Have a Magical Day (A Disney Informational Post)

aklap · Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 12530 Location: WI, USA

So you want to go to Disney....

We just returned from a 6 day stay at Disney from 4/22/07 - 4/27/07. This is the 1st time we've been back there since I've been GF. After going through the process, we thought it might be helpful to others if we shared our experience and knowledge. Sorry this got a bit long, but I tried to be as detailed as possible.

_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

aklap · Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 12530 Location: WI, USA

General Preperation - A plan of action:

Since you are going to be spending a fair amount of money, you'll want to make sure you get the maximum return out of it. Invest a few bucks into a resource that will pay for itself many times over....

Birnbaum's Walt Disney World 2007 is a great planning resource. It gives you tons of helpful tips and a look inside of WDW. It breaks down the parks and attractions with accurate descriptions and analysis. You get a very good feel for each attraction and whether or not you want to visit it. They have time lines for planning your trip, budgeting info, etc.

We took a highlighter and marked each attraction/restaurant we wanted to visit.

Getting a feel for the park/attraction you want to see help you get the most out of your time with Mickey. We've talked to several people that didn't have a plan of action and tend to just wander about - dazed and confused. Let's face it - there's so much stuff to do at each park it can be overhelming, you need to prioritize your activities. Once you've gone thru book and marked the ones you are interested in, put them in order. Start with the one that you are most interested in and work down to the least interesting. Don't wait till the last minute to do this, go thru this book well in advance. You'll want to do this 7 months before you go. More important than the attractions are the restaurants [more about this later].

Also spend some time at the Walt Disney World Website and the All Ear's Site, they have planning info there too. You can signup a planning kit on the Disney site that will also help. While researching for this post, I found a Disney Discussion Board. I haven't really looked much at it, but I suspect there's a wealth of info there too! Y'all know my love of discussion boards Wink

You'll also want to get a hold of their Dietary Request Info. There are several Word documents that they will email you with lists of food, which restaurants have what types of friendly foods. It's broken down by parks [Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Disney/MGM Studios. If you PM me I will send you a phone number/email address for each park Special Diet contact. [I won't include it here in order to protect them from spammers]. I have to thank Laura for sending me her Disney documents!

Another document they include is an Allergy/Dietary Needs Request Form. This form is filled out and sent back to them so they know you are coming. On this form there is a section for dinner reservations - filling this this out is a must! I'll have a section on Dinner Reservations.

~

Al n Peg Notes on General Prep:

As I said above, take some time and plan this out. It makes things a lot easier in the long run. It's easy to get sidetracked if you don't have a POA [Plan of Action]. Peg spent more time reading thru this book than I did - after all - she is the Entertainment Director Wink

. I primarily looked at the attractions info.

We booked this trip through our travel agent. Certainly we could've booked it right thru the Disney site, but we have used her for several years and she's always done right by us [and me for the diet]. Everything was handled thru our TA. She was willing to even make the restaurant reservations for us too if we wanted [I did that myself].

For our trip we decided to stay at a Disney Resort [All Star Music]. As you will see the All Star resorts are considered their Value [least expensive]. If you stay at a WDW property, you can participate in Disney's Magical Express. They will transport you from the airport [and handle your checked luggage] to your resort. Since we were flying, there's no need to rent a car, worrying about getting there, worrying about parking [or paying for parking at the parks].

One side effect of staying in a Value Resort is that...many, many, many [did I say many?] others are staying there too. This can make for long lines when waiting for a bus back to the resort. We noticed much shorter [sometimes non-existant lines] for higher priced resorts. If/when return again, will factor into our plans. In case you're wondering...they can fit about 72 people on a bus. About 25-30 of them are standing in the aisle. After walking all day - standing for another 15-25 minutes on a moving bus is not very appealing.

Another benefit you get from staying "on grounds" is Extra Magic Hours. Each park takes turns at being open earlier or later for those guests. This greatly reduces the crowds. They have schedules of which parks have Extra Magic Hours.

We also added the Park Hopper option. This allows you to hop between parks on any given day. If the morning we could go to Magic Kingdom, then head to Epcot at night for their fireworks. Without the park hopper option, this is not possible. Base tickets only allow 1 park per day.
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

aklap · Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 12530 Location: WI, USA

Dining and Reservations - Your Key to Eating at Disney.

Let me start off by saying...GF eating at Disney is no different than eating out at any other restaurant. It has the same risks as you do in the "real world". However, the chefs do have training and knowledge of dietary needs. Some chefs are better than others, just like in the "real world". If you follow some guidelines, I think you can navigate WDW safely [as safe as one can be considering the situation].

