Food Allergies and Disney

I just wanted to write up a quick post about our experience with food allergies in Disney.  As the parent of an epi-pen kid, new experiences, especially restaurants, can be a bit unnerving.  You're not sure of what possible allergens they serve, how accommodating they will be, or how much of a risk cross-contamination with be.

I'm here to tell you that if you're planning a trip to Disney, then allergies are not something you need to worry about at all.  Disney was so wonderful in making sure Emmy was safe from all peanut products.

First off, if you are making any dining reservations for a sit-down meal, there is a spot to include any food allergies in your group.  We made sure to make note of Emmy's peanut allergy in each spot.  That info was then on all of our paperwork from Disney....itineraries, etc.

Our first meal at Disney was a sit-down lunch at Cinderella's castle.  As we were checking in we mentioned about Emmy's allergy to the woman.  She already had it written down, and there was a big "ALLERGY" stamped in red at the top of our ticket, so all the servers would know.  As soon as we sat down, the server said that the chef would be out soon to talk with us.  We only had to wait just a few minutes for him to come out.  He went over all the kid's meals and their ingredients.  He even offered to make something else if we weren't comfortable with any of the choices.  Emmy happily had the cheese and grapes appetizer and chicken nuggets for lunch.  For dessert she just had some ice cream I believe {desserts are always the toughest for a peanut allergy kid}.

The next day we had a reservation at Hollywood and Vine.  I was nervous about this one because it was a buffet, and so allergens can be a little harder to control in that environment.  Again, our servers already had in the computer about her allergy and we were told the chef would be out soon to take us around the buffet.  We had to wait a little over 5 minutes for him to come out, which really wasn't bad.  They told us he might be awhile since he had a few parents to talk to that day.  He walked around the whole buffet with Skip and Emmy, pointing out what foods contained peanuts or not.  Great!

The same thing happened when we were at the Tusker House the following day.  It was another buffet lunch and the chef thoroughly went over each option with Skip.  The chef here even brought out a special dessert plate for Emmy in case we were still nervous about any cross contamination around the desserts.

All the rest of our meals were quick service meals.  Obviously those are a little different than table service, but we still felt like we were getting the answers and help we needed.  Several times we would have a question about a particular food.  Skip would go up to the servers behind the counter and ask about the ingredients.  They would either get one of the chefs to answer our questions, or if it was a packaged item, they would get the box it came in so we could look at the ingredient list ourselves.

Thanks to Disney's complete understand and accommodation of food allergies, I did not have to worry about Emmy at all.  We were truly able to relax and enjoy all our meals in Disney!