Disney World with Food Allergies: A Family Travel Guide from a Travel Advisor and Food Allergy Mom
Disney World is famous for its magic—the enchanting characters, thrilling attractions, and moments that turn into lifelong memories. For our family, we discovered our own Disney magic: a place where we could finally relax and enjoy dining out with our kids who navigate severe food allergies.
Our journey with Disney began with a lot of nerves. Our first visit back in 2019 felt overwhelming as we navigated the parks with our oldest who has severe peanut and tree nut allergies and at the time, a dairy allergy which he has since outgrown. We rarely ate at restaurants back home, so the thought of managing meals for an entire week away from our controlled environment was intimidating to say the least.
But Disney's extraordinary awareness and care for food allergies transformed everything. Fast forward to today, we now live in Orlando and visit the parks weekly. Disney World has become a special place that our family genuinely enjoys eating out together—something we never thought possible.
From anxious first-timers to confident regulars, we've learned countless strategies for navigating food allergies at the Most Magical Place on Earth. Now as a travel advisor and food allergy mom, I’m here to tell you everything we’ve learned about navigating the most magical place on earth with food allergies.
1. Understand Your Family
Every food allergy family I work with is unique. What is going to work for one family will not work for another, and that’s ok! The first and most important part of planning for your trip to Disney is really understanding where your family is at in your food allergy journey.
For my family’s first trip to Disney, we had not allowed anyone to cook for our son. At the time, he was 18 months old, and we were just coming out of our first year in the food allergy world, which is like drinking from a fire hose of new information for an entire year.
He was also at a developmental stage where he was putting everything in his mouth and his food allergies were highly sensitive to cross contact.
And then there was me. I was in a highly anxious season of our family’s food allergy journey.
I will never forget our family’s first sit down dinner. We were at the Turf Club at Saratoga Springs Resort. We notified the staff that we would like to speak with the chef and Chef Lauren came to our table. This dinner was life-changing. Chef Lauren’s expertise and clear knowledge of food allergies put me at ease and she prepared a simple meal for my son. I remember looking around the table and seeing my family eating out to dinner for the first time, and the emotions just all came out.
Relief. Joy. Hope.
Our family still keeps in touch with Chef Lauren and she has introduced us to some of other incredible Disney chefs who have now been cooking for our family for years.
As great as this first trip was, it was an emotional roller coaster. And truly I was not up for experiencing that ride every single night of our vacation. What made this first trip easier was that we had booked a resort villa with a full kitchen so that we could cook most of my son’s meals but then venture out for a few sit down meals over the course of our trip.
We packed a cooler for him and bring that into the park with us so we didn’t have to find every meal and snack. Fast forward to now, we are in a different place with cross contact concerns, developmental stage, and the allergens we manage so we don’t need the same things at Disney that we needed the first few times.
How about your family? Would a full kitchen bring you comfort for this trip? Or maybe you are looking for a break from the mental load of cooking and finding allergy-friendly meals every day. That’s great too! With so much that Disney has to offer and so many different options both on-property and off-property, I’m here to help match you to what is going to bring joy and rest to your family on your trip to Disney.
2. The Chef Consult
One of the ways Disney really shines with food allergy protocols and awareness is the Chef Consult. When you are at a table service or quick service location, you can request a chef consult. The staff will notify the kitchen that you would like to speak with the chef and the chef will come and speak with you about your specific needs.
This is a game changer and is a critical part of how we navigate food allergies at Disney World.
Table Service
The table-service dining at Disney World ranks among my favorite vacation aspects. We rarely eat out at home making Disney's exceptional food allergy awareness genuinely life-changing for our family. We drive down there for all of our celebration meals!
For all the sit down restaurants, we will be able to enter in your family’s food allergy needs right when we make you reservations. Then, when you arrive at the restaurant, the seating hostess will again confirm your allergies and provide the restaurant’s allergy menu. You then will speak with your server and you can request the Chef Consult. From there, the chef will come to your table and discuss what options would be possible.
We always appreciate the time and care that they take with us! All of our allergy meals come to the table clearly marked with an allergy stick to indicate.
Table-service dining is very popular at Disney World and I highly recommend making reservations. The booking window for dining reservations will open 60 days prior to your check in day at 6am EST and if you are staying on property, you will be able to book dining reservations for your entire length of stay. A lot of my clients prefer me to make those reservations for them and I am happy to do so!