In the General Prep section I discussed about getting the Dietary Request Info. That info explains much about dietary requirement eating. Make sure you get this info from WDW.

The Table Service Restaurants [think sit down dinner type places] are the most friendly towards GF dining. You can always talk to the chef about your options. The chef will either let you order anything you want [even stuff not on the normal menu], or modify an existing menu option to meet your needs. Some of these places are buffets. As we know buffets are not always GF friendly. Most times the chefs at the buffet places will offer to make something special for you [at least they did in the 2 places I attended. I didn't realize they were buffets when we selected them].

The Quick Service places [think fast food] are still friendly, but it's like a fast food place. Things are fast paced, you place your order and you get your food. Certain places will have GF food options right at the register, you just have to tell them it's an allergy order. It's always best to talk to a manager. Once they know there's an allergy order, they will get it handled for you.

Since it's fast paced, it's sometimes not easy [takes a bit of time] to get a manager. Once you talk to them, things go pretty smoothly. It just takes a bit of time.

TIP: Eat at off-times. Lunch at 11:00 - 11:30 are pretty good times to eat. Very short lines, little waiting. Peak times are 12-12:30 to 1:30-2:00. Dinner at 5:00-5:30 are good as well. Since you will be having reservations, its not too much of a problem, but it's still nice to have it less crowded [ie less screaming children].

Reservations:

You will want to make reservations for several reasons. Trying to get into a place for dinner [heck even a table service for lunch] is difficult [almost impossible] w/o a reservation. There's lots of people there and they all want to eat! The other reason for making reservations is making sure they know about the GF requirement. When you make the reservation [407-939-3463], you tell them you have a food allergy [I hate using that term, but it's what they know] specifically Celiac/Gluten Intolerance. It will be noted in the reservation.

If you have kids [or yourself] that would like Character Dinners, book them yesterday! Those events you can book 180 days out! From what I've heard, you need to do it that far ahead.

Once you have all your reservations made, you will want to fill out your Guest Allergy/Dietary Needs Request form. At the bottom of that form they have a section for Date/Time/Restaurant/Comment/# in Party/Reservation number. That form is faxed in to WDW and it gets sent out to all those restaurants you have listed. Very cool!

Dining Plan:

Something relatively new at Disney is their 2008 Magic Your Way Dining Plan. This package starts to get you into the "all inclusive" realm of vacations. In order to get the Dining Plan, you must stay at a Disney Resort. The Dining package allows you:

You could use all your snack credits is one day if you wish. It's not very smart, but it gives you flexibility. However, with flexibility comes some planning...there's that P word again.

This plan costs about 40.00 per adult (age 10 and up) per day and 11.00 per child (age 3-9). To determine if this plan is worth it for you, spend some time at the link above, it's discussed there. It doesn't take long to go thru 40.00 per day in food in drink. As you might guess, it's expensive. A bottle of water/soda is around 2.00 - 2.39. A burger combo [burger & fries] is around 6.00. A large fountain Coke is 2.39. A GF pizza is 7.00-8.00

Al n Peg Notes on Dining & Reservations

I have to say, I was overall very impressed with the entire system of reservations. As I said above our travel agent was willing to make the reservations for us, but I had some questions and had to call in anyway, so I just made them. Plus, I get a little funny about that stuff [GF stuff] when it's out of my control. It's not that I don't trust our TA, I just feel better about doing myself.

If think all of the restaurants knew about my requirements upon check in. Several of the wait-staff did not notice the info on our slip from the hostess. If they had, it tells that there is a dietary requirement. I always told them I need to speak with a chef and within minutes a chef as at our table. I found all the chefs were willing to do what ever was needed...be it modify an existing menu option...or abandon the menu all together. Some were more personable than others. I tend to think Chefs are a bit like doctors...they don't like to be questioned. I had 2 instances. One at Mama Melroses [MGM Studios] and one at Coral Reef [Epcot]. I'll explain the "altercations" in their respective sections.

The quick service places were not as easy. As I said, some places had GF options right on the registers. I suspect the ones that had problems were not due to the register, but rather the attendant. The manager at Cosmic Ray's said just tell the attendant that it's an allergy order and they'd make the proper adjustments.

