No, sadly we’re not really going back to Disney World, but rather I’m getting in touch with my Disney side, yet again, to finish off my gluten free guides with the resorts. With my Disney theme park gluten free guides so far, you now can find your favorite gluten free products when you’re making your way around any of Disney World’s main theme parks. But what about the resorts? Home to many a character meal, quick service option, and sit down dinner, the resorts make up a large portion of dining options in Disney, so of course a gluten free guide would be coming your way for all of your favorite places to stay and dine in Disney!
For each of our recent vacations as a family of three, we’ve dined in Wilderness Lodge, the Contemporary, and the Polynesian, all of which are home to multiple restaurants that each offer a variety of gluten free dishes. Since we usually call Wilderness Lodge our home for the week though, this is where we predominantly eat breakfast and occasionally lunch.
During our stay at Wilderness Lodge, every morning, with the exception of a character breakfast morning, we would head to Roaring Forks for a quick service breakfast. Dan would go straight to the counter and pick out a plate of hot food for little one and he to share, while I would wait with our little girl to place my order with the manager. Sometimes I’d have to wait a bit, especially in the morning as we’re early birds, but never too long, and soon enough my order is placed for whatever gluten free option my heart desires, usually a breakfast sandwich is my breakfast of choice on vacation. Once we pay and pick out our table, I get our little girl started with her breakfast. By the time she moves onto her banana, a delicious plate of gluten free breakfast sandwich arrives for yours truly, a heaping portion of carefully cooked eggs, crispy bacon, and cheese is placed between Udi’s bread. Oh how I wish I was in Disney enjoying one of those instead of the rice cake I just forced down!
Quick service meals are not the only dining options available at Disney resorts; in fact, a large portion of their meal offerings come from sit down, table service meals. Usually during our stays in Disney, we use at least one or two of our meals at resorts, either for breakfast or dinner. We love picking out at least one character meal that we can treat our little girl to, but right now, since she LOVES Mickey and his friends we tend to go with Chef Mickey’s in the Contemporary for breakfast. The buffet spread at Chef Mickey’s is huge and offers anything you can imagine, from hot to cold to savory to sweet. But for me, even though the chef offered to escort me around the buffet line to point out the gluten free choices, I always opt to have my meal prepped in the kitchen away from the inevitable cross contamination that happens at buffets. For this meal, I usually go a little crazy and request a few different items, including gluten free Mickey Waffles, eggs, bacon, and my favorite, their cheesy hashbrowns. With hardly any wait at all, my plate arrives just as my husband and little girl are starting on theirs and soon enough the stars of the morning make their grand entrance too, bringing smiles all around the table. There’s many a meal at home that I wish Mickey or any of his friends would jump off the tv screen to make my little girl that happy again!
After a long day of trekking around Disney theme parks in the hot and humid Florida air, we certainly are well prepared for our dinners. We plan our dinner reservations 180 days out and look forward to each and every one of them. While we love dining in the parks, we usually find ourselves for one or two of our dinners at the resorts. One of our favorite resorts to dine at is the Polynesian. Dan has fond memories of staying here when he was little and we just love walking around the resort and enjoying the greenery and water features. We’ve had great gluten free experiences at both Ohana and Kona Cafe and really love both of them for different reasons. Kona Cafe though, has become one of our more recent favorites, thanks to their gluten free Chicken and Noodle dish, something I can only get while in Disney, not to mention my daughter loved the Mickey shaped raviolis and sweet Hawaiian bread there too! But really whether we dine at Kona Cafe or Ohana, I’ve had some amazing gluten free food with even better company and scenery. For the foreseeable future, I think we’ll probably revisit either Kona or Ohana each time we go to Disney, so we always get our Polynesian fix each vacation.
There’s so much in a Disney vacation that makes it as special and amazing as it is, but one of the highlights for us are all of the great meals we get to share and even better food that we don’t have to cook ourselves. Each time, after we get home from a trip, usually within a day or so, and that’s being generous, either myself or Dan asks when we’re going back next with a smile. We love going to Disney and we love even more that our little girl loves it so much too. No sooner having asked the question of when we’ll go back, do we follow it with “well, when we do go back, where do you want to eat?”. After every vacation, we create mental lists of where we want to go back to and where we haven’t yet been, we always like to try one or two new places when we go. We definitely have a growing list of places to visit that we’re slowly chipping away at, a number of restaurants of which are at resorts. Disney dining for us are the kings of gluten free eating in my book, and offer allergy free options flawlessly wherever you go. They really make sure to give each vacationer a great experience from start to finish, and that includes dining. What you eat, as a gluten free guest, is a priority to them and I for one am so glad it is! Thank you Disney for making our vacation dining so simple and easy!
So if you have a Disney vacation approaching or just dreaming of your next one, pin or print these guides so you can spot your favorite gluten free items while you’re out and about. Also, you might have noticed that there’s only the deluxe resorts listed on these guides; since there’s just so many resorts and so many gluten free food options, I had to split them up, so stay tuned for the moderate and value resort guides!
Sincerely,
Lindsay