Cruising With Allergies

You have a big vacation planned. You're stressing about packing, cleaning the house, and getting everything ready so you can be in paradise. But then the real stress comes along, your child or yourself has an allergy. Will they have something you can eat? What about cross contamination? All the normal questions that are asked when traveling outside your home to eat. This was me on our last cruise.

Back in 2016, we went on our first Disney cruise. My now, 4 year old had some sensory problems and struggled with speech but no food allergies. The cruise was awesome. The kids club was absolutely amazing with her special needs and it was a stress free vacation. Fast forward a year and a half and we were getting ready for our 2nd and 3rd cruise. We were going to be on the ship for 11 days for our first B2B. We were all so excited but a month before boarding the big ship, we found out that our 4 year old daughter could no longer have gluten.

Making the adjustment at home was hard, but then we realized we were going on vacation in a month and our daughter had this allergy and wouldn't get to enjoy the food like she did on our first cruise. I first made the call to Disney customer service. They were awesome and reassured me that everything would be fine and that they added it to our reservation.

A month comes along and it's time to board the ship! At Cabanas, I asked one of the cast members walking around what was "gluten free" at the buffet. His response was "what would the princess like?" It caught me by surprise and I didn't even know what to say. He continued... "Pasta? Mac & Cheese? Chicken Nuggets?". Wait did he hear me right? She has a gluten allergy. I told him about her allergy and he said "Yes, how about I get her Mac & Cheese." He pulled out a pink ticket, got her name and our room number and asked where we were sitting. A few minutes later, he comes out with gluten free Mac & Cheese. I was in heaven already.

Dinner comes around and our server Milton asked if anyone in our party had any food allergies. We informed him that Miks (our 4 year old) is allergic to gluten. He pulled out a pink ticket, and asked what she wanted. Mac & Cheese was her favorite, so she ordered it again. Ches, our assistant server brought out gluten free bread so she could enjoy the bread service as well. This is how every meal worked. She got to order almost anything she wanted and she got her bread service every night.

We struggled waiting for her lunches. That was far from perfect. I would place an order even the night before at dinner and we would wait and wait. That was tough on her as she was starving and has no sense of time due to her special needs. When I brought it up to our head server, he was awesome and made sure it was ready at a certain time every day at lunch so she wouldn't have to wait. So tip: Pre order food at night for a certain time so it can be ready :)

LETS TALK ICE CREAM: If your kids are anything like mine, they spend a huge chunk of time getting EYE SCREAM. I was worried about this since the cones have gluten. While you do run into some possibility of cross contamination, we grabbed a cup from the drink stations and filled it up that way. I try to watch the person before me to make sure their cone isn't touching the machine to eliminate as much cross contamination as possible. She seemed to do fine :)



On Castaway Cay, our head server Kendall made sure that we preordered her food and had it waiting at Cookies BBQ. We walked up and got it right away. She even got a chocolate cake! She was in heaven.


While Disney has some kinks, they are amazing! They do their best to put your mind at ease with any allergies. If your kid wants noodles, cheeseburger, mickey waffles, donuts, etc. there is a good chance they have it in gluten free. Disney definitely made this trip less stressful & it was super hard coming home to reality when I had to do all the cooking again ;)
All in all, if you have a food allergy DISNEY WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU. Do not let it affect you at all or stress you out. Enjoy your cruise and all the yummy gluten free options they have!