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Vacationing with Food Allergies - Plan Ahead!
Vacations with food allergies can be a difficult experience. We pretty much gave up on vacations when my son was first diagnosed with food allergies. We have gone to Disney with our food allergic son five years ago but had the luxury of staying in a townhouse on the property which made it very easy for us to make our own meals and travel back and forth to the parks. Now I know that Disney is known to be very accomodating to food allergic children and am looking forward to a future vacation there.
But with a tight budget and a strong need to get away we decided it was about time to get our family out for some fun. We ended up deciding on trying a long weekend trip to Minneapolis to check out the Mall of America and Nickelodeon Universe, and did we have a blast!  The key to making this trip enjoyable and safe for my son was lots of planning ahead. We stayed at the Homewood Suites which had a full kitchen in the room and was conveniently located right across the street from the Mall of America. Next I made a list of the different food establishments that we have eaten at safely that were located in or around the Mall of America. The list included; McDonald's, Burger King, Chipotle, Auntie Anne's, Starbuck's, and Red Robin. In addition I heard from others that The Rainforest Cafe is able to accomodate food allergic customers so we made a reservation to eat there for dinner one night. I also packed some milk and egg free snacks for our car trip as well as a few microwavable meals that would be my son's back up plan for dinner in case we couldn't get to a restaurant that could accomodate food allergies. We ended up eating breakfast in our room everyday. The hotel included a complimentary breakfast even though my son couldn't eat most of the food we did grab some bananas, apples and juice for him to eat with his back up food.  We spent a fun day at Nick Universe in the mall. It didn't feel like we were indoors at all and was extremely clean and age appropriate for my 2 and 6 year olds as well as having rides for the big kids (aka mom and dad). Our experience at Rainforest Cafe was wonderful a kitchen manager was sent out to find out what his allergies were and what food were safe. My son decided on his favorite, a hamburger and fries. For him to be able to eat french fries from a restaurant was a treat! Normally restaurants cook other foods such as cheese sticks in the same oil which causes then cross contamination and when I asked about this I could tell the manager had been well trained on food allergies because I did not get the usual blank stare I have grown accustomed to.  On our last day there we checked out the Underwater Adventure Aquarium and did some last minute shopping, then hopped in the car to head home. During our road trip home we finished off our snacks and made a stop at a McDonald's, the usual is a hamburger happy meal, apples (no caramel dip) and a juice box. So for a food allergic family it was a safe, easy and fun trip for all of us, with very little stress all due to planning ahead. I'm looking for another new vacation place. Where are some places you've taken your food allergic kids to successfully? 
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