Can you take your own food & drink into the parks?

[Jill]

I'm sorry to go off-topic, but Val's reference to that McDonalds has made me smile - every time we pass it I remember the looks of total confusion when we went in there 12 or 13 years ago and asked them if they had ANYTHING that didn't have meat in for my vege 7 year old. They could not grasp the concept of McDonalds food without meat. In the end they made her a cheeseburger without the meat - I explained to them that was called a Cheese Sandwich, but they insisted it was a cheeseburger with no meat!

Going off topic again TGI Friday's are not much better my son and his girlfriend went into one in Washington during the ash cloud problems and asked what they had for vegetarians and were told "I think we could take the meat of the plate so it was just the fries" - she thought she could not cope with such an imaginative menu and left

[lissybubs]

Hi all, I cant remember if you can you take your own food & drink into the parks? I say no hubby says yes

Hi, we have been in many various parks for years now and always taken a packed lunch and snacks for our girls - never a problem. Until this year at Busch Gardens...our bag was searched and the food bag was removed and inspected and we were told that we could not take food in. When we asked why, there was no good reason and when we said we come every year (true) and never had a problem we were directed to Customer Services who told us we had to keep the food in a locker and come back for it when we wanted to eat it. Nonsense! I think it all depends on how checks your bag and how thorough they are in the day.

[Professor5]

We are planning our first family holiday to Florida next summer, this has caused some concern as myself and my three children have a rare disorder and have specific dietary requirements so we would definitely need to take picnics with us and probably would not eat out at all!! I think I will have to do some further investigating and would appreciate it if anyone could find some definite answers! Thanks in advance!

[bargainqueen]

We are planning our first family holiday to Florida next summer, this has caused some concern as myself and my three children have a rare disorder and have specific dietary requirements so we would definitely need to take picnics with us and probably would not eat out at all!! I think I will have to do some further investigating and would appreciate it if anyone could find some definite answers! Thanks in advance!

Have you tried looking at the parks websites to see if they have the ability to ask questions? You could then print off the reply to show the Bag Searcher. Your request is medical and I'm sure most of the parks will allow you to do this. The animal parks will not allow straws but you can buy containers with pull up straws in lid from supermarkets.

It's been a while but I've seen families go in with small cool boxes in push chairs. We used to take in a banana and water.

Perhaps you could take in snacks and leave the rest of the food in car. Come out have a picnic and return later for fireworks.

Last trip we did a lot of cooking in our hired villa, spent a lot of time finding the items as the supermarkets are so huge. You may find it easier to take items with you as long as they are not in the list of restricted foods for importing.

[Susan J]

No you are not allowed to take meals to any of the parks- thats one of the main reasons for bag check. you can take snacks for diabetics etc. I was told this on a recent tour [keys of the kingdom]

[sammibabe]

At Aquatica we were told bottled drinks, not alcohol and snacks were ok. SW same. Busch gardens always been difficult and when we took food for my daughter when she was younger as she is gluten free even insisted on seeing her doctors letter. And agree that they could not really say why we couldn't take it in. Most reasonable always been Disney.

[cook22uk]

My advice would be to take a letter from your dr or hospital for specific conditions plus call ahead and speak to guest services, take the name of the person you speak to and also your letter.

[ali-uk]

Just to say we have taken food into busch, universal, ioa, Disney & sea world with no problems, although we still bought food while there couldn't resist the icecream.

[Majik]

As a follow on to Dave. We have just come back via JFK New York. A guy in front of us in the queue at McDonalds with limited English asked for a 'no meat' burger and was given just the bread and cheese. He then went back and tried to explain that he actually wanted a veggie burger! They were able to supply one for him.
There were signs at Sea World telling you what size cooler they would allow in - it was quite small.

[Albert the Frog]

Got back last week-took food and drinks into every park-only challenged in Seaworld because of the straws on the drinks-we took the straws off and they let us in. I got the impression that if you took in a cooler with a full chicken, 3 hundredweight of salad and a loaf they might refuse you-we took some lunchables snacks, capri sun drinks, go-gurts (frozen yogurts) , crisps and ritz biscuits