In the middle of December 2023, I went to Disney World for 3 nights and sailed with Disney Cruise Line on the Disney Wish for 4 nights. In late November, I’d had surgery on my jaw. It wasn’t wired shut, but I was on a strict no-chew diet. I could have liquids, things without structure like mashed potatoes, and things I could cut into tiny pieces and crush with my tongue like salmon. And that’s it! Here’s a few tips-and-tricks and resources you can use for any special diet while visiting Disney.
Preparations
Disney World has their own resources. You can email Special.Diets@DisneyWorld.com with specific questions and they should help find a set of options for you. You can see they even list requiring pureed meals, as an option, but I chose not to do that this time since I COULD manage on most regular menus. Additionally, Disney World is GREAT about having all of the restaurants’ menus available online.
Disney Cruise Line was more of a challenge. They also have their own resources that skew towards the more common allergies, kosher, and halal and a form you can fill out. Unfortunately the form is hard-coded with options and doesn’t allow free-text entry, so that didn’t help me. They also don’t post ANY menus online and when you contact them, they refuse to give you any. Interestingly, this was also the case when I contacted Shoreside Concierge. They completely blew me off and refused to offer ANY assistance (I sent them multiple emails with several different questions and it was actually shocking to me how completely unhelpful they were with all of them).
For DCL, having fan-generated videos and articles was critical to being able to find old menus and examples of what’s served in the buffet. By the way, this is really the kind of special circumstance that having a travel agent to do this research for you can make or break your vacation.
Tip: I think a lot of people don’t realize you are allowed to bring food into the parks and onto the ship. For the ship, it does have to be in the original manufacturer’s packaging. So no pb&j sandwiches. But I was able to get a huge ziplock bag full of GoGo Squeez applesauce packs, which are 3.2 oz, which means you can take them in your carry-on luggage! Those saved me a few times and I highly recommend them.
Disney World
The night we arrived, our flight was delayed, so we got to our resort, Disney’s Beach Club Villas, right before 10 PM. I had checked the menu of the AbracadaBar, so I knew I’d be able to eat something there. Unfortunately all restaurants at both hotels stop serving food except the Pizza Window at 10 PM. So I had an applesauce pack for dinner 🙁
I was visiting during the Epcot International Festival of the Holidays, which meant many of those little food kiosks were open, which meant more options. I first tried the ham & cheese crepe from the crepe quick-service in France. Crepes are nice and squishy, right? No, this one was hard and…honestly I felt sick after a few bites. Sorry.
For lunch, I tried the beef and noodle soup bowl from Shanghai Holiday Kitchen in the China pavilion. Slow-cooked beef should be shreddable, right? Nope, extremely hard.
The only thing I really got to eat that day was back at the Beach Club. The quick-service restaurant in the gift shop (Beach Club Marketplace) had some clam chowder (I LOVE a good clam chowder). And it was delicious!!! I didn’t get a photo because I was starving at that point. But I’m so glad they had it. Their menu suggested they always have a soup, so a person on a no-chew diet should always have an option there.
On a different day, I tried the seared salmon at Yukon Holiday Kitchen in the Canada pavilion. Also did not get a photo of that one because it started pouring rain and I was trying to eat it and MAN IT WAS DELICIOUS. If the line hadn’t been so long (and it wasn’t raining) I would have gone back for 2 more.
Breakfast on the second full day was at Trattoria Al Forno, which is a table-service at the Boardwalk. They had multiple options for me! Oatmeal and scrambled eggs – delicious! They also cooked the bacon well, so I could crumble it into tiny pieces. I was ready to start my day!
One last thing at Disney World was in Epcot at Sunshine Seasons, which is in the Land Pavilion. This is a cafeteria-style restaurant with quite a few options. I picked the stir-fried chicken, which was slimy enough that I could swallow all the different ingredients when cut into tiny pieces. But with a plastic fork and knife, it took forever and was long cold by the time I got enough to eat. But there were plenty of options here that looked like they would work.
Disney Cruise Line aboard the Disney Wish
I was much more worried going into this one. As I said before, Shoreside Concierge was completely unhelpful, DCL does not post menus online, so I had to rely on ones fans had posted months earlier. But surely there’s always something at the buffet? No, because Marceline Market isn’t open for dinner! So there’s a real possibility of going to your main dining room that evening, not seeing anything you can eat, and just having sleep for dinner. You can’t order from the other dining rooms. It’s not like I could call an uber and go to the grocery store for some spaghetti-os. Tip: I knew that the Concierge Sun Deck has two smoothie machines (which I found out through fan reviews, not from shoreside concierge!), so I figured I’d at least always have that as an option. And I did, they were really good! Fancy coffee in the middle.
First dinner was Palo Steakhouse. I had the ravioli (DELICIOUS)
And…..tiramisu?
Yeah I couldn’t eat that. I’ve had tiramisu on this diet and since the ladyfingers are soaked in kahlua/coffee, it’s easy to squish with my tongue. But…this. The chocolate shell and “ladyfingers” were both hard. The interior was soft, but….gross. Sorry. I do NOT know what they were thinking with this. They took it back and made this custom squishy cheese thing for me. I couldn’t eat the raspberries or boba pearls, but it was…eh. OK, but not the tiramisu I wanted. Still, I really appreciated all the effort they went to!
We ordered this from room service and it was OK. All of the ingredients were soft enough to cut and tongue-crush.
Dinner at Arendelle was Sven’s carrot soup. Obviously I took out the bread, but MAN it was delicious!
Pirate night was some chilled mango soups. Also delicious!
Another thing I was worried about was lunch on Castaway Cay. The two barbeque restaurants didn’t look like they’d have much. And yes, that was the case. There was some kind of fish I could eat (sorry, didn’t have my phone on me for a photo) and it was OK.
Marceline market had the Indian dish chicken tikka masala. Fortunately for me (and vegetarians!) they keep the chicken in a separate bowl. So you can have a no-chew or vegetarian version quite easily. They had this both times I went for lunch. Of course it’s not spicy at all. I dumped a ton of hot sauce in it the second time.
Overall, DCL ended up being easier to manage than I was expecting, but a lot of that was sailing concierge. The lounge has their own menu, you can order things that aren’t on it AND their room service will actually pull from the main dining restaurants. This meant that in the event I couldn’t eat anything at first seating, I could go back to the room and order from a different restaurant for second seating. I ended up not having to do that, but it was a relief knowing that was an option. Again, from my research, not the extremely-unhelpful shoreside concierge.
Trying to plan a vacation but nervous because of a dietary restriction? Contact me for some assistance! I love a challenge.