One side effect of reservations is that it ties you to a schedule. You gotta be at a certain place at a certain time. Since it's just Peg and I, it wasn't too much of a big deal. If you had kids...well...all bets are off! Smile

It just makes you do a bit more....PLANNING. The good thing...we were ready for a break about that time anyway! Since we had a park hopper pass we weren't concerned about which park we ate in on a particular day.

TIP: Try to coordinate your dinner plans with the park that you are going to for the day. Hindsight being what it is...we would've planned things a bit more to be at the "dining" park when it came to our reservation. All but 1 of our reservations were for dinner. Park hopping typically costs you about 20 to 60 min in travel. <20 minutes if you could catch the Monorail between Magic Kingdom and Epcot. 20-30 minutes if you needed to hop to MGM or Animal Kindom. 60 minutes if we had to travel back to our resort and then to dinner. Riding those buses got a big tiring.

I kept track of what we spent for Dining Plan food for our stay. Our Dining plan total came to roughly 512.00. I tended to round figures up to nearest dollar. We paid about 400.00 for our dining plan. That's a savings of 112.00! We did spend some money on snacks and drinks outside of dining plan, but it was minimal. Usually bottled water.

TIP: Use you snack credits for breakfast. Breakfast is not really covered under the dining plan. We used our snack credits to get a fresh fruit bowl [2.99] for me and a little carton of milk and a little box of cereal for Peg. The milk was covered as a snack in the dining plan. The cereal was an item that was purchased, it was not part of the dining plan.

Peg said next time, she pack X number of mini boxes of cereal. Of course that's not an option for us gluten intols Wink

You could pack little bags of GF cereal I guess. We did find that you could buy [at the gift shop] the Kelloggs cereal packs like you find in the grocery store. I think it was 5.25 for a package of 6 or 8 of them. They had a little food section there. It was rather out of place, but convenient none the less. I did not look to see how much a bag of Doritos were.

The food at our resort was pretty much fast food type, I wasn't interested in dealing with that. The fruit bowl worked perfectly [and healthy!]. It was a good amount of fruit and was enough to get me by until lunch @ 11:00 - 11:30 [avoiding the crowds]. You had to buy OJ, but using our endless mugs I got Nestle's Raspberry Iced tea or Coke Wink

Our resort had an offer for an endless mug [souvenir of course] for hot or cold drinks. 11.59 per cup. Considering any drinks were around 2.00+, it made sense to do it.
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

aklap · Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 12530 Location: WI, USA

The places we ate:

Cosmic Ray's [Magic Kingdom]

Fast food burger place. They have GF buns and can do fries if they are baked. It takes a bit of time to get the fries, but the burgers are really good! They use EnerG buns. The info you get from Disney says they have GF pizza - it's wrong!! The manager set me straight and got my order in place.

Pizzafari [Animal Kingdom]

They have GF pizza's. It's listed right on their register, you just ask for it. Peg heard them in the kitchen, "Gluten Free Pizza!" They go in the back and make it, it's not made with the other pizza's. You can see them making the NGF ones. GF pizza as acceptable. Not as good as my Chebe ones, but hey...I'm not at home. It's a plain cheese one, not pepperoni or other toppings. The info says they are Amy's. It tasted better than any Amy's I've ever had. I guess it must be the Disney magic that makes it better Wink

Backlot Express [MGM Studios]

Another Burger type place. I told the gal at the register, she said the manager has to process the order. They have dedicated fryers for their fries. I got another GF cheeseburger with fries.

Liberty Inn [Epcot]

You guessed it...a burger place. Most of these places have GF hotdogs too. I just don't remember all the other items. It was always easy to order a burger with a GF bun. This place had dedicated friers too.

Tolouc Turkey [MGM]

Big honkin' turkey legs. It was good. Kind of hard to eat.

Tony's Town Square [Magic Kingdom]

This was my 1st dinner experience. Chef came out asked what issues I had and discussed all the different options. He said there were only 2 things I needed to stay away from...the calamari and something else [I don't remember].

For an appetizer I had a Spinach and Artichoke dip with EnerG dinners rolls. This was really good! The dip was GF, just had to change the bread.

For the entree I had a steak off the menu - no changes there. YUM!!

For dessert I had Creme Brulee. YUM YUM.

Needless to say I was stuffed. I could not finish the 3 rolls from the appetizer so I took them home and had them for breakfast the next day.

Total bill: 94.00

We also ate lunch here. I had the GF spaghetti and meat balls. While it was good, it was not impressive. Could have had more sauce, plus a bit spicier. They use Mrs Leeper's pasta.

