My son is newly on a dairy-free diet. We are having a hard time eating out. Can anyone share their experience being dairy-free at Disney World? I see a lot of plant-based meals on menus, should I stick to those restaurants or will every restaurant cater to a dairy-free diet?
I'm vegan, so I'm very used to the dairy-free choices at WDW, and there are many. It's one of the things that makes vacationing there so appealing to me.
Even though I realize your son isn't vegan but is just on a dairy-free diet, I recommend checking out
Vegan Disney World, which has loads of good info about vegan food choices at WDW.
The Mickey pretzels and the standard popcorn they serve in all the parks are both dairy-free. That's a good thing to know if you're pressed for a snack at some point.
Sunshine Seasons at Epcot often has Enjoy Life chocolate bars (you kind of have to look for them) as well as a vegan chocolate mousse, which might be appealing to your son.
Pretty much any TS restaurant at WDW will be happy to accommodate your son's dairy-free needs. You just tell your server and they'll get the allergy chef (or, in some cases, the restaurant's executive chef) to come talk to you about possibilities, many of which aren't even included on the menu. So don't depend on TS menus to tell you the whole story. They don't.
You can get cheese-free pizzas at many of the Italian restaurants around WDW and certainly at Blaze in DS. Blaze has vegan cheese, but your son may or may not like that. Anyway, a pizza can be great even without cheese.
Anything specifically listed on a menu as "plant-based" is dairy-free. Other items can be made without dairy, but you have to ask, and sometimes this entails no mobile ordering, since most mobile orders don't allow for modifications of this sort.
You can get "allergy" Mickey waffles at pretty much every resort QS for breakfast, but you have to speak to the allergy chef. You can't just order them. Depending on the restaurant, they can be really good. They're also gluten-free, which is sometimes the kiss of death for a pastry, but in this case, it works out okay.
Hope this helps. And I'd like to reiterate that it really isn't all that hard to accommodate a dairy-free diet at WDW. There are loads of choices, and, in your son's case, many more choices than the ones I have, since I'm also vegan. What I'm trying to say is that your son won't starve! You just have to be prepared.
And have a great trip!
