Staying in a Hotel with Food Allergies

Guys. We did it. We went stayed in a hotel with our toddler with allergies. We had been on vacation to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. We had been on vacation to the beach and stayed in a house with a kitchen. But, this was our first stay in a hotel. We stayed two nights at an indoor water park. There were a lot of restaurants in the facility and in the surrounding area, but we weren’t sure what to do for food over the three days.

My kid is allergic to peanuts, eggs, milk, and garlic. Peanuts, a fair number of people are allergic to so there’s good information online what restaurants have peanuts in them and which ones to avoid. Eggs and milk, while in the Top 9 allergens, are definitely harder to deal with, but presumably we could take her to a vegan restaurant and be totally safe from them. Garlic is really the wild card. Not only is garlic in almost every cuisine I can think of, garlic powder is even added to a lot of “plain” things. It’s in most chicken nugget breading. It’s in a lot of meat substitutes. It’s even on “salt and black pepper” flavored chips. I just can’t imagine a safe place for my kid to eat while she is allergic to all of these things. The only things that reliably don’t have garlic are sweet things and bakeries are a contamination festival for milk, eggs, peanuts, and tree nuts.

The website promised that they had lots of experience with food allergies and if we contacted them beforehand, they would make accommodations. Well, we were unable to email them. They didn’t answer the phone when we called. When we got there it was packed full of spring breakers so we decided this was not the time to venture into the world of food prepared by strangers.

This photo brought to you by our crying four year old demanding we take pictures of everything before we say good bye. But! Look at the minifridge! Microwave! Ample food prep counter! He was right! We did need a photo!

In our room, there was a minifridge, a microwave, and a small table. We ended up eating all of our meals in our room (partly because of food allergies, partly because of COVID). We brought easy things for breakfast- cereal, poptarts, and fruit. (No free continental breakfast? Ridiculous. Those are my least favorite kinds of hotels.) We brought all of our snacks- crackers, safe nut butters, safe snack bars. And, we brought all of the meals for our food allergy toddler- left over chicken and rice for the first night, tortilla wraps, and sandwiches. For lunch and dinner, we got take out for the rest of us.

And, you know what? We did it. We survived. Nobody went hungry. Everybody seemed content with the food selection. I packed enough food for the Armageddon and we just took the extra back home with us. Here are some tips if you are traveling and unable to find safe food at restaurants:

• Make sure the hotel room has at least a minifridge
• A freezer would be ideal (my kid did ask for dino chicken nuggets [the only safe frozen nugget in the land] for every meal), but at least with a minifridge we could bring one night of safe leftovers and keep jelly and vegan cream cheese cold.
  
• Bring paper plates and silverware
• Plates were so nice to have for breakfast, snacks, and our toddler's meals.
• Bring safe snacks and foods that are hard to find
• You never know what will be available at a different grocery store. We packed all the food because we were only staying a few nights and I didn’t want to go to the grocery store during the vacation.
• Don't forget your epinephrine!
• You didn't think I was going to forget that, did you?

A table, though not necessary, it pretty nice if you are going to eat every meal in the same small room.

Traveling with food allergies! Not easy! But, we did it!