Coeliac Disneyland Paris

We have spent the last 5 days at the My Explorers Hotel. This is a child orientated hotel run by Thomas Cook. It is not the sort of place adult only parties would want to stop but is very good for kids - a swimming pool with flumes, ball park, indoor play area etc.

The hotel provides a continental breakfast. They offer a gluten free option with some breakfast gluten free cake/bread. We took Rice Krispies with us. The hotel also offered a buffet option which provided enough gluten free scope. The food was ok but not particularly inspiring. The staff were all very helpful and I’d recommend the hotel for this sort of trip with kids.

We also tried the buffet option at the Dreamcastle hotel (which was next door) and had a much better choice. They also offered to get the chef to come out if we wanted to check any ingredients. (Also recommend the Sancerre on the wine list.)

In the Theme Parks themselves we only tried the Cowboy Cookout in Frontier land. It offered ribs and fries. This was the worst service, value for money meal I have had in my life. My advice to anyone would be to leave the park for lunch and go to Downtown Disney!!!!! It would also probably be quicker as the queue for the food outlets in the park was worse than all the rides.

In Downtown Disney we booked and ate at Mickey's Diner. They offer a gluten free kids meal option - plain cod and fries. The meal with the Disney Characters there was a real success and even I thought it was good.

We also ate at the Rainforest Café – again with a very good experience. The kids enjoyed it. Niall had omelette and chips, which he enjoyed a lot. It was lunch time and not busy so the kids could look at the fish in tanks and enjoy the jungle scenes etc. It was a real contrast compared with eating in the Park.

Although we didn’t try it, there is a McDonalds in Downtown and the burgers (not buns) are gluten free at present.

Next to the Santa Fe hotel, there is an Esso petrol station that sells ham, cheese and salads (with croutons but packed in separate sachets). It also worth remembering that the steak hache (beef burgers) tend not to have cereal in them so they have always been our fall back in France.

Larger French supermarkets are also now offering gluten free products too. (Auchan and Carrefour in particular.)

All in all we had a good trip. The Coeliac issue was not too much of a problem. Next time we go to a theme park we must try and pick a quieter time!!!