This past week, I tagged along on a trip to Disney World with my Mom. For those of you who know me, you know that I have a mild obsession with theme parks, and rollercoasters. I had heard that Disney was fairly vegan friendly, and I was curious to find out for myself.

Meal #1: Earl of Sandwich, Downtown Disney:
Just a veggie sandwich, but decently priced (compared to the parks), and the bread was really good. I talked to someone on the phone who was able to confirm ingredients, as well. Our meal was followed by a performance by Cirque du Soleil. We saw La Nouba, and it was by far one of my favorite things of the trip. Totally worth it.

Meal #2: Tusker House, Animal Kingdom.
The second day was spent in Animal Kingdom. The last time we visited Disney (about 9 years prior), this park did not exist yet. It was worth seeing, but the park is set up like a zoo in some ways, and that makes me fairly uncomfortable for obvious reasons. We ate at Tusker House, which is one of the only actual restaurant that we ate at in Disney. At Disney World, “Restaurants” are marked on the map, and generally require a reservation, and employ actual chefs, instead of just a fast food type stand. In my experience, I’d highly recommend making reservations ahead of time at restaurants instead of trying to find vegan food elsewhere. It’s much easier when a Chef will come to your table and make something specially for you that is vegan, than having to hound someone about ingredients. Another things to note, is that most non-restaurants will have an ingredient binder somewhere (generally at the cashier station), if you ask. Tusker House was buffet style, and had tons of options for vegans. The chef walked around with me and pointed out what I could eat and what contained animal products, and even told me that he would make me special versions of things that didnt contain butter (Etc) if I wanted. I ended up with a plate full of samosas, hummus, rice, grilled veggies, breads, chutney, and many other things. For desert, tofutti ice cream and divvies cookies. Not the best desert, but really cool that they even had those options.

Meal #3: The Liberty Tree Tavern, Magic Kingdom
Another actual Restaurant that we ate at, and I was kind of skeptical of this place because all that I could have was a Vegetable Pot Pie. Low and Behold, the pot pie was actually pretty dang good. There was a HUGE rosemary buscuit in the middle that acted like the “crust”, and it was doused in veggie stew. Don’t let that picture fool you, the majority of the ‘colossal biscuit  of doom’ is hiding under the stew, and it is SUPER filling.

Meal #4: Sunshine Seasons, Epcot (The Land): Let me start by saying that Epcot has been, and is still my favorite park at Disney World. Probably because I’m slightly nerdy and like to learn things about different cultures and sciency things. The “Land” section of Epcot was really neat. It kind of has an environmentally friendly theme of sorts, with a boat ride that takes you on a tour of their huge garden that provides vegetables for the Restaurant inside the building. You can even take a special “Behind the Seeds” tour of the garden, where they show you tons of veggies growing in a lot of neat ways. Some are grown hydroponically, and some had exposed roots (how rude!) and were flying through the air while being sprayed by water (AKA: Aeroponics)! Nuts, I tell you. The tour costs extra, but was up there in my favorite things that we did at Disney. We ate at Sunshine Seasons, which isn’t a restaurant, but all I had to do was inquire about ingredients on a few things as I was good to go. I ended up eating a noodle bowl with tofu, and a vegetable flatbread sandwich. If you get the flatbread, make sure you ask for some Olive tapanade to put on it. If I were to eat here again, I’d probably just get the noodle bowl, though.

meal #5: The Lotus Blossom Cafe, Epcot (World Showcase)
This was a fast food type joint in Epcot, located in the China section (go figure) of the world showcase. The only option here is a vegetable stirfry with white rice and “wheat puffs”. The puffs were made of gluten, I’m pretty sure. For being such a basic dish, in my opinion, this was actually pretty good.

meal #6: Backlot cafe, Hollywood studios:
By the time we hit Hollywood studios, it was the weekend (meaning even MORE people were there), and we couldn’t manage to squeeze into any more restaurants without an actual reservation. I had a hell of a time finding something to eat here. I’ve heard that the Hollywood Studios restaurants have some great options for vegans, but without that option on my side, I was left frustrated and trying to find something to cure my hangries. I ended up finally finding a veggie sandwich on olive ciabatta bread at the backlot cafe. Nothing special, just a boring sandwich with overly greasy veggies… but an option, atleast. Served with a “bean salad” that was pretty much pico de gallo.

Snacks: There are a few options for small snacks to eat in each of the parks. In the Magic Kingdom, the main street bakery has a special “dietary restrictions” cart with vegan caramel corn, cookies, etc (all Divvies brand). The plaza ice cream parlor has rice dream and tofutti (vanilla and chocolate). In Epcot, each of the countries in the world showcase have shops that generally have something small. China and Japan have candies and cookies that come from over seas, Italy has some chocolate candies in bins with the ingredients listed. Kusafiri Coffee Shop in the Animal kingdom was able to scrounge up some soymilk on request.

Meal #7: Mythos Restaurant, Universal Studios Islands of Adventure:
By the last day, I was completely disney’d out, and Besides, we’d pretty much done everything anyways. Mom headed back out to the Animal kingdom, and since I was not wanting to be there anymore, I decided to head out to Universal Studios Orlando. More rollercoasters, you say? Yes, please. I ended up finding a restaurant in the park called Mythos, which was greek-ish inspired. The chef was really accommodating, and explained what I could eat. The only real option was the Pad Thai, but the sauce was made with butter and beef stock… so he offered to make me a special vegan sauce from scratch. I was really happy with the service at this place, but sadly, as beautiful as the presentation was, I wasn’t really impressed with the dish itself. It was spicier than I expected, and a bit too tangy. I am thankful for the effort, though. The bread that is brought to the table is a herbed bread, and is vegan, too (My server was kind enough to bring out the ingredients from the bread box).

We saw tons of Christmas decorations, which is one of the reasons we chose to go at this time of year. That, and it was 80 degrees there in December. A few highlights were the giant Gingerbread House inside of the Grand Floridian Hotel, and the Osborn family spectacle of dancing lights.

I have many qualms with Disney: overcrowded, not environmentally friendly at all (hundreds of buses used to transport people back and forth), using animals for entertainment, mediocre vegan options at a high cost, having vegan burger patties at places like Pecos Bills but all of the buns containing whey (how does this make sense? Frustrating.), crying children EVERYWHERE (hey, what do you expect?)… but overall, I had fun spending time with family and riding rollercoasters! Not an ideal destination for a vegan, but you won’t starve by any means. You just might have to eat more veggie sandwiches than you’d like. :P