Our First Disney Trip with Food Allergies

Ronan was diagnosed with food allergies in mid-September: eggs, sesame and chocolate. It has been a hard and fast ramp-up for us as parents to completely eliminate these items from his diet – eggs being the ‘biggie’. During our vacation, when we were eating three meals a day at restaurants, it was important to make sure that we knew what our son was eating.

Sesame and chocolate are much easier to get around than eggs, so whenever I was looking for something ‘safe’ for Ronan to eat, I was looking for things that Disney labeled as ‘egg allergy friendly’.

Table service restaurants were much easier to deal with than counter service – each time I noted an allergy, the chef came out to speak with us and showed me items on the menu (or the buffet) that were safe for Ronan to eat. Even though he was eating off of my plate most of the time, it was wonderful to know that the food I was giving him wouldn’t make him sick.

Counter service was a little tougher – the allergy menus often substituted for rice noodles in macaroni and cheese or an alternative pizza crust. When in doubt, I asked for the allergy menu and scanned it as quickly as possible before placing my order. The downside? I had to wait 15 minutes at Cosmic Rays for Ronan’s lunch to be prepared separately due to his allergy. Thankfully, cross-contamination doesn’t seem to be an issue for us, so in the future I know that he can have pizza, chicken nuggets and similar items from the kids’ menus without any problems.

The chefs at Kona Café (Amber), Biergarten, Trail’s End and Tony’s Town Square were incredibly kind to me – and at the buffets, I was ‘walked through’ the line to see what was safe/off limits for Ronan. Sadly, most desserts are off-limits to him, but there’s always plenty of fresh fruit to go around.

I know there are many families who face much scarier food allergies than what we’re dealing with – and I’d encourage anyone of them to seriously consider a Walt Disney World vacation. We could eat dinner as a family without fear.