note on your reservation, discuss with your dining team and you'll probably have to order your food the night before. It's also good to consider the sit-down breakfast and lunch areas with dietary restrictions or allergies.