Food poisoning at Chef Mickey's dinner?

[maxiesmom]

My entire party of 9 got sick after eating at Chef Mickey in the contemporary resort. we confirmed as we all came from different areas and the only time we gathered for a meal was at this location. every one of us had to cancel remaining plans at Disney parks and return home very ill. luckily none had to go to the hospital but we did get medical advice suggesting we had all contracted norovirus.

I wrote disney at their sites, emailed support and even called. i have seen no response aside from an automated one. what gives? as of now, we have cancelled our Florida residents membership and will not hold family gatherings there again. i cannot invite folks out of town only to have them get sick.

The only way you could have proved food poisoning was to get testing done at a hospital. Without that, you have no way of knowing what made you ill. Could have been a germ on the escalator railing. Could have been one of you was sick prior, but had no symptoms. You can't expect Disney to do anything for you when you cannot prove they had any fault.

 

[HopperFan]

Norovirus is not food poisoning. Big difference. Norovirus can be transmitted many ways, but it's not a foodborne illness.

Noro is not food poisoning but it can be spread in food. I spreads by surfaces, food, water and now some research believing it can be airborne from infected person. But if food were the case the restaurant would have had lots of people getting sick, and if reported gives them some basis.

The only way you could have proved food poisoning was to get testing done at a hospital. Without that, you have no way of knowing what made you ill.

And only way to prove Noro is to have stools tested.

Could have been a germ on the escalator railing. Could have been one of you was sick prior, but had no symptoms. You can't expect Disney to do anything for you when you cannot prove they had any fault.

AGREED.

Upsetting yes. Cancel the AP, don't return, tell your friends but other than that I just wouldn't spend negative energy on it ~ I don't think it will go anywhere.

 

[elvispursley]

I think contacting an attorney would just add further insult to “injury” by throwing more money at Disney in legal fees you’ll never see recovered But whatever…

 

[Narcoossee11]

You have done what YOU think is right.
Don't back to WDW. YOU will feel better.
------ BUT------
Move on.
You will never find the source of the groups illness.
Disney will not admit fault and you can't prove any fault.

They 'might' refund meal but I think it is too late.

 

[Betty Rohrer]

My entire party of 9 got sick after eating at Chef Mickey in the contemporary resort. we confirmed as we all came from different areas and the only time we gathered for a meal was at this location. every one of us had to cancel remaining plans at Disney parks and return home very ill. luckily none had to go to the hospital but we did get medical advice suggesting we had all contracted norovirus.

I wrote disney at their sites, emailed support and even called. i have seen no response aside from an automated one. what gives? as of now, we have cancelled our Florida residents membership and will not hold family gatherings there again. i cannot invite folks out of town only to have them get sick.

how can you prove food poisoning without medical testing? you have mentioned a lawyer. not sure who you will find with no medical proof. Disney is just going to get more of your money for their court costs if you get that far as it will be ruled in their favor with no more proof than everyone getting sick

 

[DodgerGirl]

When it comes to eating out especially with families buffets are places to avoid in general not only because they are crowded with people they are also germ magnets where people can easily get sick and food poisoning is one of the most common illnesses in buffets. Take for example when my family got together for a pizza dinner we got treated to a pizza buffet and my mom my aunt Dad's aunt and my grandmother each got sick from it and my mom was sick for two days and then we learned that the cause was undercooked Hawaiian pizza with chicken and we have never eaten buffets since then. What I think Chef Mickey's should do is put up a sign that says this "FOR SAFETY REASONS PLEASE USE CLEAN PLATES ONLY WHEN MAKING FOOD SELECTIONS AND BE SURE TO WASH HANDS BEFORE TOUCHING FOOD OR GRABBING PLATES THANK YOU" and that would help people a lot. Because the one thing I dislike about buffets is having kids put their fingers in the food because that can be icky at times and my cousins had a habit of doing this at buffets when they were little. I don't know why Chef Mickey's doesn't enforce a rule about no child's fingers in the food or anything else. But my mom got food poisoning from foil wrapped chicken once at a Chinese restaurant and really made her sick for a week and because of it Mom has never eaten foil wrapped chicken since. I also wonder if Chef Mickey's reheats the food or they make a new batch of food the day before?

 

[Starclassic]

My entire party of 9 got sick after eating at Chef Mickey in the contemporary resort. we confirmed as we all came from different areas and the only time we gathered for a meal was at this location. every one of us had to cancel remaining plans at Disney parks and return home very ill. luckily none had to go to the hospital but we did get medical advice suggesting we had all contracted norovirus.

