First Gluten-free trip for my mom June 12-19

I'm starting this trip before we leave because I have been so impressed withe Disney's Special Diets office. But first let me give you the players:

Me Megan(29) 8th trip
My mom Betty(57) 7th trip
DS Julien (5) 2nd trip and now 44 inches:sohappy:

I first contacted the special diets office a week or so after making my ADRs. Within 24 hours they sent me an email with a welcome letter a list of widely available allergen free foods and a Guest Allergy form. I filled out the guest allergy form and sent it back to them, and gave my mom the letter and other info. The form asked for what allergies and for our ADR info. The next day I got an email from Special diets that said they had forwarded our info to all of the head chefs where we had ADRs.

This was impressive enough, but I was concerned about the Grand Floridian Tea because just about everything had Gluten in it on the Allears menu. I called Special diets and requested a call back with questions on the tea. I recieved a call that same afternoon. She answered my questions as best she could and said she would have the Grand Floridian chef call me. She also said that the Gluten-free Kneads fresh baked cookies were available at the Main St. Bakery and saw no reason why they couldn't be used for the ice cream sandwiches. That made my mom very happy.

A few days later I recieved a call from the chef and he assured me that they could have a nice selection of gluten-free stuff for her. I hung up happy and thought that would be the end of it. Then 2 weeks ago I recieved a call from the head baker at Grand Floridian. She said that they could do a number of different things included special made pastries, strawberries and cream or the slipper dessert since she only had Gluten allergy and not dairy too. Well the Grand floridian slipper has rasberries which is my mom's favorite so I went with that. Mom and I are both very excited.

Last week I called special diets again to ask about the picnic in the park. The lady on the phone said she would have the Animal Kingdom head chef call me and that she would also have the Pop Century Chef call my mom about what he could do for her in the food court. They both actually called my mom this week and both tier 2 entrees are gluten-free on the picnic, and the Pop chef said he could make her just about anything she wanted including pancakes, waffles, and gluten-free breaded chicken tenders.

Here is our tentative schedule and our ADRs:

Wednesday June 10th: Leave LaSalle-Peru at 5AM drive to Mammoth Cave and do a tour and then Drive to a hotel south of Nashville for the night.

Thursday June 11th: Drive to Lake City Florida for the night.

Friday June 12th: Drive to WDW check into POP and head to MK. Chef Mickey for dinner at 5:30

Saturday June 13th: Go to DHS for SWW. No ADRs

Sunday June 14th: Epcot in the morning with Rose and Crown for lunch at 12:05. afternoon and evening up in the air.

Monday June 15th: Tusker House Breakfast at 8:05 and AK for the morning. Dhs in the evening with FDP at Mama Melrose at 4.

Tuesday June 16th: Blizzard beach in the morning then sister-in-law and friend will meet us there and keep Julien for a few hours while mom and I do Grand Floridian Tea at 2. The all 5 of us will meet at Chef's de France for dinner at 5:10 and most likely stay for Illuminations.

Wednesday June 17th: AK in the morning for EMH then Dinner at Artist Point at 5:35 and MK after.

Thursday June 18th: DHS in the morning, then Epcot at night with dinner at Le Cellier at 4:55.

Friday June 19th: Departure Day checkout then go to whatever park we want until sometime after lunch then begin the long drive home.

Sometime during the week we are going to try to catch one of the games in the volleyball tournament. My 14 year old cousin will be playing in it. My aunt and uncle are supposed to call us when they have game schedule for her.

All I have left to do is laundry and finish packing, and go shopping for snacks and drinks in the car on the drive down. We already have a number of Jiminy Cricket presents(DH objected to the idea of Tinkerbell presents for a boy, surprisingly he is ok w/DS dance classes:lol ready to hand out to DS on the way down including the Disney treasure Pluto collection and the Phineas and Pherb DS game.

 

[foreverbelle]

I just wanted to say, I love the way Disney take care of my allergies. The biggest of my allergies, and the strangest is....being allergic to animal fat, Specifically the kind that is found in beef, pork and dairy.Not to mention oil, eggs and butter...a long with a few other food allergies. We have always had to be picky where we eat, and where we travel because of it. Personally I have been very very happy and impressed with the way they handle things and it is one of the many reasons I return to the world. I know that for the time I am there, I don't have to worry about what I will be able to eat. And everything that the chef's have made for me have been amazing. Best of luck to you and may your trip and food be outstanding.

