 Visiting Disney World with Food Allergies
For the food-allergic,
Disney truly offers a
Magic Kingdom.
Living Without’s editor, Alicia
Woodward, talks with Joel Schaefer,
manager, product development
and special diets at WALT DISNEY
WORLD® Resort, about how Disney
tries to make dreams come true
for people with food allergies and
sensitivities.
Alicia Woodward: We originally featured
Disney in the summer 2002 issue of Living Without. What’s changed in the
past six years?
Joel Schaefer: The biggest change is growth.
Disney began its special diet program about
17 years ago and the program has grown
about 100 percent each year to the point
we’re now serving over 7,000 meals a month
to our guests with special needs, especially
food allergies.
What food allergies do you see most?
We see a lot of people with celiac disease,
a gluten intolerance. We get many visitors
with a single food allergy, like peanut or tree
nut allergy. We see a lot of allergy clusters,
especially in children; the most common
is kids with milk, egg, peanut and tree nut
allergies. We’re also seeing a lot of casein and
gluten intolerance. There’s been an increase
in families coming with autistic children
and they’re requesting that specific diet.
Can you accommodate everyone?
For the most part, yes, depending on the
number of allergies. We’ve had people
who normally don’t dine in restaurants.
We’ve had people who usually don’t
travel. We’ve seen children with allergies
to every Big Eight food [wheat, dairy,
peanuts, tree nuts, egg, soy, fish and
shellfish]—and more. Allergy to corn, to
potato. We’ve had children and adults
who can only eat a total of three foods.
It’s amazing what we’re seeing. You
name it, we’ve seen it.
We give guests all the information
before they arrive and let them make
the final decision about whether to visit.
We tell them what we can do and they
decide if they’re comfortable with it.
They might say, “This won’t work for us.”
But we do our best. There have been very,
very few people we haven’t been able to
accommodate.
 Generally, what other special-diet requests do you handle?
We’re happy to discuss other specialdietary requests with our guests, like
no sugar added, low fat, low sodium,
low carb, vegetarian or vegan. We’ll
attempt to accommodate them at the
time of dining. The guest should tell the
server that there’s a special request and
the server will communicate it to the
kitchen. We need 24-hour notice for
dinner shows. At most WALT DISNEY
WORLD® Resort table service restaurants, no-sugar-added desserts and
vegetarian options are already on the
regular menu. If not, just ask the server.
We can also accommodate kosher
meals if they’re requested at least 24
hours in advance by calling 407-WDWDINE (939-3463). We require a credit
card to guarantee this order but we
won’t charge the card unless the reservation is canceled within 24 hours or
the party fails to show.
If someone on a special diet wants to
visit Disney, what’s the first step?
Contact us ahead of time. Pre-communication is vital. We want to get information into visitors’ hands before they
arrive so they can educate themselves
about what we do. This is especially important if someone is traveling for the
first time or if they’re new to Disney.
Repeat guests pretty much know what
to do. Even so, we like them to contact
us ahead of time.
This article was featured in the April/May 2008 issue.
Click here to subscribe to Living Without. |
.gif)