I wrote disney at their sites, emailed support and even called. i have seen no response aside from an automated one. what gives? as of now, we have cancelled our Florida residents membership and will not hold family gatherings there again. i cannot invite folks out of town only to have them get sick.

It’s norovirus aka stomach flu…going around like crazy right now. It was our least favorite souvenir from Disney last spring as well. I’m sorry y’all got sick, but I’m positive it was no fault of Disney’s.

 

[Brett Wyman]

ALL restaurants are eat at your own risk.

True, but law of numbers demands the more people around your food the greater the chance of contamination.

Norovirus is a beast. Very hard to kill even with soap and water and disinfectants. Even when a previous dinner uses a tong or spoon, you can touch that tong or spoon, sanitize your hands before you eat, and still get sick.

We do eat at buffets but schedule them at the end of our trip for the "just in case". We also depart of the the Dream tomorrow so sometimes you just have to roll the dice.

 

[Anthony1971]

So long ago we thought we got sick from a Disney restaurant and were just asking for one day of the cost of the DP returned as we could not use it (like 32 a person for a few people)....... This was was passed to Disney Claims department. Talking to them was far more unpleasant then the 36 hours bug that spread among us. If you sent a letter claiming it was Disney fault you may hear from them or if you want to file a claim then that is where to go.... I will suggest 1) speaking to a CM nicely and explain you got sick were unabale to.... and see if they can do something for you 2) if you want to say it was Disney fault and Demand some type of compensation you better have a good lawyer and deep pockets to prove you got sick from food at a restaurant. On the flip side they will investigate the restaurant if any employees were sick went home sick and check the records for prior days for the same if there was a sick employee they may do something for you but again I will strongly suggest not going this route unless you saw a doctor they took samples of what you ate from your stomach and they pin point it was this food item(s) got us sick and yes this can be done and has been done and you will be asked......

 

[Mle8308]

All buffets are eat at your own risk. It is what it is.

This is true, however Chef Mickey's just returned to buffet style on March 1st, so after their meal!

 

[maxiesmom]

I don't think putting up a sign will do any good. Not touching the food, or having clean hand should be common sense. If someone doesn't have common sense enough to not touch the food, then putting a sign up won't register.

People don't bother to read signs. I work retail, and the number of times a customer has asked me where guest services is, or where the bathrooms are, as a giant sign is all tapping them on the head, I can't even tell you.

 

[Betty Rohrer]

I don't think putting up a sign will do any good. Not touching the food, or having clean hand should be common sense. If someone doesn't have common sense enough to not touch the food, then putting a sign up won't register.

People don't bother to read signs. I work retail, and the number of times a customer has asked me where guest services is, or where the bathrooms are, as a giant sign is all tapping them on the head, I can't even tell you.

you are so true with reading signs. for awhile stand I work at one door to be used to enter. had a nice sized a frame sign by door with that info. one day had the park manger standing right beside sign with an arm resting on top of sign complaining that we needed a sign about door change. as a lowly CM how do you point out the sign to highest in park manger he was standing next to said sign?

 

[bumbershoot]

every one of us had to cancel remaining plans at Disney parks and return home very ill.

Unless you're very local, the fact that you could get all the way home, rather than just hanging out in hotel rooms, makes me wonder how very ill you were.

we did get medical advice suggesting we had all contracted norovirus.

Noro isn't food poisoning. It's not transmitted by food.

It's mainly transmitted by putting your hands on the virus and then getting the virus in your mucus membranes by touching your face. Don't touch your face.

And since you're already home as of 3/3 and had time to send all those messages and wait for replies, it means that you dined there before March 1st.

Unless you all ate the SAME food, given that it wasn't back to buffet until 3/1, even if it wasn't noro, it also wasn't food poisoning.

"FOR SAFETY REASONS PLEASE USE CLEAN PLATES ONLY WHEN MAKING FOOD SELECTIONS AND BE SURE TO WASH HANDS BEFORE TOUCHING FOOD OR GRABBING PLATES THANK YOU"

And none of that would stop noro. Using your own used plate won't give you noro. Washing hands BEFORE touching food or plates doesn't stop you from getting it from a surface then putting hands do your face.

The biggest way to not get noro is to keep your hands away from your face. No finger foods; use utensils only.

Even when a previous dinner uses a tong or spoon, you can touch that tong or spoon, sanitize your hands before you eat, and still get sick.

Probably because at some point you pick up some food with your hands and put your hands to your face.

as a lowly CM how do you point out the sign to highest in park manger he was standing next to said sign?

"Oh sir/ma'am, can you come over here for a minute and look towards the door?"