Quick Service
The chef consult is also available at the quick-service locations around Disney World. When you get to the register or window, you let a cast member know that you would like to speak with someone in the kitchen regarding food allergy needs. Some quick service locations at the resorts even have a specific window that is marked for food allergy needs where you can speak with the chef and place your order.
Your order will be on a separate ticket and will come up marked as an allergy order. If your order is not marked with an allergy stick or sticker, you should consult a cast member.
Many of the quick-service locations do have what’s called “Mobile Order.” Although mobile order can be convenient, when you are wanting to process a food allergy order, I do not recommend this. It’s important to speak with the kitchen staff that is at that location about your specific needs rather than submitting the order through the app.
Festivals at Epcot
There is even an opportunity for a chef consult at the festival booths during the different festivals during the year. When you get to the register, you can let the cast member that you have some questions regarding food allergies and they will go grab a phone. They are able to call the Disney chef in charge of that booth and they will verify if what you are looking to enjoy from the booth is suitable for your allergies or not.
My Soap Box
The chef consult is an amazing aspect of dining at Disney World. This in addition to the food allergy protocols and processes they have in place (allergy menus, separate tickets, separately marking the allergy prepared food, etc) really elevates Disney into a league of their own with how they handle food allergies with care. To do this process well, it does take extra time. Be prepared that your dining experience will take longer and have that expectation going in.
Even though it takes longer, please do not skip the chef consult. This is our non-negotiable rule as a family even though we now eat at Disney at least once a week. The reason is that ingredients change, suppliers change, and with food allergies, you have to check every. single. time.
The vigilance that food allergies require is something I wish that I could take away, but it is the nature of navigating severe food allergies.
Years ago before I became a travel advisor, we had a family we personally knew that was dining at Disney. They had gotten comfortable and one time, just one time, they skipped their usual practice of speaking with the chef. The server incorrectly informed them that there were no nuts in the kitchen and not to worry. Unfortunately, there was a specialty dessert tray that is not usually on the menu being served that day and their daughter was served her allergens. She did react and thankfully she recovered ok, but the experience was terrifying.
No one knows what is going on in the kitchen the day that you are there better than the chefs. They are willing to speak with you. Please do not skip this step. Always speak with the chef.
3. Pre-Trip Prep
Did you know there are almost 400 dining locations at Walt Disney World? From snack carts, quick service and table service options, you will have a lot to choose from while you are here!
With so many choices, it can be very helpful to do some prep work before you are here about potential options that could work for your family’s food allergy needs.
The My Disney Experience App is a great tool to map out some potential options ahead of time. All of the menus are available and many of the locations have an allergy menu as well. The allergy menus are organized by Top 9 allergens. This gives you a great starting point to see what options are a potential good match between what your family likes to eat and your food allergy needs.
Keep in mind, I do not recommend going off of the menu alone. This is where that chef consult comes in, so that you can confirm with the team that is in charge of preparing the food.
You can use this to help narrow which quick service booths you might want to stop by in the parks as well as which table service dining options you might want to make reservations for.
This way instead of trying to figure all of this out in the moment, you have a plan for where you want to stop and work with the team there.
For more complex allergy needs including navigating 4 or more food allergies, you can also connect with the Specialty Diets team 2 weeks before your arrival to talk more specifically about the options you are interested in and what might make sense for your family. Their email is Special.Diets@DisneyWorld.com and they are another great resource for you to work with ahead of time!
One note, the pre-tip prep is definitely an important step to navigating food allergies at Disney World but it cannot and does not replace the importance of the direct communication the day of. It is so important to have the updated information on what is going on in the kitchen that day and to speak with the team there.
4. Snack Carts
The snack carts in the parks, think popcorn, pretzels, churros, cheeseburger spring rolls, and so forth can be a bit trickier to navigate. One tip I that every kiosk and quick-service restaurant maintains ingredient binders or product labels.
When evaluating if a snack would work for your family’s food allergy needs, you can ask the cast member at the kiosk for their allergy binder or product label. It was really helpful to our family to be able to see the ingredients for these items because they do not come in packages with labels.
For products with labels, such as Mickey ice cream bars, you can request to see the actual package label for the most current ingredient information.
One potential concern with binders: outdated information. Whenever possible, prioritize reviewing actual product labels for real-time accuracy.
