Gluten-Free at Amusement Parks: How We Actually Make It Work

Amusement parks are supposed to be fun… but if you’re gluten-free?  They can feel stressful fast. 

Suddenly you’re wondering: Is there anything safe to eat here? Do they understand cross contamination? What if my kid gets hungry halfway through the day? What if the food allergy options are terrible? Or worse… what if there aren’t any? 

Our family has done gluten-free amusement parks for years—from Disney to Universal to Kings Island—and honestly? A little planning makes ALL the difference. 

In this episode, I’m walking you through exactly how we handle gluten-free amusement parks without the stress… including our cooler strategy, snacks, lockers, safe meals, and what to do when the park food options are less than impressive. Because by the end of this episode, you’ll have a real game plan.

Save money, and no more guessing for dinner!  Use code GFE to get 20% off annual membership at thedinnerdaily.com. Plan meals for less than $4/month and save money at the grocery store!

Transcript

Safety Disclaimer And Park Stress

Carrie Saunders 0:00

Quick reminder before we get started on this episode. This podcast is based on my personal experiences and isn't medical advice. Amusement parks are supposed to be fun, but if you're gluten-free, they can feel stressful really fast. Suddenly you're wondering is there's anything safe to eat here? Do they understand cross-contamination? What if me or my kid gets hungry halfway through the day? What if the food allergy options are terrible? Or worse, what if there isn't any options? Our family has done gluten-free amusing parts for years, from Disney to Universal Studios to King's Island, and a little planning makes all the difference here. In this episode, I'm walking you through exactly how we handle gluten-free amusement parks without the stress, including our cooler strategy, snacks, lockers, safe meals, and what to do when the park food options are less than impressive. By the end of this episode, you'll have a real game plan. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Gluten Free Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, Kiri Saunders. In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, a moment that changed everything. But I was determined not to let it hold me back. With my two engineering degrees, I set out to reverse engineer the gluten-free lifestyle, breaking down recipes, safety tips, travel hacks, and everything in between to rebuild a life I love. Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or simply choose to live gluten-free, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we simplify the gluten-free lifestyle, make it fun, and prove that you don't have to miss out on anything. Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking about going to amusement parks when you're gluten-free or a celiac. Amusement parks can be tricky because they combine all the things: long days, lots of walking, hungry kids, hungry adults, expensive food, unknown kitchens, limited allergy knowledge, and impulse eating. Amusement parks

Start Full So You Stay Safe

Carrie Saunders 1:55

are not where you want to just wing your gluten-free plan. Let me tell you that for sure. So our biggest strategy when we're going to amusement park, whether it's Disney, Universal Studios, we could even consider this like the zoo or a water park or a roller coaster park. We want to control what we can. So we can't control the park vendors, we can't control the shared fryers, the staff training, or surprise food closures or things we can't get to. But we can control our breakfast, our snacks, our lunch, and we can do some research and we can have some dinner plans. So this is what I like to do when we're going on an all-day amusement style park adventure. So, first off, what we do is we always eat a really good breakfast before we go to the park. We want to not ever enter the park hungry because hungry makes bad decisions, as most of us know. So eat your normal breakfast, maybe eat a little extra if you want, but we want to be eating our normal breakfast that we normally fuels our body and makes us feel good. I do recommend making sure it's a higher protein option and maybe a little bit higher in fat that helps you stay fuller, feel fuller longer. Um, quick carbs are probably not a good idea. They're going to make you hungry pretty fast, quick sugary type of carbs. The goal is to buy yourself time and not start the day already hungry and desperate for food.

Cooler And Locker Lunch Plan

Carrie Saunders 3:25

Now, so what we do is we use our cooler and our locker strategy when we go to amusement park. We pack a cooler lunch, we pack snacks, and we pack backup food. So what I like to do is I like to, when it's the whole family, you know, I'll create each person their favorite uh sandwich and I'll make sure I put it in an order. I know whose is whose as we're pulling it out to make it easier at the park. And I'll also pack our favorite snacks and some backup protein and food. We like to use like beef jerky or meat sticks for whenever we get super hungry because that protein will really help you feel uh much better. You could use nuts too if you're vegan or vegetarian, those are great options for you know satisfying that hunger that you need to just put your eating off a little bit longer and make you feel all right for now. So those are some tips on what to pack in them. So most parks, I've not found one yet, will allow you to bring in a small cooler. Look up on their website how big you can bring in, but they can let you bring in a cooler. And then what I do is when we're up to the gate, they understand food allergy better than celiac disease. So I will tell them we have food allergies, and that's why we need to bring in the cooler. Again, look up on the website, email them, call them if you need to to see what the policies are. But I haven't run into a park that won't let you bring in a cooler if you tell them you have food allergies. And then you want to course pack your cooler with lots of ice packs because it's probably gonna be a hot day. I'm assuming if you're at an amusement park, and so then we just rent a locker and put the cooler in there. Again, research the size of the lockers, make sure your cooler is going to fit in there. Many times they only allow soft-sided coolers. They are going to look in your cooler too and inspect it. So just know that. And this works great because then you can have lunch, a designated lunch that you know is safe when you're in the park. You also have dedicated snacks that you know are safer in the park. Secondary bonus, it's so much cheaper than buying the park food too, and it's so much safer and a lot less stress. You're gonna have a lot more fun, you're gonna spend a lot less time eating than you would if you were to try out some of the vendors and see if they're actually, you know, able to feed you or not. And then I want to also reiterate that um I glossed over a little bit. We want to make sure we have those snacks in there. I mentioned some beef jerky or or meat sticks or nuts for those that are vegan and vegetarian, or whether you just really like that as an option as well. You know, portable protein, portable um fruit, portable, you know, just favorite snacks, something that's we like to pack apples because those don't, you know, bruise as easily as, like, say, an orange would get squished so easily. So we like to pack apples in our cooler. Uh, carrots are a great option. Anything that's small, compact, and can handle, you know, being traveled around with it. It's a great way to help tide you over in between, say, lunch and dinner, so that you can last a little longer till dinner, and nobody gets hangry or hungry and uh cranky because you have plenty of food. And you and you it's wonderful to bring like somebody's favorite treats here, too. So you might bring something really special, like a special cookie or something like that, too. It's just a nice little treat. So we feel a little less deprived too. So we like to pack that in our coolers as