 

[Betty Rohrer]

Unless you're very local, the fact that you could get all the way home, rather than just hanging out in hotel rooms, makes me wonder how very ill you were.



Noro isn't food poisoning. It's not transmitted by food.

It's mainly transmitted by putting your hands on the virus and then getting the virus in your mucus membranes by touching your face. Don't touch your face.

And since you're already home as of 3/3 and had time to send all those messages and wait for replies, it means that you dined there before March 1st.

Unless you all ate the SAME food, given that it wasn't back to buffet until 3/1, even if it wasn't noro, it also wasn't food poisoning.



And none of that would stop noro. Using your own used plate won't give you noro. Washing hands BEFORE touching food or plates doesn't stop you from getting it from a surface then putting hands do your face.

The biggest way to not get noro is to keep your hands away from your face. No finger foods; use utensils only.



Probably because at some point you pick up some food with your hands and put your hands to your face.



"Oh sir/ma'am, can you come over here for a minute and look towards the door?"

I am on good terms with him and you could only see/read the sign from where he was. I looked at him and asked would the one beside him do? he looked at me and said I should have known you be sure there was one. meaning I was in charge which I am not. glad it was him and not one of the ones I dont know as well

 

[leiaorgana]

Exactly! Signs aren’t going to do anything. When we were last there some of the buffets still had the hand sanitising stations near the food lines but nobody was ever using them other than us and it doesn’t help things when parents keep letting kids who are just that little bit too young to be serving themselves go up solo. We had breakfast at Cape May in July and just in the space of 10 mins I saw one little girl drop some grapes and strawberries onto the floor serving herself and she bent down to pick them up and put them back in with the fruit she got them from and then walked off and then another little girl was getting Minnie waffles and decided she didn’t want that many and so she took them off her plate with her fingers and put them back with the others. I went and told one of the workers replenishing the food about what I’d seen so that no one else unknowingly ate the food that been on the dirty floor there.

 

[elvispursley]

Totally agree that signs do absolutely nothing. When we have sailed on DCL, the CMs hand out sanitizing wipes and you could watch people purposefully throw the wipes away without using them. So even though there were SIGNS and CMs physically putting the wipes in your hands, people would still purposefully ignore. And don't get me started on the people who walk out of bathrooms in restaurants and don't wash their hands...

 

[SouthJersey]

People have always claimed to get food poisoning at X restaurant when in reality, as others have mentioned, 99.9% of the time it's not food poisoning. People touch 2938238 surfaces all day long in one of the busiest recreational places in the world and act as if they could never have norovirus or another bug and that it must be food poisoning.

 

[joyjoy]

We ate dinner at a buffet at Moody Gardens Hotel in Galveston last summer, so well after the EndofTimes. They had boxes of nitrile gloves where you pick up plates with signage saying you MUST wear gloves to go through the buffet and to get a clean plate and a clean pair of gloves if you go back through. I thought that was a great idea. There were employees refilling/cleaning the buffet dishes and they were tasked with making sure everyone had on gloves. I thought that was great. It's not that expensive, Disney can certainly afford it.

 

[DisneyHardin]

We ate dinner at a buffet at Moody Gardens Hotel in Galveston last summer, so well after the EndofTimes. They had boxes of nitrile gloves where you pick up plates with signage saying you MUST wear gloves to go through the buffet and to get a clean plate and a clean pair of gloves if you go back through. I thought that was a great idea. There were employees refilling/cleaning the buffet dishes and they were tasked with making sure everyone had on gloves. I thought that was great. It's not that expensive, Disney can certainly afford it.

We went to a dinner show with a buffet back at Christmas that had gloves to wear when you went through the line. It was the first time I had seen that.

 

[Betty Rohrer]

We ate dinner at a buffet at Moody Gardens Hotel in Galveston last summer, so well after the EndofTimes. They had boxes of nitrile gloves where you pick up plates with signage saying you MUST wear gloves to go through the buffet and to get a clean plate and a clean pair of gloves if you go back through. I thought that was a great idea. There were employees refilling/cleaning the buffet dishes and they were tasked with making sure everyone had on gloves. I thought that was great. It's not that expensive, Disney can certainly afford it.

I am the one those gloves do not work for even in that situation. I walk with a cane which makes the gloves nonclean for serving. plus I can not grip my cane right with them on causing a fall and drop problem . yes I almost fell in line grabbing serving area to keep from falling but I did drop a plate of food in the line causing a slip hazard for people behind me. remember the people watching line are not allowed to carry for you besides the cane would make glove unclean for touching serving tools. would be a problem at Disney also