Gluten-Free Dining at Walt Disney World Part II
Besides our PopCultureSpot.com Store News, we like to provide off-topic blogs. Our owner looks at going on a vacation gluten-free. Happy Holidays!
So, it’s time to get to the good stuff, what’s to eat at Disney World without gluten? Plenty! Lets start at Epcot. The Liberty Inn at the American Pavilion at Epcot caters to all types of dietary needs. The Liberty Inn keeps several gluten-free items on hand all day. You can have a hamburger or hot dog there with their whole wheat bun substituted by a Ener-G brand bun. When contacting guest relations, they might tell you that the fries need to be baked in an oven at the Liberty Inn, but that is not the case. The french fries are gluten free and they use a separate fryer to ensure there is no cross contamination. Tip! Before ordering at any counter service location be certain to let the Cast Member know that you have a food allergy. They’ll then call up the on-duty manager to go over everything with you. If you don’t let them know and run through the order and then tell them about the gluten free needs, they’ll have to redo the entire order. The Liberty Inn might also have the Ok! Gluten Free Brownies available. An additional gluten-free item and my favorite item there was the greek salad with chicken. The dressing is awesome and the salad is very filling.
Many of the sit-down World Showcase eateries have options including the Mexican Pavilion dine in establishment. We’ll get to those later.
Snacks, well you can never go wrong with the Orville Redenbacher’s Popcorn! It’s gluten-free and terrific. Other items in the carts include the Mickey Mouse ice cream bar and cotton candy.
Over in Future World, The Land has terrific options. I received an email when we were down in Orlando from a food specialist at Epcot and she offered up some options for items that could be available throughout the park, they just needed notice to ensure that the items were there the days that I was going to be at the park. She saw to it that rolls and a rice pasta were going to be available at The Seasons Food Pavilion inside The Land. We went down to The Seasons for dinner and I told the guy at one of the counters that I was told that there was special food available for my food issue and that I was supposed to tell a Cast Member. A few moments later, the on-duty Chef came out to talk to me. She was excellent! She went through the items that were at the various dining areas that I could eat and then offered up some special items. She prepared two Tapioca Rice Rolls in about two or three minutes. Instead of feeling out of place and lacking any food option but a salad, I felt great! I added another Greek Salad with Chicken and was so pleased with the options available. Since my diagnosis, I had avoided gluten free bread and rolls. I tried a loaf of the White Rice Bread by Ener-G and it was so horrible that I was convinced that all the bread products must be terrible. That night I quickly learned otherwise.
The rolls at The Seasons were, well, like real rolls! I added some butter and they were like the real deal. Thanks to seeing that bread items could actually taste great, when I returned home, I added in Whole Foods and Kinnikinnick breads into the mix of items that I have. I have to note that the chef let me know that they also had the gluten-free cookies and brownies available.
We’ll move on to the other parks in the next post.