Florida 2018 - Gluten Free, Fun And Food! - Travel, Food Shop and Seaworld - Almost Live! Part 1

[EmmaSmith]

Welcome to our trip report! We are back in orlando for the first time in 3 years!

Lots has changed in the USA and for us! Both my hubby and my middle son have been diagnosed as having Coeliacs Disease this year, which means we are now Gluten Free.

I asked on the DIBB for food advice and decided to make this food trip report for any other Coeliacs or wheat allergy persons on the DIBB! I hope you enjoy!

DISCLAIMERS! 😀

1. This is my first ever attempt at a trip report! Be kind! 😂

2. I am using the app to make this and learning as i go! Sorry if i mess up!🤗

3. I have dyslexia and no patience! Which means i type fast and spell like rubbish so it means i might post and then have to re read to correct my mistakes! Forgive me😝

So here we go! We are a family of 5,

Me Emma disney and theme park mad feeling sad this year as i had a VP shunt fitted which means i cannot ride the rides but i am a very happy pram and bag holder while my boys enjoy them!

My hubby Simon, loves Florida so much, driver, bag holder, in Search of good gluten free beer!

Eldest son Ethan 11, crazy and theme park mad!

Middle son Luke 9, the dare devil nothing this kid will not do!

The youngest Max 7, disney and character crazy!

So we are here now and aim to keep a record of our food finds! Enjoy 😀

Saturday 20th October 2018

Hooray its travel day, cannot wait to spend 9 hours on a plane, said no one ever! Unless your my hubby who loves all things aviation so the flight is the best bit for him!

We flew from Gatwick with Thomas Cook, nice plane lovely crew, hated paying £5 extra for premium TV just felt that for long haul it should be standard. Had to pay for all drinks if not at mealtimes but i was prepared and got a load of bottles from the WH Smith before the flight.

So happy faces all round in the flight!

I had pre booked 2 gluten free adult meals on the flight for simon and me as i dont tend to eat on flights so it ment he could share my food too.

I booked Luke a gluten free kids meal but turns out they only offer the same as the adults.

They arrived first and we were very impressed!

Lovely roast chicken meal.

Excuse the blurry pic!

Also came with a huge gluten free BFree brown seeded roll

A little compote which was not to any of out tastes but i am sure it might be to some.

Then a fab pudding of the Honeybuns gluten free brownie, absolutely lovely!

So over all very happy with the choices given in the main meal.

No snack for the gluten free people as the plane was served a little ice cream cone but i had packed other snack for us all to have.

Also the flight snacks to buy included haribo too.

So i missed out a pic of the next meal service but as the gluten free option we were all given a huge cheese and chutney sandwich which was not only very tasty but a lot more filling than tbe little diddy finger sandwiches that were served as the normal service , all this was served with a fresh banana and another Honeybuns brownie.

The flight dragged but finally we landed at orlando international, now for the last i think 5 trips we have flown in to Sanford airport which i love simple no problems! International airport is just the special level of hell i remember!

Over 2 1/2 hours it took most of that at immigration where 4 flights from the UK had landed around the same time, it was the queue to end all queues, it took forever! Finally it was our turn, done and passports stamped we headed to grab our bags, kept them with us on the monorail.

Then joined another huge queue at the Thomas Cook podium as we had universal tickets to collect. After we got to the front we were advised to join another huge queue at the actual Thomas Cook desk! Arrgghhhhh!

Anyhow much british tutting later we had tickets and used the computer kiosk at alamo to get our car! We always get a 7 seater its better for cases and we like the room!

Car picked we were on the road!

All checked i and food was on our mind, now it was late so we decided to head to super target and then grab a pizza for tea.

The supper target on the 192 had a small gluten free section in isle 5 and a small gluten free frozen section.

We grabbed a few bits, the bread on offer was a familiar named brand that we use in the UK.

A gluten free oreo type biscuit and some rice krispie treats by the same brand which are very nice and also come individually wrapped so great to keep in our bag for when out and about.

These bits grabbed as well as some Cherrios for breakfast which are marked as gluten free, we headed out of target and straight in to Flippers pizza.

We asked and were informed that the Gluten free bases only comes i a My Pie size (8 slices) but they can do any topping.

Luke had a pepperoni and ham while Simon had a BBQ chicken and me and the other 2 boys shared a large normal margarita.

