Eating at Magic Kingdom: The Crystal Palace

I love to travel and I have a goal to be able to travel the world someday.  Being gluten free it can be intimidating to try to find places that I can eat at. I heard that Disney World was one of the best places to eat GF. I had been to Disney before but never did much research or tried different places to see if what I heard was correct. It wasn't until my sister turned 30 in December 2011 and wanted to do something special for her birthday that we actually looked into the options.  In February (2012) we went someplace she had never been before, Disney World! She did most of the research and found different places for us to try.

Since Disney is such a magical place and I had some amazing gluten free experiences, I decided that this next week I'm dedicating my blogs to my favorite restaurants and experiences in Disney World.

The first day we were in Orlando we went to Magic Kingdom and ate lunch at the Crystal Palace where it was a buffet style lunch and the Winnie the Pooh Characters came around and greeted you while you ate.
What could be more exciting!?! :) Based on my previous experiences with restaurants I wasn't really expecting anything special with the buffet. Maybe a few items here or there that I could eat but boy was I in for a surprise!



When you make reservations online there is a special place where you can indicate if there will be people with special dietary issues - gluten free being one of them. So when we arrived at the Crystal Palace, Disney had already indicated on our ticket with a stamp that said "ALLERGY" in bright red letters to let the waitress know that I was going to need assistance. Once seated the waitress told me that the chef, yes the CHEF, would be out to show me around the buffet to let me know what I could eat. Well, I thought this was the coolest thing ever!! I had never been anywhere where the head chef personally came out to show or tell you what was good for you to eat. I felt so special instead of feeling weird and like a nuisance.

As the chef took me around the buffet he kept pointing to more and more items that I could have! For once I  wasn't sitting at the table secretly coveting everyone else's food! :) I ended up having a plate FULL of delicious surprising foods that I could eat - Salmon, mashed potatoes, fruit salad and a delicious cornbread stuffing/casserole!

Then for dessert I had the option of choosing gluten free cookies (I did find that sometimes the cookies were brands I already knew and could buy myself but at least they had the option) and a brownie. Of course I chose the brownie since I could get the cookies at home. It was small but rich, gooey and overall pretty good! 

Having the Crystal Palace as my first gluten free experience at Disney World set the stage for the rest of the week. I was excited to see what other places / dining experiences had to offer me instead of feeling apprehensive about what I was going to be able to eat. Besides being able to hug Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore and Piglet made for a pretty awesome lunch atmosphere! (Can you tell I work with children?)