Hollywood & Vine [MGM Studios]

This was buffet setting. The Chef came out and asked what issues I had and took me around to show me the different items that were acceptable. He also stated he could do something special if I desired. I chose a few things off the buffet.

Total bill: 60.00

Boma [Restaurant at Animal Kingdom Lodge - not the park]

This was a buffet too. I was not aware of that at the time. This is an African themed and flavored [bold spices and different flavors] place. Very cool atmosphere. The resort itself looked really cool too! [a little too pricey for our budget]. Chef Donna came out to discuss with me my issues. She said "Oh gluten free, I know a little bit about that. My husband's been gluten free for 20 years!". Again she took me around and asked if there was anything special I wanted. I opted for some specially prepped GF flank steak and GF salmon [these items were not GF on the buffet]. I did try a few of the buffet items. All were really good. Everything had a different flavor to it due to the African theme. Peg didn't care much for it. I tend to like much stronger flavors than her - definitely was the case here! Shortly before I was finished with dinner, Donna brought me a Gluten Free "Zebra Dome". They had NGF Zebra domes in their dessert section of the buffet. She made a GF one for me. It was much larger [2x] - about the size of a ice creme scoop. It was chocolate & vanilla mousse on a chocolate GF brownie type thing. It was very good!

TIP: If you're not staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge [where Boma is located], get a taxi. There is no Disney sponsored way to get directly to Boma from a resort. In order to get to Boma from a resort, you'd have to take bus to one of the parks, then hop a bus back to Animal Kingdom Lodge. A trip that'd cost you probably about 30-60 minutes in time. The 10.00 we paid for the taxi was money well spent. AKL is right down the road from the All Star Resorts - it takes around 10 minutes to get there.

Total bill: 65.00

Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano [MGM]

Italian places always tend to make be a bit more nervous that other places. Chef Ricardo came out and asked what I wanted. He said he could do, chicken, fish, shrimp, steak. He said GF pasta was not a problem. I asked if the pasta was boiled in fresh water or existing pasta water. He looked rather annoyed and said, "No this isn't anything off the line, I'm doing this in back. My number 1 concern is your safety". We talked about the salad and dessert, he asked Peg a question. He then whips out this card in a lanyard and shows it to me without explanation. It has his name and the words "Certified Food Safety Manager". It was his certification for the state. He said "I just want to you feel comfortable here". I thanked him for showing me that.

I settled on a shrimp and pasta dish. The waiter brought it to the table with another bowl covering it. He said, "I don't know what's in here, so you better back up". OMG - it was fantastic. Hands down, this was the best meal of the entire trip!

After I thought about it, I suspect they did that for contamination purposes.

Total bill: 76.00

Coral Reef [Epcot]

I chose the seafood place for our last meal at Disney because of the atmosphere. I wanted our last dinner there to be a nice experience. One entire wall of the restaurant allows you to see the 5.5 million gallon habitat for fish and the coral reef exhibit. The windows are 8 feet high and 8 inches thick. There were sharks, giant sea turtles, monster szied groupers, tons of fish swimming around. There were even divers swimming around interacting with the diners thru the glass.

I talked to the chef, we decide on the salad, we decide on the Grilled Mahi Mahi with mashed potatoes to replace the Couscous and some other type of sauce [possibly a butter sauce - I couldn't hear him] to replace the Honey Soy sauce. He copped an attitude because I skipped over the appetizer [a salad that I wasn't worried about] and started asking about the Mahi Mahi.

For dessert he said they have a flour less Chocolate Wave. It's very popular, very good, blah blah. I asked during the baking process if the pan was dusted with any type of flour. He gave me this "you're a idiot smirk" and says "I just said it was flourless". I said "I understand that, I have known instances where this type of item may very well be flourless in it's makeup, but they fail to tell the customer about the preparation of it." I was quite irritated at this point.

He then suggested suggested some type of dessert with Bailey's Irish Creme. Then I told him he better check his sources on the Bailey's. I informed him that Bailey's was not GF and it stated it on their website and they removed it from their published GF list. My suspicions were that it was GF, but without confirmation from Diageo, it's not safe to say that it is. He gave me that same smirk and said he'd check it out. I was quite hot at this point in time. I don't know if the waitress heard my conversation with Peg or not, but she came over and ask if we got everything worked out. She said there's a reason why he's in the back and made some reference to the fact that that's the way he is.

