First time going to DLP - questions

anealanis

Earning My Ears
Joined
Nov 12, 2014
Hello, this is the first time we are going to DLP. We have been to DWD and DL many times before (usually once a year) and we love Disney. We just don't understand the website for DLP very well (and we do speak French!). My questions are:

1. We are going the second week of May for 4 full days at the park, plus arrival and departure dates, which gives us about 4 and half days at the parks. The Disney calendar indicates that week to be low season and we are in the parks during the week and leaving on the weekend. Do we need to purchase the fastpass? We are staying at the New Port Bay.

2. My daughter is celiac and we were checking the restaurants/quick service and most of them (quick service restaurants) have no options for a gluten free meal. Did anyone encounter a problem in finding quick service that suits to celiacs before? We are planning to only do one or two sit down meals What are your recommendations? Chez Remi?

3. I was reading the Disney website and it seems that the system for the meals will change as of April 2019. I read so many different ways of using the vouchers that made me very confused. We are planning to have breakfast at the hotel and head to the parks - can we use our vouchers at the hotel for breakfast and then use the remaining one for the day at the parks? It is my understanding that if a meal is more expensive than the vouchers, we only pay for the difference - am I right?

Thank you!
 
With 4 and a half days you should be fine. There are still free fastpasses available like at DL and the old WDW system. The paid for fastpasses are new and very expensive for only a few rides imo, so not many people have much experience. I had a VIP fastpass in the past which worked in a similar way and it was great, but we only used hem because it was NYE and obviously insanely busy.

Sorry I can’t help with coeliac food, except I know planet Hollywood does a good allergy menu. I don’t rate PH very highly but I don’t have dietary requirements. Not sure what kind of sit down meal you want - Inventions is the best character. Generally they aren’t the same quality as WDW/DL so we stick to the buffets. I’ve heard good things about chez remy.

If you have the half board meal plan you will get breakfast in your hotel from April. The free half board until April includes breakfast in the park, not at the hotel. You will also get another meal per night to be used for lunch or dinner at any point between check in and checkout days. So you could use 2 in one day and 0 the next. They are valid at select restaurants in the hotels, village and parks. There are 3 levels of meal plan - premium includes any restaurant, plus includes most restaurants and standard which includes 5/6 restaurants. If you were on standard and wanted to eat a plus or premium restaurant you would have to pay extra. Each restaurant will have a set menu (unless buffet) for your meal plan - if you want anything more than the set menu then you will have to pay extra. Planet Hollywood, rainforest cafe, king Ludwig’s, vapianos, five guys, McDonald’s, Starbucks, earl of sandwich all in the village are not included in the meal plan.

Also if you want to use a meal credit/voucher for counter service then you can buy a meal with your credit - not the total value of the voucher.

If you only plan on having a couple of sit down meals it probably isn’t worth buying the meal plan.
 
My experience with dietary requirements is not that good (although 3 years old, so I hope it improved, I did email with the experiences).
My first experience was with my lactose intolerant niece (7 years old) at Plaza Gardens (buffet). I asked which dishes contained milk, because she can have some, but not too much, so I wanted to know about hidden ingredients, so she could make a good decisions what she wanted to eat. The waiter looked a bit strange, tried to get a leaflet, but could find it, then walked with us to the buffet and after walked some back and forth said, there is milk in the cheese (on the pizza). We just went with it and luckily it went ok (it was 2 hours before our 6 hour drive home, so if she'd gotten sick, it would have been very luckily, timing wise).
Two weeks later I went with a friend who is celeriac and lactose intolerant. She did her homework and also came up with Planet Hollywood, but it's outside the parks and we were there for only one day, so we wanted to do quick serve. There are supposed to be allergy friendly dishes at all Quick serve restaurants. There are 4 or 5 options, but when we got there, there was only 1 left and they didn't have the deserts to go with the menu at all. She made due by asking for fruit from the children's menu and some other gluten free options from other menu's, but it wasn't the allergy friendly menu advertised, because it wasn't available (I think she ended up with more food, because they were ashamed they didn't have the options). When I emailed this experience I was informed we should've let them know a week in advanced at which quick serve we'd like to eat, so they would have made sure the food was available.

Just know the food available is the same for all quick serve restaurants. But my friend said that, for general allergy friendly food (not just gluten free), it was good
Thank you for the information.
 


With 4 and a half days you should be fine. There are still free fastpasses available like at DL and the old WDW system. The paid for fastpasses are new and very expensive for only a few rides imo, so not many people have much experience. I had a VIP fastpass in the past which worked in a similar way and it was great, but we only used hem because it was NYE and obviously insanely busy.

Sorry I can’t help with coeliac food, except I know planet Hollywood does a good allergy menu. I don’t rate PH very highly but I don’t have dietary requirements. Not sure what kind of sit down meal you want - Inventions is the best character. Generally they aren’t the same quality as WDW/DL so we stick to the buffets. I’ve heard good things about chez remy.

If you have the half board meal plan you will get breakfast in your hotel from April. The free half board until April includes breakfast in the park, not at the hotel. You will also get another meal per night to be used for lunch or dinner at any point between check in and checkout days. So you could use 2 in one day and 0 the next. They are valid at select restaurants in the hotels, village and parks. There are 3 levels of meal plan - premium includes any restaurant, plus includes most restaurants and standard which includes 5/6 restaurants. If you were on standard and wanted to eat a plus or premium restaurant you would have to pay extra. Each restaurant will have a set menu (unless buffet) for your meal plan - if you want anything more than the set menu then you will have to pay extra. Planet Hollywood, rainforest cafe, king Ludwig’s, vapianos, five guys, McDonald’s, Starbucks, earl of sandwich all in the village are not included in the meal plan.

Also if you want to use a meal credit/voucher for counter service then you can buy a meal with your credit - not the total value of the voucher.

If you only plan on having a couple of sit down meals it probably isn’t worth buying the meal plan.
Thank you for the information. The package we bought has the half board plus plan - therefore our meals should be covered to a certain extent!
 
food issues are a problem in general in france from what i've encountered...
europe is not as advanced as the US in this area (understatement of the century), and disney food outside of the US isn't at all what you're used to at WDW in terms of the user friendliness of their food operations.....

i recently watched a youtube video by a blogger who happens to be celiac or gluten sensitive..
it seemed quite difficult and he was staying concierge at the disneyland hotel....

i'll see if i can find it..

editing this to add the following:
i couldn't find the video i was referring to but here are a bunch of recent videos on eating gluten free at DLP...
i haven't watched any of them, so i don't know how helpful they are or aren't..







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