What does allergy-friendly mean in WDW? - post trip report

[MinnieFan4ever]

Gluten allergy here . when you have some extra time on your hands, start looking at the menus at the counter service restaurants. Get an idea of what your son would like. i would suggest ordering in person. The gf meal will come out separately and will take longer to prepare. They don’t even put it on the same tray. Keep that in mind. I have taken to order my meal separately so it doesn’t hold up the rest of my family’s meal. as pp have said, there are several places that have pre packaged foods/deserts that are gf and are great to throw in a backpack if he needs food “now”. Many cs have a dedicated fryer. It can be done, it does seem daunting. I have found WDW to be the easiest/safest place to eat for me.
good luck and enjoy!

 

[Ermise]

Hollywood & Vine -- This was a major disappointment and I really wish we had just left. It's a buffet. I expected him to be served food from the kitchen. No. They handed him a menu that indicated which foods at the buffet were gluten free and the menu said he was on his own as far as cross contamination was concerned. He ate the carved turkey and mashed potatoes from a tray that had only been touched at the front. It's ridiculous that they expected him to stalk the buffet for new trays being brought out and then race to get to it before anyone else. This would have been they only way he could be sure no one had used the wrong spoon or otherwise contaminated it. He didn't want me to cause a fuss, which I do understand, but this is not providing safe food to those with allergies. If they couldn't accommodate him, they should have said so when I made the reservation. I think I will send an email about this.

Wow. I would definitely complain about this. We ate there in July, spoke to the chef, and had him bring food out from the back. As I mentioned before it is getting harder and harder to get a chef to come speak to us (and when they do they seem very put out), but what happened to you is even more troubling. At Round-up Rodeo our waiter refused to get the chef for us to ask a question about the desserts. It is really sad to see Disney move in this direction.

 

[Ismo]

My best friend has celiacs and regularly eats QS at Disney. She has never once gotten sick at a Disney park. Her food always takes significantly longer to come out though while they prepare the area and the food. But, she’s said it’s the one place she feels safe to eat.

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

Wow. I would definitely complain about this. We ate there in July, spoke to the chef, and had him bring food out from the back. As I mentioned before it is getting harder and harder to get a chef to come speak to us (and when they do they seem very put out), but what happened to you is even more troubling. At Round-up Rodeo our waiter refused to get the chef for us to ask a question about the desserts. It is really sad to see Disney move in this direction.

Whoa this is really not good! I'll be at WDW with our 23yo who has multiple (multiple!) allergies, including some unusual ones. I would be beyond ticked if they can't speak with a chef.

And yes, I filled out the Special Diets form for people with funky allergies.

 

[Disturbia]

We have kids with multiple allergies (one has milk, eggs, cashews, kiwi and sesame and the other had peanut treenuts (except coconut, sesame and sunflower seeds; most are in the 70-80 range) and we eat at QS and TS at WDW every time we go. I do order some food from garden grocers (they have dairy free fish sticks) and take a small soft sided cooler fill it with ice to freeze in the small fridges at AOA suites.

We always carry the AuviQ injector. I also carry Drkids pre measured Benadryl as my hands start shaking when the kids have a reaction. We’ve had many reactions outside of Disney (scariest was on a 10 hour flight) and just a few at WDW over a decade of going and we’ve just learned to deal with them. One of the biggest reasons we vacating at WDW (instead of say Mexico) is their ability to handle allergies.

Erin McKenna’s makes gluten free cakes and can deliver to your resort for free. However I read one review mention a reaction to gluten (double check orders).

Note the first two videos were 3 years ago (BoG is sit down fixed price at lunch now)

 

[Disturbia]

Btw we love nowhey chocolate treats (they even have decorate your own cookies/eggs around Easter, cupcakes, truffles etc; currently you can save with code laborday15). Our son first had Enjoylife dairy free chocolate at WDW (we had no idea back then that dairy free chocolate existed). Kids love allergy friendly trick or treating at WDW (us adults do as well). Erin McKenna can deliver allergy friendly treats to any table service (mermaid nina shows donuts at CRT but you have to call two weeks? ahead to order)

Another option we’ve used often is to order groceries online with gardengrocers or Amazon prime/Whole Foods. That way we can get ripple pea milk and other vegan breakfast/snack items.

 

[TheDailyMoo]

Wow. I would definitely complain about this. We ate there in July, spoke to the chef, and had him bring food out from the back. As I mentioned before it is getting harder and harder to get a chef to come speak to us (and when they do they seem very put out), but what happened to you is even more troubling. At Round-up Rodeo our waiter refused to get the chef for us to ask a question about the desserts. It is really sad to see Disney move in this direction.

