Tag Archives: travelling USA

Dolphins, Killer Whales and all things underwater

When originally planning our 2 weeks “doing” Orlando, Mike and I made the conscious decision not to visit any of the multitude of water-parks you can find there. As much as both children enjoy swimming, M’s recent struggles with his bowels meant that we were uncertain of how well he would cope with a day in, out and around the swimming pool, so instead, we opted for 2 other water-themed parks: Discovery Cove and Seaworld.

Discovery Cove

One of the things I was keen for the children to experience (and to be perfectly honest me too) was swimming with dolphins and where better to give this a go than at Discovery Cove. This idyllic haven is hidden away in central Orlando and it transports you away from the hustle and bustle of the theme parks almost as soon as you step through the doors. We arrived early, booked in for our dolphin adventure and then headed off to the beautiful beaches and pools to find a place to camp out for the day. The park only allows a maximum of 1,300 people entry on any given day, which ensures that there is room enough for everyone to enjoy what’s on offer. We settled next to a pool where you could swim with stingrays and other tropical fish and then headed off to the main restaurant to talk to the chef about breakfast and lunch.

Discovery Cove is a very different experience to the others in Orlando as your ticket price covers all your food and drink for the day including breakfast, lunch and snacks and they request that you don’t take any of your own into the park with you. My initial email to their special assistance team had resulted with their Head chef calling us at home to discuss the day of our visit and M’s food requirements. They were able to offer M and G a good choice of foods for both meals and, even better, had 3 allergy-friendly snack boxes that were readily available at all of the food concession locations and included M-friendly treats such as fruit snacks, Orgran Outback animal biscuits, pretzels and portions of houmous. Food sorted for the day – and maybe a few extra snacks too – we spent the day lazing in the sun and learning how to snorkel amongst the fish.

M and Clipper

The highlight of the day was, quite obviously, our swim with the dolphins. M had been nervous as he’s not the strongest or most confident of swimmers, but there was no need. The trainer encouraged both M and G to feed, pet and even kiss our dolphin, Clipper, before their individual swims and they loved every moment of it, despite the cold temperature of the water! M was able to do the “shallow” swim, which allowed his feet to comfortably reach the bottom at all times whilst still being pulled along by the dolphin. G, Mike and I took part in the “deep” swim and the thrill was exhilarating. All in all, we had an amazing day, M and G were desperate to do it all again and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this to anyone.

Marks out of 10: 10 – a real once in a lifetime experience for all the family and the food offerings were impressive too

Seaworld

Having had such an amazing experience at Discovery Cove, we were keen to see how their neighbour, Seaworld would compare. The day started well, with efficient service at guest relations to issue our disability access pass and a park map that indicated where allergy-friendly foods could be found. We set off on our way around the park and G and M were delighted by the various displays and shows we could see. First, we oohed and aahed at the amazing dolphins and beautiful birds of the “Blue Horizons” show, which instantly drew a response from G that she’s planning to work at Seaworld training dolphins when she’s older; and later laughed and disappointingly didn’t get splashed by the mighty killer whales in “One Ocean“, despite M’s best efforts of sitting us in the splash zone!

Due to the wealth of food available to us at Disney – an opportunity that we’d certainly taken full advantage of – we didn’t feel hungry enough to need to investigate our food options until we got to lunchtime. The children were excited to see an allergy-friendly pizza restaurant on the map and we headed there with our fingers crossed that we might be able to enjoy pizza for a change. Disappointingly, we once again hit a problem. The gluten-free pizza base came ready topped with tomato sauce and cheese, instantly rendering it unsuitable for both G and M. I was surprised to find this was the case, but quickly ushered the children away from there and headed off to the next location.

Penguin photo by M

Two locations later, I finally stumbled into the Spice Mill restaurant and met their allergy server and chef, who discussed our needs and what options were available to us. Both children settled on burgers, served in allergy-friendly rolls with a side of fries for G and a hefty portion of water-melon for M. We were able to jump the queue and, as we paid, the server prepared our food and brought it to us as quickly as possible.

Lunch finally sorted, we spent the afternoon in Antarctica with the penguins and getting extremely wet on the impressive “Journey to Atlantis” log flume ride, before Mike and I took G and M out on the lake in pink flamingo pedalos. It was another good day and despite the uncertain start, lunch turned into a great success.

