Dining Plan - Help

[jayjay]

We have the free dining plan, and I was going through the menus. I have a question about the children's menu at counter service only. Alot of the menus have pizza and chicken on the menu, but have pbj and mac & cheese for the kids. My son only eats chicken and pizza. Can I still get him pizza or chicken? Has anyone done this? I also have another question. If I buy a lunch at counter service for me and my husband, and then buy another adult meal 15 minutes later, will it work? Someone said that they thought that the card would not work within 1/2 of using it. Is this true?? I am specifically looking for people who have done either of these. Thank you.

 

[ypcat]

When we do counter service, one adult goes and orders the food, while the other and kids find a table. You can order your kid whatever meal they want since the CM won't know if you are ordering for a kid or adult. You cannot do this at table service though.

As for your other question, there is not time limit on when you spend your credits. You could eat all your meals one right after the other...if you had the stomach for it

 

[mouselvrmom]

Ok, this might be a dumb question, but you said that you could order whatever meal you wanted since the kids wouldn't be with you. But on the number of counter service credits that you have, does it specify if they are kid or adult credits? Like if you have 4 kids and two adults with 6 counter service credits, do two of those meals have to be from the regular menu and 4 from the kids menu. Or do they not specify at counter service between adult and children's? Does this question make any sense?!:lol:

 

[Monty]

Ok, this might be a dumb question, but you said that you could order whatever meal you wanted since the kids wouldn't be with you. But on the number of counter service credits that you have, does it specify if they are kid or adult credits? Like if you have 4 kids and two adults with 6 counter service credits, do two of those meals have to be from the regular menu and 4 from the kids menu. Or do they not specify at counter service between adult and children's? Does this question make any sense?!:lol:

Your total credits are "pooled" on your room keys. All it indicates is X TS, X CS and X snacks... no "Adult" or "Child" distinction.

 

[mouselvrmom]

Thanks! That's good news. But it doesn't quite make sense. Because you pay a lot less for the kids on the plan & it seems like then at all your counter service meals you could get the kids adult meals if they were waiting at the table. I know that sometimes the kids meals are not that appealing to them.

 

[mince]

You can do alot of sharing, or pay out-of-pocket for kids meals both at quick service and table service meals. If you are eating at any signature dining meals you will be charged double credits, so tell your server that you'll be paying cash for their meal. They have no problem with it.

My wife and 4yr old would share 2 adult lunches quite often and use extra qs credits for some breakfasts. If you like waffles, ask them for 4 child waffles instead of one adult waffle and several of you can share breakfast.

**If you have not made your reservations as of yet, drop what you are doing right now or you'll be SOL for most of your choices. Even now you'll get less desirable times.

 

[Lucky]

The dining plan is more flexible than many people realize. You can package multiple snack items - e.g. a bagel, bowl of fruit and orange juice at breakfast - and tell the cashier to charge it as a counter service meal. If you're there a week you may get sick of eating the breakfast entrees (pancakes etc.) every day and want something lighter. And we were barely able to use all of our counter service and snack credits, because the portions are so large we'd use 2 or at most 3 credits per meal for the 4 of us. If you can't share meals, or have an offensive lineman in the family, or drink alcohol, you'll have to pay out of pocket for one meal per day. We rarely paid out of pocket: once for alcohol, once so each kid could have his own ice cream sundae at Coral Reef, a few snacks at the water parks not covered by the dining plan, etc. Maybe $60 total. The dining plan, free for us, would have cost about $800, for 2 adults and 2 kids over an 8 night stay. The total menu prices of everything we charged to the dining plan was about $1050. It easily could have been hundreds more if the goal had been to extract full "value," e.g. by not charging kids' meals, using snack credits only for things priced at $3 or more, and intentionally ordering the most expensive meals (the St. Louis ribs at Flame Tree BBQ is the most expensive and best counter service meal I've seen at WDW).