 

[baz212]

Well, we're back and it was a great trip. Photobucket is taking forever to upload my pictures so I'll try to at least get the travel days out of the way. Wednesday June 10th we DS5 and I picked my mom up at 5AM. Well, DS woke up when we carried him to the car, and he never slept in the car.:brick: We stopped at a Denny's in Indianapolis for breakfast and then continued to Mammoth Cave. We had lunch at the Mcdonald's at the Mammoth Cave exit. We took the Historic Tour at the cave. DS thought it was cool. He especially liked Fat Man's Misery. We ate at a Cracker Barrel somewhere in Tennessee and then drove to our hotel and swam and went to bed.
We ate the hotel's free breakfast the next morning and drove through to Lake City Florida. I don't remember where we ate.

The Jiminy Cricket presents that we had went over great with DS5.

Hopefully tommorrow night I'll have time for the actual WDW stuff with lots of pics.

 

[disneygirl1]

Can't wait to see the pictures and hear more about your trip!

 

[baz212]

We got to Pop around noon and checked in. The room wasn't ready so we decided to have them call us with the room number when it was ready and we headed out to MK. We were hungry so we shared 2 meals at Casey's. Then we went and got fastpasses for Big Thunder and got in line Splash. We didn't get hit by the water cannons, so that was good.

After Splash we used our Big Thunder fastpasses and started walking towards Adventureland. Pirates as only posted as a 10 minute wait so we rode that before heading out of the park to catch the monorail for Chef Mickey's.

Chef Mickey's was good, but very loud. The chef was wonderful and walked us through the buffet. Mom got a warmed tapioca roll brought out the table. He also offered 3 or 4 different gluten-free desserts, but Mom decided she just wanted the ice cream sundae bar.

And now the pics from Chef Mickey

DS while we were aiting to be seated

DS with Donald

DS with Mickey

DS and Mom with Minnie

DS with Goofy

DS with his favorite character Pluto

After dinner we went back to the hotel, unloaded the van, swam and then crashed for the night.

 

[baz212]

The next day we were at DHS before the park opened. DS5 absolutely loved the Stormtroopers

After they let us in we joined the crowd for rope drop for Toy Story. It was my first time and we loved it. The lines were too long to do it a second time though.

We headed to Sunset Blvd next. Julien and I got in line for TOT and my mom got in the single rider line for RnR. Julien changed his mind about ToT and we used the chicken exit. I little boy was flipping out because the chicken exit is an elevator. I don't know what idiot came up with that idea. I felt bad for the kid. Luckily Julien believed me that it was just a regular elevator. While my mom and DS5 got a treat I used the single rider line for RnR. Then I lucked out and a man with his daughter gave me his extra fastpass because his wife didn't want to ride again so I got on even quicker.

We headed to Star Tours next and didn't have much of a line. DS saw Chewbacca but the line was closed so we couldn't meet him. On the way to Great Movie Ride we saw a closed off line for Jedi Mickey. DS did not want to see the parade so we did GMR and then went to Wicket's Warehouse before heading back to the hotel for lunch swimming and a nap.

 

[disneygirl1]

Can't wait for the rest of your report. By the way your DS is absolutely adorable!

 

[baz212]

Can't wait for the rest of your report. By the way your DS is absolutely adorable!

Thanks, I think so too, but I'm a little biased.

 

[baz212]

We had lunch at the hotel and mom had her first chicken tenders since being diagnosed with celiacs.

After our nap we headed to Magic Kingdom for the evening. We rode Space Ranger Spin first, then headed to Cosmic Ray's for supper.

It clouded up and the wind really picked up while we were eating, so the evening was a lot nicer. We rode the carousel and then DS spotted the water play area. He played for about 20 minutes and got soaked.

While we were standing in line for Pooh DS decided that he was freezing so we bought him a dry Tigger shirt after the ride and that helped. We saw Philharmagic and rode small world before calling it a night and heading back to the hotel.

 

[baz212]

The next day was Epcot day. We went to ride Soarin first. It was the first time i was in the stand-by line. The interactive video game was pretty cool. After Soarin we did livin with the land.

Cacoa tree I think

baby alligators

Sweet potatoes

We did the seas with Nemo and friends next. THen did Imagination before heading to UK for lunch.

Julien was the first child in the restaurant that day so the staff knighted him and gave him a Magical moments certificate. He thought that was really cool.

After lunch we looked around UK and Canada and then rode SSE on our way out of the park.

 

[Beccone]

Great report, looks like you all had a great time!