by Angie Carreiro
Instead of moving on to Day 3 of my Trip Report for my last trip, let’s stay on Day 2 and look at the snacks you can get at Big Top Souvenirs in the Storybook Circus section of the New Fantasyland Expansion in the Magic Kingdom theme park!
I’d like to focus on the snacks you can eat at Big Top Souvenirs if you are following a vegan diet. (Note: Some people that follow a vegan diet don’t consume refined sugar, because the process in which is made isn’t always vegan. In this blog post, and in my future blog posts, I will not rule out foods containing refined sugar, so if you are following a vegan diet and don’t eat refined sugars, then make sure you check the packaging yourself!)
Big Top Souvenirs:
Upon entering the main entrance of the massive circus tent gift shop, we had to make a decision of which way to circle around. To our left was edibles, and to our right, cute plushes (so cute, I always want them all), Mickey ears (many keeping with the circus theme), and clothing (a girl’s best friend). We chose to go to the right, so preceded through the tent in a counter-clockwise fashion. But, if you chose to turn left instead, you’d see a colorful wall of packaged candy and sweets. Let me walk you through it.
Cotton Candy
The cotton candy is right there begging for you to buy it. It is away from the wall, about half way between the wall and the counter that circles around the center of the room. You can’t miss it. There were two choices of cotton candy flavors here, pink (strawberry) or blue (raspberry)! I really wanted one while in the store, and most likely would have tried the strawberry, but they are about $4 or a snack point on the Dining Plan. I decided to save my money for popcorn on Main Street later on. The ingredients are Sugar, Artificial Flavors, and Artificial Color. (If you are more strict about your vegan diet, then in addition to refined sugar you may want to stay away from or at least research food dyes.)
Popcorn- Kettle Corn
Make your way further clockwise and eventually you come to a wall lined with popcorn! This was the option I was most excited for! There are a few flavor varieties of popcorn to choose from, but only the Kettle Corn variety is vegan, the others contain milk products. The Kettle Corn only includes: Popcorn, Sugar, Soy Oil, Salt. It comes in a 3oz bag for $4.95, and looked like it was about the size of the popcorn you’d buy on Main st.
Pucker Powder
I don’t much like candies like this, but, hey, it’s still okay to eat if I did! The display for these are set up away from the wall in a cylinder-of-sugar-sour-powder-dispensers. Just grab the tube size you want, they have 6”, 12”, 18”, and a WHOLE 30” (all to fill with sugar, essentially) and fill ’er up with your favorite flavors! You can start and stop the powder at any time, so that you can put as many flavors as you’d like in one tube! I’m assuming the 30” tube can probably hold all of the flavors if you only held the valve open for 1 second on each flavor and circled around it 30 times. I’m sure there’s a way to do the math on that, or maybe an experiment! The prices for the tubes range from $3.45-$6.45.
Lollypops
There is a lollypop “tree” or “tower,” if I may, on the floor towards the back of the store. All of the lollypops are fine. They are just sugar, corn syrup, citric/malic acid, natural/artificial flavoring, and different food dyes (depending on the flavor). The prices ranged from $2.45-$5.45.
The packaged candy and snack food choices at Big Top Souvenirs can be found at most gift shops around WDW that sell candy. If I didn’t mention a certain treat in Big Top Souvenirs as being vegan, it either isn’t, or the display wasn’t intriguing enough! Really, though, if it is one of those candy products that just seems to contain sugar, it is most likely just fine. Though, most of the cookies and baked goods contained milk and eggs, so they are okay for a vegetarian diet, but not a vegan diet.
Is there any packaged candy product around WDW that you’d like to try, but aren’t sure if it’s ok? Just read the ingredients and usually in bold at the bottom of the list it will say “Contains: MILK, EGGS” if it isn’t vegan!
Angie has been a WDW addict since her first visit at age 8, and since then her life has never been the same! She lives in upstate NY with her boyfriend, Kevin (fellow Disney lover), and their 3 dogs, Flip, Josie, and Hildy, where she works at Farm Sanctuary as an animal caregiver. Please join Angie every week in “Fish Are Friends, Not Food: Eating Vegan in WDW!” Angie believes that WDW is the most magical place for people with special diets, so, should you have any special diet questions (especially about vegan and gluten-free dining) she’d be happy to help!
