Guest Ends Up In Hospital Due to Food Allergy, Says Disney Needs to "Do Better" - Inside the Magic

Comments for Guest Ends Up In Hospital Due to Food Allergy, Says Disney Needs to “Do Better”

La Crêperie de Paris

Credit: Disney

24 Comments

  1. I know it must be impossible to eat out with a food allergy. The customer announced his/her allergy and was still given gluten. That must be sending shock waves to everyone with food allergies visiting the parks. I am glad that it wasn’t fatal, but after 3 times Disney must see the need to re-educate food service.

  2. MLJoseph

    I had almost the same result. I have a very weird allergy. Lemon. Could be also very high citric acid. Went to breakfast and was very very ill all day after eating.
    Come to find out their sausage is made in house and has lemon powder in it. Who would know. I found this out the next day from a chef of disney world. But the waitress did not even ask the chef. Who would think anything lemon would be in breakfast items. But the waitress should have double checked.

    1. Ryan

      Did you tell them you had an allergy? If you have an allergy to and didn’t mention it why are you blaming the waitress? That is YOUR responsibility. And why should the waitress ask if the sausage has lemon in it? If you say “I have an allergy to lemon, please do not bring me stuff with lemon,” do you honestly think the waitress or chef is going to think about sausage? However, I really think you didn’t say anything about it to anyone and are just wanting to place blame for your lack of responsibility

      1. Lisa

        Wow, I don’t know this man and neither do you – can we not assume anything on either side?

  3. Charles

    I’m sad to hear about this. My daughter has multiple food allergies and we have found Disney to be the most accompanying place around. Going next week. Fingers crossed all goes well.

  4. Jill

    I have celiac also and there’s nothing a hospital can do to “treat” someone who has consumed gluten. I think this person is being dramatic. I eat safely at Disney frequently.

    1. Jay

      If you had actually read the article you would see that the guest said they had a gluten allergy not celiac, these are two different things. They also had an auto immune disorder that further complicates their reactions. Furthermore just because you have not had to be hospitalized for celiac crisis doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. Do not invalidate another’s experience just because it hasn’t happened to you.

    2. Lrimerman

      If you read the article, she has a rare disease that is aggravated by gluten too, so that is why she had to go to hospital.

  5. Jamie

    To be fair, La Creperie de Paris is run by a contracted third party, not by Walt Disney World.

  6. Mike

    Maybe bring your own food if you have that many issues. You can’t blame Disney when you went to a third party restaurant that isn’t owned or operated by Disney. Someone is just looking for attention

  7. Wendi

    The staff at Disney food service locations are human beings who serve thousands of people per day. It is inevitable, regardless of how well-trained, that mistakes are going to happen. If I had a life-threatening food allergy, I would bring my own food rather than rely on underpaid, overworked concession employees to never get their wires crossed.

  8. Ruby

    Is this person saying they have Celiac? Because there is no such thing as a gluten allergy. If this person can’t even properly describe their food restrictions, im not sure how much I believe them.

    1. Lrimerman

      You can have a gluten allergy, gluten is a protein and any protein can cause allergic reactions

  9. Gen

    This restaurant is not even owned by Disney. If you have a food allergy or celiac disease, you need to advocate for yourself and ask questions. I would never eat there knowing that risks of cross-contamination are really high and they will tell you it’s not safe.

  10. Sue

    I have eaten gluten-free at Disney many times, and each time, the staff went out of their way to be accommodating. My husband and I both have seafood allergies, and at no time have either of us had any issues eating anywhere. I’m not sure why this person continues to eat there if they keep having problems, or why they would blame Disney for a third-party vendor’s mix-up.

  11. Amy

    I’m a celiac who has just come back from WDW and found them to be excellent. I did my research before I went and half an hour on Facebook is all you need to know that the creperie in EPCOT serves a gf recipe on the “normal” cooking equipment, therefore there’s a cross-contamination risk.
    It’s not good that the servers don’t acknowledge this when they take a gf order, but I would also expect a fellow celiac to ask the question/do the research.

    1. Katie

      My family went there recently, and someone in my family is allergic to wheat. She was told there was a dedicated grill for those with this allergy. She was cross contaminated by gluten and got sick

  12. Casey

    I find this hard to believe. You may have been cross contaminated, but directly given gluten is unlikely if you asked.

    I am allergic to oranges. So weird. But anytime I ordered food I made sure to include it, even if I didn’t think anything had oranges. Disney cast members went above and beyond, checking every ingredient of every item before serving them to me. I even had one in Galaxy’s edge bring out an iPad with a list of all the ingredients to some chips with the ingredients of all of those ingredients just to show me that the chips had orange peel in the seasoning and that the juice I ordered had orange purée, despite not being an orange based juice.

    I’ve never had a food service place or restaurant be more accommodating than Disney was.

  13. Walt

    “The anonymous Guest wants to make it very clear that they are not trying to bash Disney in any way.”

    Untl they file their multi-million dollar law suit. O
    K the resturnat F’d up but if this was truely the third time it happened I would be much more careful in chosing something from the menu that had ZERO possibilities ofa screw up. Jump all over me but I am not putting my potential hospitalization in the hands of an employee that makes 15 and hour.

  14. Corinne

    Cross contamination from gluten is pretty much impossible to avoid at a crepe place. They are working with flour, which is essentially airborne.

  15. If this had already happened to this person twice I would recommend they bring in their own food to be safe. Everyone is human and make mistakes. Sorry this happened to her.

  16. OgresAreLikeOnions

    This was an awful incident and I hope they recover.

    When I worked for Disney several years ago we were told to never call anything gluten free. We were to refer to items as gluten friendly. I guess to avoid liability. Additionally, management would handle serving guests with allergies. They’d go into the kitchens themselves and either prepare, or observe the preparation, of the allergy tray and then hand deliver to the guest. Disney goes above and beyond to accommodate allergies and food sensitivities. I can’t have onions and they are in absolutely everything. Cast Members always bring out the ingredients list of their restaurants food items so I can see for myself whether or not I can consume something.

  17. pattimarie

    Wow. Ryan has such a stupid reply! Did he read ML Joseph’s post all the way through? She clearly states that she did tell the waitress, and that the chef there never heard from the waitress. She was asked to find out if the food had an allergen, but did nothing to find out if it did or didn’t. You also questioned who would know that sausages have lemon in them? The post clearly says that the sausages are made there on the premises by the kitchen staff, so of course they would know what they put into it! They did when she went back and asked them the next day–so they would have known that if the waitress had bothered to ask when this person ordered the food.

    This is not some joke for you to justify bad behavior or gloss over the possible life and death consequences. Your arguments don’t even match the facts in the post. I have known one young adult who died of a peanut allergy, and a good friend who almost died of the same thing right in front of me. Your comments justifying a lackadaisical approach to food allergies are offensive.

  18. Lisa

    I’m with Pattiemarie. Both of the people who wrote in about their gluten problem at Disney sounded responsible – especially when you read their entire post. I don’t believe anyone is filing a multimillion dollar lawsuit either.
    The comments inferring that a guest shouldn’t trust a $15 an hour food worker are aggravating. If you accept employment you should do it right. Otherwise, at what hourly wage should an employee be expected to not make a mistake?
    To be safe, I would suggest that a guest with gluten issues purchase a gluten detector and carry it with them.

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