Sadly i have no pics of the pizza! We were hungry tired and i forgot! But everyone agreed that this was the best gluten free pizza we have ever had, it was amazing! Cannot wait to have it again!

Sunday 21st October 2018

So this morning jet lag woke us all around 5am although simon had been awake since 3am!

I thought i should mention the 2 apps that are helping me over here, firstly Find me gluten free which list restaurants with reviews and gluten free food finder which is a barcode scanner and lets you know if a product is safe and gluten free. Both these apps were free and i got then via the play store, they are both working well at the moment and i will keep you updated how i get on with them.

Seaworld🐬 was the plan for today but first it was a trip to walmart to grab all the stuff we were to tired to get last night!

More cereal, nice to find the chex one as it was very highly recommended when i was planning this trip.

More gluten free snacks

So today at seaworld it was the Halloween Spooktacular event, it looked really busy when we pulled in to the car park.

I asked at the main customer service about food options but they had no list as such, they had an allergy book but advised us that most of the restaurants had a gluten free option and to inform them when ordering.

The park was great, the boys hit the rides all apart from infinity falls which was a queue nightmare 120mins at one point and we were told the ride had gone down over 5 times during the day, we gave it a miss!

It was disapointing that the kids area and rides are now closed to make way for Sesame street coming in 2019, the boys were really unhappy as this area used to be there favourite part.

I bought the boys £1.99 seaworld trick or treat bags, as from the seaport theatre right round to the bayside stadium the had candy stations!

The boys were in there element! Fantastic event!

Huge bags of candy collected! And a fab selection of gluten free goodies!

M&Ms
Airheads
Toosie rolls
Nerds
Pirate booty
Sour patch kids
Swedish fish

Luke coukd have them all the only other options were twix and oreo bars, which he got anyway and gave to his brothers.

Seaworld also had a dedicated allergy friendly candy station giving away strawberry krispie treats!

Seaworlds gluten free offering for lunch was this amazing burger from the spice mill resturant.

Spoke to the server at the counter who arranged with the manager to make these burgers separate with gluten free buns.

The resturant even had an allergy card that you can fill in to hand to the chef with all your needs on.

Here is lukes haul of candy all sorted! He came away with over 100 candies and treats!

And the other 2 boys had even more! 😂

So a quick stop after the park to the publix on vineland rd for gluten free beer! So we did some research before hand and this Redbridge is the main gluten free beer supplier we were able to search there own website for stockists near us

Simon is not overly impressed! Not bad but not the best gluten free beer he has ever had!

Tonight we were all tired and not really in the mood to go out to eat so i cooked in.

Couple of udi gluten free pizzas these both tasted really nice

A gluten free lasagna which while nice was very greasy!

As well as other snacks and bits.

All stuffed we all passed out early!

[KittyBlackDog]

Hey Emma, have a fab time. We had our first year as Coeliacs this summer too and found lots of options at nearly everywhere we went. Wish I had found those apps as they sound great.

Look for the purple circle on the shelf price label if you go in publix as the GF stuff is all mixed in with the other stuff.

Avoid Cracker Barrel as they could only offer us egg whites and apple sauce 😳.

The chex cereal and GF Cheerios were great ( we loved the cinnamon chex, and the honey Cheerios the best - we bought a huge box home 😂👍&#127995

Pm me if you fancy a chat.

I am hoping to do a coeliac food report but most of my photos seem to be saved as a crv file and I can’t access them 😡 - unless someone lovely on the dibb can help me with that?

Have a fantastic time

[Floridaagogo]

Great start.Sounds like you’re having lots of luck with the gluten free stuff xx

[Cinderella]

Looking forward to following along 👍

[app]

New Photo Added by EmmaSmith - 22 Oct 18 11:45 PM.

[EmmaSmith]

Hello everyone! Lovely to have you along for our trip!

We really hope this info and pics can help fellow Ceoliacs on the DIBB!

Or anyone who loves food as much as we do!

Thabks for the info kitty! We will be on the look out for purple stickers i publix tomorrow!

[Mel49]

Great start to your trip and looking forward to reading along

One of the reasons we keep going back to Florida is that it caters so well for Celiac's eating out compared to the UK and other places although for eating in the supermarkets at home have caught up. Great that lots of goodies for your son as it helps when they are catered for too.

[mick]

Great start looks like you are finding lots of gluten free food so that’s good


Joan

[Jake71]

A fab first few days.