Marks out of 10: 8 – the children loved seeing the shows and the animals, but we were let down by the assumption that gluten-free pizza with cheese could be considered fully allergy-friendly.

Legoland Florida

Not a Universal success

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I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that we did nothing but Disney whilst on our hols, however we did venture to some of the other theme parks and attractions during our 2 week sojurn in Orlando. G and M were particularly excited about the prospect of visiting Universal Studios, or more accurately, the “Wizarding World of Harry Potter“. My enthusiasm was not so great, particularly given my poor experiences to date in trying to get hold of some, or indeed any, information about visiting the parks with my food-allergy duo. I found the website difficult to navigate and the information available on it less than informative. My first e-mail to them went unanswered and if it hadn’t been that both M and G were desperate to visit, I honestly think I might well have given up at that point. However, I eventually tracked down a helpful customer services rep, who phoned me in the UK and discussed our needs at length. She reassured me that they catered for food allergies and that we should encounter no problems when eating in the parks. I was interested in booking the Character breakfast at La Bamba cafe so that the children could meet a Minion and once again I was assured that we could mix and match the breakfast options to get a meal that was safe for both G and M. Taking it on trust, I booked the breakfast and pencilled in 2 days at Universal on our somewhat hectic schedule.

Mike imitating both Dave Minion and Gru at the character breakfast!

Our first day started well as we arrived in glorious sunshine and headed directly to Diagon Alley carrying a rucksack prudently packed to the gills with M-friendly snacks. Our first view of Diagon Alley was impressive with a multitude of shops selling everything a young wizard could want as well as the fire-breathing dragon atop Gringotts Bank. We headed into a nearby wand shop for both children to chose a wand to buy and then ventured off on a magical tour, following the map to find the location of spells for M to cast using his interactive Dumbledore wand. I even dared to sample a pint of Butterbeer as requested by my dear friend, F, but have to confess it’ll be the first and last time I do that as the drink was just too sweet for any of the family to enjoy. Disappointingly, as jaw-dropping as the “set” was, there really wasn’t enough to appeal to the younger age groups which we all found surprising. Nearly all the rides, apart from the utterly amazing Hogwarts Express that carried us between the 2 halves of the Harry Potter experience, were roller-coasters or simulators that were just too big and scary for my nervous pair.

I was also disappointed by just how commercial it all felt, especially the “unique interactive experience” at Ollivanders shop in Hogsmeade, which promised far more than it delivered. Just 2 children were selected from the crowd in the shop to participate in the amazing experience of finding out which wand was to be theirs; after all, as we all know “..the wand chooses the wizard…” (JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone). Not only was every other child in the audience disappointed not to be part of the action, but – call me a cynic – I don’t imagine many parents found it easy to then say no when their little darlings wanted to buy the wand that had chosen them in such dramatic fashion.

By lunchtime we had seen and experienced all that the Wizarding World had to offer and headed off in search of some food for our group. We left Hogsmeade, where the food queues were out of the door, bypassed yet another hard-sell when the magic show we had been ushered into turned out to be little more than an opportunity to buy 4 tricks for the price of 2 and ended up at the street markets of the Lost Continent. We stopped at what seemed a likely place as it sold hot dogs, something we had found was inevitably safe at all of the Disney parks and I queued to speak to what was possibly the most unhelpful server I have ever met and someone definitely not suited to a customer service role. She gazed blankly at me when I asked for allergy information about their food options and struggled to understand even the simplest of requests:

“Could I please have 2 hot dogs without the bread-rolls as I have 2 children with multiple food allergies?”

“What?”

“Could I have 2 hot dogs without the buns?”

“You mean you don’t want the buns?”

“No, just the sausages…the meat”

“You don’t want the buns?”

“No”

“Just the dog?”

“Yes”

“But no bun?”

“No. Just. The. Dog.”

“So, you don’t want the bun, just the dog?”

“Yes”

“Oh. I’ll have to check with my manager if we can do that.”

Our exchange on whether I could get fruit or vegetables as an alternative side to the bun and the fries went in a similar vein. I gave up any hope of intelligent discussion at that point and G and M ended up with a hot dog each – “just” the dog: no bun, no fries, no fruit and no veg, all for the princely sum of $15 plus taxes. Yes, that’s right, £10 for 2 sausages that barely touched the sides going down. Mike and my Mum picked out some safe looking bits of salad from their lunches, we bought a packet of crisps for G (another £2.50 there) and fed M from our own plentiful supplies, much of which had been got from Disney.