Disney Vs Universal Vs Other Parks

Carrie Saunders 6:56

well. Now let's talk about the different parks. So some parks are great, some parks are just terrible, some parks are hit and miss. Every park is totally different. I will say that we have gone to Disney several times, especially the marching band, and they do an excellent job of allergies. Now it's going to take a little bit longer because you're going to be going through um the food line and it's going to take them a little longer to make your food. So you will be losing out on some ride time whenever you eat out at Disney, but they can definitely feed you safely. We have had much success at Disney eating gluten-free. Now, Universal Studios of Florida can have some gluten-free options, especially in the vendors that are outside technically the parks, kind of in their city walk area. We've eaten gluten-free in there before, no problem. However, we do take our lunches to Universal because I feel like the general vendors are a little bit um less safe. Um, although we haven't been to Universal in about five years or actually six years now. So this could be updated. They may be more like Disney now. Um, but it's just something to know that you can get food in the City Walk area that is that gluten-free and safe. Um, but it's a little bit more unknown when you're back into the parks. Now, if you're going to a roller coaster park type of style or a water park, you're probably not going to find very many options, at least we haven't yet. So just do some research ahead of time to know what options are in-house that you can eat safely at or not.

Dinner Strategy With Find Me Gluten Free

Carrie Saunders 8:34

And then our dinner strategy. What we do is we like to use the Find Me Gluten Free app. Um, if you want a discount code on that, just go to the glutenfreeengineer.com forward slash find me gluten free. Um, we use the Find Me Gluten Free app to find a safe gluten-free items for dinner. Um, this is where we will splurge a little bit. We'll spend a little bit more money because we saved our money on breakfast and lunch. We also have saved our guts on breakfast and lunch because it's our own known food. And so we will go out to a restaurant typically, whether it's like within the park or just outside the park, we'll generally go to a restaurant and have a nice gluten-free meal there. It's a good you know way to like wind down and just kind of sit and relax. Um, that's one of the reasons we have those snacks to kind of push that time frame out a little bit more, especially as your kids get older. You can do that with snacks for sure. And and you know, have the dinner a little later so you can enjoy as much time as you want to at the park.

Spend Less Time Eating More Playing

Carrie Saunders 9:33

So if hopefully you've gotten the gist here that we're trying not to make food the stressful here. We're trying not to make it um a big deal. You know, we as a recap, we eat, you know, a large breakfast before we go. We bring plenty of food for lunch as well as plenty of food for snacks, and we use that as an opportunity to spend less time eating and just, you know, you know, eating our packed food so we can get back to our rides or whatever fun things we want to do. And then we have that big reward at the end where we go out somewhere to eat that's safe, that's gluten-free. So we try to focus the park on, oh, we're optimizing it so that we can spend more time on it, especially when the kids were little, and so they didn't feel deprived that we were going to the locker and pulling out a lunch and not sitting down at these restaurants and eating lunches. They actually appreciated that we'd spent less time eating and more time playing at the park. So you're gonna have an advantage there too, especially if you frame your mindset in that way that you know, we're spending less time, we're spending less money, we can do other fun things because we have to bring this food because of our dietary restrictions. You know, it we just want to have our frame of mind and the more positive to make us all feel good about it because it does have some positives to it. There's nothing wrong with having a food allergy or being gluten-free or celiac, it's just who we are, and the more we accept and the more we embrace that, the more we can take, you know, the good parts of that and focus on those, and we're just gonna be a lot happier people because at the end of the day, gluten-free amusement parts are absolutely doable. We can do pretty much everything that we want to, even with our dietary restrictions. You do not have to choose between being safe and having fun. Just a little bit of planning goes a really long way and will help you have a ton of fun and you will so enjoy the park. It really makes a day way more enjoyable for everybody when you do this. And as always, fun always goes better when hunger isn't making your decisions. And I find this phrase a little bit funny because even before I realized I was celiac, before we found that out, um, I would get so hangry and I would be so like not nice if I got too hungry. So this is not only doing a few things, you know, this is making sure we're safe being gluten-free, and it's also giving us, you know, ways so that we're not hangry. We aren't cranky adults, we aren't cranky kids, we have those snacks that we want. We're not postponing buying something at a park because it's so expensive and it might not be safe. We are providing food for our family when they need it and in a very safe

Closing Tips And Share Reminder

Carrie Saunders 12:21

manner. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gluten Free Engineer. If you found value in this story, please share it with someone who might need encouragement on their own gluten-free journey. For more tips, recipes, resources, and even links to my YouTube channel, head on over to theglutenfreengineer.com. It's your one-stop hub to make gluten-free living simple, fun, and full of flavor. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss out on an episode. And we will see you next week. The Gluten Free Engineer Podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I share my personal experiences and stories about living with celiac disease and navigating a gluten free lifestyle. This podcast does not provide a medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical questions, concerns, or advice specific to your health.