If cross contact is a concern for your family, it will be important to also assess what else is being sold in the snack cart in addition to the food item that you are purchasing. For example, some the popcorn carts also serve roasted nuts. This would not work for our family and so we only buy popcorn from the snack carts that exclusively sell popcorn.
Keep in mind there might be specialty items during your visit that at other times would not be there. For example, during the 50th anniversary celebration, one Magic Kingdom area featured a special peanut-dusted churro and so we knew that the kiosks in that area would not work for us during that visit.
5. What to Bring
Over the years we have found a few things that we always bring with us in the parks.
Hand Wipes
All the hand wipes. We use them to wipe down eating areas or when we are feeling uneasy about seeing a lot of our kids’ allergens. For example, there was one day where literally every singe queue we stood in had a person actively eating a bag of nuts. We did a quick wipe down of our hands and stopped using the hand rails. When my son was really little and still putting his hands in his mouth a lot, I would quickly wipe down where he would be sitting on the ride and what would be high touch areas like the steering wheel for the tea cup ride or the lap bars
On rare occasions, we have had food debris in the ride vehicle, like seeing crushed peanuts on the People Mover and we simply asked the cast member for a different ride vehicle. In our years at Disney and going on so many rides, this has happened only twice.
Before we sit down and eat, we still prioritize washing hands with soap and water.
INSULATED EPI CASE
When navigating the parks, keep your EpiPens accessible always. Never lock them in lockers or leave them with strollers. We use cross body bags to keep them with us! Especially if you are visiting Disney World during the summer, your days in the park are going to be hot and an insulated case can help regulate the temperature.
We have liked Allermates as well as Frio Bags.
Small COOLER
Disney World permits small coolers in parks which we really appreciated in our earlier Disney days. Each morning, we stocked our cooler with safe foods before heading out for a day in the parks. Disney does not allow loose ice so you will need to use freeze packs to keep things cool.
This eliminated pressure to have to find something to eat in the park and gave me comfort in knowing that we had safe options available. Then we could focus our energy on finding fun treats and snacks to try which really reduced stress for us.
Cooler guidelines: Check Disney's official rules regarding size restrictions and requirements for ice packs rather than loose ice. Current park rules are available here.
Two Backpacks or Cross Body Bags
One rule when we travel but also when we visit Disney World is we always bring at least two sets of Epis with us, meaning we have a minimum of 4 epis on us at all times. We bring two back packs or cross body bags and we place 1 set (pair of 2) in each bag. That way we have two bags that each have a full set of epis in the event that a bag gets lost or misplaced while we are traveling.
If we keep all the epis in one bag and that bag gets lost or stolen, now we have no epic which is not a scenario we want to be in. We have found having two bags each with a complete set of epis to be a nice way of helping make sure we always have what we need.
Reusable Straws
Disney World has paper or biodegradable straws and it can be difficult to know exactly what is in those. Especially for our friends who navigate wheat/gluten allergies or intolerances or who are sensitive to cross contact, we do recommend bringing your own reusable straw to have on hand.
6. Not All Locations at Disney World are Owned by Disney
This is a nuance about navigating the dining locations at Disney. Not every location that you encounter or can make reservations for is owned by Disney and therefore does not follow the same training and allergy protocols as the Disney-owned locations.
A general rule (there are exceptions) to help make it less confusing is that the dining locations in Disney Springs and in World Showcase at Epcot are not owned by Disney. I typically do not recommend family’s to eat at the restaurants in Disney Springs over the Disney Resort and Park options however each family has different needs and in some cases those options work for them.
In Disney Springs, although not owned by Disney, a fantastic allergy option is Erin McKenna’s Bakery! They are free from dairy, nuts, and soy and have vegan, gluten-free, and kosher options. For many families, it is a rare treat to be able to walk into the bakery and see so many options that work for their food allergy needs!
Final Thoughts: Magic Is Possible
Disney World truly can be magical for food allergy families. The combination of extensive staff training, comprehensive allergy protocols, and genuine commitment to guests creates an environment where we can finally relax while dining out as a family.
Does it require preparation, vigilance, and advocacy? Absolutely. But the reward—watching your children experience Disney magic without constant food-related anxiety—makes every precaution worthwhile.
I’m here to partner with you in preparing for your family’s Disney vacation! Let me know if I can be of help to you in making the magic happen for your family.
Safe travels and magical moments ahead!