Walt Disney World changed how its allergy-friendly menus handle tree nuts on October 6, 2026. Coconut and ten other ingredients no longer count as tree nuts at Disney-owned and Disney-operated restaurants, so a dish offered for a tree nut allergy can now contain them.
We cover Walt Disney World news every day, and this is the kind of fine-print change that is easy to miss. Disney added the notice to the Additional Information section of its Special Diets Requests page. It names eleven ingredients that are now treated differently. They are coconut, kola nut, beechnut, butternut, chestnut, chinquapin, ginkgo nut, hickory nut, palm nut, pili nut and shea nut.
Tree nuts are still one of the nine allergens Disney builds its allergy-friendly menus around. What got shorter is the list of what counts as a tree nut. Almonds, walnuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios, hazelnuts, macadamias, pine nuts and Brazil nuts all remain on the FDA list.
Here is what that means when you order. If you have a coconut allergy, a tree nut flag on the menu no longer covers you. Tell the Cast Member taking your order about coconut by name and ask to speak with a Special Diets-Trained Cast Member. The same goes for shea, chestnut and the rest of the list. Disney says its restaurants will do their best with requests outside the nine main allergens. Guests with four or more allergy requests should email Special.Diets@DisneyWorld.com no sooner than 14 days before arrival.
If your allergy is to one of the tree nuts still on the list, you may be offered more dishes than before, since coconut no longer rules one out. Whether coconut is safe for you is a question for your allergist, not a menu. Food Allergy Research & Education, a national advocacy group, points out that the FDA did not say coconut stopped being an allergen. It said the major allergen labeling rules no longer apply to it.
Disney ties the change to the FDA, and the record supports that. The FDA finalized the fifth edition of its food allergen labeling guidance on January 6, 2025. The guidance began as a draft in November 2022. After a public comment period, the final version kept twelve tree nuts and said those are the ones with strong scientific evidence behind them as major allergens. The other eleven did not meet that bar.
Our take is that this was a science call and not a political one. Allergists were saying it years before the FDA acted. The American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology has said for years that coconut is a fruit and not a botanical nut, and that most people with tree nut allergies can safely eat it. The change came as agency guidance after a draft and public comment, not through a new law, and we found no sign of a political motive in the record. The coconut industry did push for it starting in 2019, because the tree nut label created problems for food makers. That does not make the science wrong. In this case doctors and food makers were asking for the same thing.
Disney has not said why its change took effect 21 months after the FDA guidance. Disneyland’s version of the page did not carry the notice when we checked on October 9. The Walt Disney World notice also covers only restaurants Disney owns and operates, so ask the same questions at locations run by outside operators, including many at Disney Springs.
We will update this story if Disney shares more. For more Walt Disney World coverage, visit fantasylandnews.com