I’d love to say our experience got better, but it really didn’t. In “The Cat in the Hat” area, a place filled with lovely rides inspired by Dr Seuss books and enjoyed by us all, we came across a bakery selling the most amazing-looking cakes, biscuits and sweets guaranteed to tantalise the tastebuds. Some of them were gluten-free, but none of the them catered for those with more complex allergies like G and M and we left empty-handed. I had toyed with the idea of eating dinner in one of the restaurants at Citywalk, but again, of the 4 I had contacted ahead of our visit, only 1 came back to confirm they could probably cater for M’s food needs. Maybe we’d been spoilt by our experiences in Disney, but Universal was a real disappointment and if it hadn’t been for our prepaid and booked Character breakfast for our second day there, I doubt we’d have bothered going back.

Raglan Road Irish Pub

Virgin Fantastic!

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The time had finally come and the night before we flew, I sent tweets to both Virgin Holidays and Virgin Atlantic to issue my challenge to meet my holiday expectations and both accepted it immediately.

https://twitter.com/VirginHolidays/status/494057894611267585

First up was Virgin Holidays and their Gatwick V-room. As I wrote back at the end of July, I had been promised a supply of rice milk for M as well as some suitable options for his breakfast and I was keen to see just what would be waiting when we got there. Upon arrival, we met the fantastic Dominic, who knew all about M and our request for rice milk. As soon as we found a table for breakfast, he brought the milk over and then spent some time discussing all of M’s allergies and what food they had on offer that might suit him. I was impressed to learn that they stock B-free bread and although it contains egg and therefore isn’t suitable for M, G snapped up the opportunity to have 2 slices of toast as part of her breakfast. Both children also had some cereal with the rice milk and there was fresh fruit and smoothies available for them too. I was hugely impressed with Dominic’s attitude throughout our time there and at no point felt that we were an inconvenience to any of the V-room staff. Even better, we were able to take the remainder of the carton onto our flight with us, which meant we could go on our holiday knowing M had a limited supply of safe milk to hand.

@7yrstodiagnosis Let us know how it goes 🙂 ^H

— virginatlantic (@VirginAtlantic) July 29, 2014

It was then on to our plane and it all started well. The check-in staff had confirmed that the special request meal had been noted on our booking and the cabin crew provided us with a ready supply of ice to keep the cool-bag of medicines cold for the 9+hours we’d be in the air. I was equally impressed that they offered to place our ice packs in their on-board freezer to ensure that we could keep everything cool until we reached our final destination in Orlando. Eventually it was time for the meal and here we hit our first rocky point. I had requested a gluten-free meal for G which quickly turned up, but there was no sign of the requested meal for M. The cabin crew searched high and low for it, but couldn’t find it and we were left with the option of whatever fruit they could get their hands on plus the snacks I had packed to keep M’s appetite filled. Just as I was mentally drafting a letter of complaint to Virgin Atlantic expressing my disappointment at being let down in such dramatic fashion, our air stewardess hurried up with a tray of food and an apology on her lips. The confusion had arisen for 2 reasons: 1) the meal had been prepared with G’s name on it rather than M’s and 2) it had been assigned to the seat number of another passenger who had also requested a special meal and the names had not been cross-checked to make sure everything was right.

Disaster was averted, but only just. The meal prepared was exactly what I had asked for – plain grilled chicken with rice and vegetables and a fantastic fresh fruit salad for dessert – and M tucked in with gusto. We were lucky that the other passenger had not started eating the meal before the mistake was identified and I’m glad to say that our return flight was not plagued with the same problem, although it still appeared that G had 2 meals (both the gluten-free and special request meals being assigned to her name), whilst M had none! I hadn’t considered that a smaller snack would also be provided on the flight and was delighted Virgin Atlantic had thought further ahead than I had and provided another delicous fresh fruit platter for M to enjoy safely.

Gold stars all round!

I have been really impressed with how well both branches of the Virgin family accommodated our needs and requests on the flights and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to anyone going on holiday with special medical needs. We didn’t run into any unexpected problems with our travel arrangements and I will definitely consider travelling with them again.

7 years to diagnosis

Searching for an answer