Talking Allergies

Hi all,

I just wanted to post for those who haven't travelled with their children yet who have allergies that we did it and it all went really well!

We were nervous about it as our son is 2 and has very severe allergies to dairy, sesame seeds and fish and has to avoid peanuts/tree nuts and shellfish. We spend 10 days at the Floridays resort in Orlando and visited Disney almost everyday. The resort we stayed at had a full kitchen and was brand new so nice and clean (didn't have to worry about 20 years of cheesies smudged into the couch). It was also close to the grocery store so we were able to cook all of our safe foods and bring them to the park in a cooler. We actually saved a lot of money this way.

I was able to take some of our safe foods that I didn't know if we could get in Florida with us in our luggage as well. It all worked out excellent and we had a great time.

We went through lots of wipes though as our son has contact issues with dairy so after every ride we wiped his hands before he could touch his face. He only had a couple incidences of getting a few small hives nothing serious at all, didn't even need his benedryl.

We did eat out one lunch, and one dinner at the park, both with success as the disney staff as soon as you mention allergy they were on top of everything and so great! It does take a lot more time though to order and receive your food, but it was good and safe to eat!

Anyways, we are looking forward to doing more travelling now. I think the key for us with so many allergies is to stay at newer places (or renovated) with kitchens so we can prepare our own food it takes the stress out of trying to eat out safely.

Cheers,


Jodi

forgot to add that we flew with WestJet and they had leather seats that were easy to wipe down. They were very kind about us with our allergies, allowing for pre-boarding and had us flagged in their system noting all allergies.

We didn't have any problems having 3 epi-pens on us and 100ml of Benedryl sealed up in a ziplock bag. No dr. notes, didn't even ask but the prescriptions were on the epi's. I was so worried before we went, but everything with flying went well!

Hey ZM,

Glad to hear it went so well and that such a good time was had.

Disney has been great about allergies, and Westjet certainly seems to be getting better.

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Allergic to soy, peanut, shellfish, penicillin

Good to hear. We are heading to Florida for three weeks this winter and will be staying at a condo with full kitchen. We are still unsure as to if we should drive or fly. We are looking at Westjet but I am nervous about the flight. We have flown with DS to Florida twice before with JetBlue; once when he was only 4 months old so totally breastfed and sat in lap during flight, and once when he was 17 months old which was abit more difficult especially with a long delay in the airport. We only had snacks for DS and the rest of us did not want to go eat because he is so highly contact reactive that we did not want to eat unsafe food near him. Good thing I was just at the stage of starting to wean him so was able to BF. I will make sure to be better prepared for delays this year. I'm not looking forward to a flight with a 2 year old, but looking less forward 24 hours of driving (in 3 days) with him, so I imagine we will fly.

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DS Sept 2006 - peanuts, tree nuts, dairy, eggs, coconut; contact reactions. Asthma. Many animal and environmental allergies.
DS Oct 1990 - Environmental allergies

I'm glad to hear about the successful trip!

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Moderator
Daughter: asthma, allergies to egg, milk, peanuts, tree nuts, most legumes (not soy) & penicillin. Developing hayfever type allergies.
Husband: no allergies
Me: allergies to some tree that flowers in May
Cat: allergic to beef, pork and lamb

Zachary's mom,

I think it's great that you had a nice time and everything went well.

What hotel did you stay in?

boys' mom

Hi Boys Mom we stayed at Floridays. it's a great resort with awesome splash pad zero entry pool for the kiddies and right on international drive. It's rated 6 out of 320 hotels in orlando on tripadvisor. We didnt' think the pricing was that high for the value as it was a lot lot less than a disney villa option! The rooms were very clean and new with everything equipped including dishwasher (and soap!), laundry in our room, 2 bdrms, balcony, it was perfect! all the kitchen supplies you need, they even provided paper towel! It was the best, i would highly highly recommend it!

Hi Diana as for flying or driving, we flew and it was great, you just have to take a few preparations. You can't take on ice or ice packs but we took a cooler anyways as one of our carry on pieces with some really cold food including frozen food that was safe to bring over the boarder, so everything kept cold and was ready to eat when we needed it. We packed some frozen homemade muffins, pasta and tomatoe sauce, soy cheese and ritz crackers, soy chicken nuggets, jam sandwhiches, safe soy butter for plain bread and butter, cookies, chips, (which is all fine as you aren't allowed to bring meats, dairy, veggies or fruits across the boarder, so it was basically only wheat and soy products!). Anyways, not good to live off of but more than fine for the duration of our travel time.

We actually took a cooler in our luggage too with ice packs and packed our other safe foods as well that we weren't sure if we could get down there. We also called the local grocery store to our resort to confirm if they had some safe bread options etc.

With westjet, their seats are leather so it was very easy to wipe down our seats... including the walls, seatbelts, trays everything a toddler could touch we wiped! My son had his own seat on the plane and was very happy the whole time, he loved the airport and the airline was great with us, flagging his allergies everywhere, talking with us as soon as we boarded to make sure we were okay, giving us juice right away that was safe. they were top notch! We had a great flight and actually my son had a lot of fun. We almost drove because of the same concerns your saying, i was freaking out that he was going to have a severe reaction way up high in the sky and they would have to land the plane, but he was fine. Our allergist recommended giving him bendryl before the flight to help decrease any minor reactions he might get, we didn't end up doing this and he was fine! Just take your precautions and you'll have a great flight!

Cheers,

Jodi

Just got back from a Disney trip too (Disneyland for us, as well as other sightseeing in SoCal).

We also flew West Jet, and had a great experience with them. Preboarded to wipe down the leather seats and trays, our tickets flagged with our allergy info and given a berth around us of no other passengers when the room on a flight permitted (we didn't think to ask for this ourselves, the person checking us in for one of the flights suggested it). Everyone very courteous and accommodating, had a safe flight.

We also stayed in a vacation rental with a full kitchen for most of our vacation, brought some safe dry goods with us (we can't live without our Sunbutter!!!) and had a great experience when eating in Disney restaurants (just got finished posting about it in Hall of fame section). It's nice to know that there's so much we can do with our kids safely!

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1 son allergic to eggs, peanuts, green peas, chick peas, lentils and tomatoes
(avoiding tree nuts and most other legumes too)
1 son allergic to eggs, and has outgrown peanuts
Both with many environmental allergies, asthma and eczema