Our last two trips these last two years we've had excellent service and attention from chefs coming out without even being asked. And taking their time and so kind. Of course we do mention a non top 8 allergen so it's probably because of that? However like you said we went to Roundup Rodeo and no chef at all, the server wanted to be the in between. Which is ok I guess if you feel comfortable that they know all about allergies but sometimes they don't exactly instill confidence! And last year it just happened to be Hollywood and Vine that wouldn't let us see a chef and that was our first meal with DS age 4 vacationing specifically at Disney World to put us at ease with allergies! The server was rude too which did NOT help. But every other experience has been wonderful and we've written cast compliments for the chefs that have gone above and beyond. Even this last trip Hollywood and Vine was awesome.

 

[Disturbia]

Our last two trips these last two years we've had excellent service and attention from chefs coming out without even being asked. And taking their time and so kind. Of course we do mention a non top 8 allergen so it's probably because of that? However like you said we went to Roundup Rodeo and no chef at all, the server wanted to be the in between. Which is ok I guess if you feel comfortable that they know all about allergies but sometimes they don't exactly instill confidence! And last year it just happened to be Hollywood and Vine that wouldn't let us see a chef and that was our first meal with DS age 4 vacationing specifically at Disney World to put us at ease with allergies! The server was rude too which did NOT help. But every other experience has been wonderful and we've written cast compliments for the chefs that have gone above and beyond. Even this last trip Hollywood and Vine was awesome.

We’ve had this happen at CRT (Kathy was our server; she is very short and condescending and everyone around us looked at us while she talked down; she just went on and on and started reciting the menu in a loud voice) and at Space220 despite having allergy orders ready with the chef (special diets form filled weeks in advance). The CRT chef came and eventually apologized and said he was covering for the original chef (he was very kind and then the server cooled down; I was going to order a flight but didn’t bother, we chose to ignore her and have a good time regardless).

I sent an email to the Space220 chef after we were done (our son only ate a few fries and took one bite of a dry burger patty on a dry bun) and he said he was surprised and thought we cancelled. He had our order ready to go; he was kind and apologetic and he escalated the issue to the manager; the manager was very defensive on her phone call (started off with you never checked in; but actually a CM with an iPad had checked us in and I had given her a Cast compliment for seating 3 at a 2 seater so I remembered her name and where she was from; suddenly they found us; it was still like a defensive interrogation vs apology; what was the name of the server, where were you seated, what did you order; I actually had my receipt (keep them). There was no refund even when we ate dinner and had ordered a special dessert (one of us had no dessert). Our son couldn’t eat anything and they refused to accommodate just took everything off his plate except the same dry patty and fries. The manger did say next time she will personally come and seat us, but half our party doesn’t want to waste anymore time there.

 

[TheDailyMoo]

We’ve had this happen at CRT (Kathy was our server; she is very short and condescending and everyone around us looked at us while she talked down; she just went on and on and started reciting the menu in a loud voice) and at Space220 despite having allergy orders ready with the chef (special diets form filled weeks in advance). The CRT chef came and eventually apologized and said he was covering for the original chef (he was very kind and then the server cooled down; I was going to order a flight but didn’t bother, we chose to ignore her and have a good time regardless).

I sent an email to the Space220 chef after we were done (our son only ate a few fries and took one bite of a dry burger patty on a dry bun) and he said he was surprised and thought we cancelled. He had our order ready to go; he was kind and apologetic and he escalated the issue to the manager; the manager was very defensive on her phone call (started off with you never checked in; but actually a CM with an iPad had checked us in and I had given her a Cast compliment for seating 3 at a 2 seater so I remembered her name and where she was from; suddenly they found us; it was still like a defensive interrogation vs apology; what was the name of the server, where were you seated, what did you order; I actually had my receipt (keep them). There was no refund even when we ate dinner and had ordered a special dessert (one of us had no dessert). Our son couldn’t eat anything and they refused to accommodate just took everything off his plate except the same dry patty and fries. The manger did say next time she will personally come and seat us, but half our party doesn’t want to waste anymore time there.

It's funny how the specific people working that day can really affect your overall experience! Last year at CRT our server had a kid with food allergies so she was ABOVE and BEYOND. In fact if a server mentions that they have intimate knowledge of food allergies we tend to trust them without any chef needed.

As far as Space 220 that really stinks that it was all set up for you and someone screwed that up. And then to try to blame you! That happens so often these days! We actually went to the lounge with zero intention of our son eating any of the food as we had heard they weren't the best with allergies considering they are owned by an outside group. However we were comfortable getting him the fries as well while he munched on some of his safe food we brought along. Nothing fun about food allergies!