The salad came and it was good. It had a lime vinaigrette dressing...not limey enough for me. Let it be said that I am known to eat limes Wink

My grilled Mahi Mahi came on a bed of mashed potatoes with a brown sauce on it. I thought it was funny because it had a what appeared to be the same sauce Peg's had [she ordered the NGF version of it]. Like an idiot I took a bite of it, it tasted like soy sauce to me [smelled like it too after I took a whiff of it, I have bad sense of smell]. I asked Peg to take a taste of the sauce. She said it tasted just like her sauce. We must of looked distressed enough that the runner that brought the plates in the 1st place came to our table. We were looking for our waitress but did not see her. I explained the situation, he apologized and took it back. Our waitress comes back and says that the sauce WAS GF runs off to the kitchen. She comes back with a new piece of fish and potatoes with no sauce what so ever [fine with me!] She asked if I wanted to chef to come out and explain to me why the sauce was GF, she said it only had soy in it. It was at that point that I knew this waitress didn't have a clue either. The last thing I wanted was to talk to this chef again, I declined her offer.

I did get the Chocolate Wave, it was good. Funny thing...they had a piece of white chocolate triangle used for edible decoration. Some one came [after it was delivered] and told me that the chef said not to eat the chocolate! I didn't.

All I do know, is that I was very burpy and didn't feel well that night. Could've been the dessert or more than likely it was the soy sauce...or it was all in my head. Or maybe it was massive crowds and the rude guests at the fireworks show at the Magic Kingdom later that night...

All in all, our last night at Disney was not a good one. It left a bad taste in my mouth...literally...I get this funny taste in my mouth when I get glutened.

Total bill: 104.00

Main St. Bakery [Magic Kingdom]

They do have 3 prepackaged GF snacks that you can purchase throughout the parks...or so they say. I found the Brownies, Chocolate Chip Cookies and Crisp Rice Treats here. This is the only place I found the cookies and the Rice Treats. Our resort had the GF brownies.

The brownies were pretty good. Nothing exceptional, but then again, I live with a master baker Smile

.

The cookies were OK. Pretty crumbly. I ate mine on the flight home. Since Midwest was handing out fresh baked NGF Chocolate Chippers, I had my Disney cookie.

The Crispy thingy I have not had yet.
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

BrendaLee · Joined: 03 Sep 2006 Posts: 20 Location: Michigan's thumb

Hi Al!!

T/y so much for sharing you WDW story w/us!! I'm planning to go there in November w/my friend Julie. She's the planner in our "group" (even has the same guide book you & Peg used!!!). She's been in contact w/the different park restaurants, making all the GF reservations, etc....

We are staying at a Disney All-Star Resort as well (Pop Century).

We went five years ago (before my dx of Celiac) and she did the planning then as well. We stayed at the All-Star Movies Resort that time. It was a great trip, so I'm sure it will be this time too, thanks to her planning, and the helpful info you've shared!!! Can't wait to have a turkey leg!! LOL!

Thanks again!! Have a "Magical" day!!

BrendaLee Smile

aklap · Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 12530 Location: WI, USA

Hi Brenda,

Glad you liked it. Smile

Having a game plan while at Disney helps a lot - IMO.

Say Hi to Mickey for me and have a turkey leg for me too!
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

SusanB · Joined: 10 Sep 2006 Posts: 33

Al,
Thanks so much for this post! I started to cry when I read it! Disney is my all time favorite place to go with my family and we are going to drive right by there this month. I think we will stop so that I can get a real meal!

We are going to Pt. St. Lucie area and I haven't been on a vacations since going GF. I am going to check out the boards for tips & start a new post. Any suggestions for eating while traveling?

Thanks!
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Susan

mmdippi · Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 16 Location: New Jersey

Just back from Disney!! Food was excellent could not recommend a better place to eat. I did not get sick once, something I think my children appreciated! I ate at every restaurant I wanted to and am going back in September.
The ice cream that seemed to be everywhere was Edys and it was greta! The staff was very knowledgable and helpful, my food only took a few more minutes to receive then the rest of my party.
We even ate in the castle without a problem.

aklap · Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 12530 Location: WI, USA

bump
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa

aklap · Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 12530 Location: WI, USA

Adding some updated info..

WDW's Special Dietary Requests Page:

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/guest-services/special-dietary-requests/

Need to find info about a restaurant at Walt Disney World? Check out AllergyEats Disney World Online Guide. Pretty cool resource!

http://www.allergyeats.com/disney/index.php

Gluten-Free Passports GF Disney App:

http://glutenfreepassport.com/apps/gluten-allergen-free-disney-world/

Makes me want to go back...
_________________
Al

“We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Mother Teresa