Dining Plan

[Darlzee]

Hi Everyone
Planning on going to Disney Jan 19 - 26 2008, taking our grandchildren and want to purchase the dining plan. However, we are very disappointed in the selections for children. Our grandchildren are 7 and 4 and they like to eat just about everything we eat. It seems the menus are stricly chicken fingers, mac & cheese, hot dogs & hamburgs. I was wondering if we could buy an extra adult plan and share that between the two of them. Otherwise, they won't have a nice selection of food to eat.
Any comments on this or anyone find themselves in the same predicament??

 

[shoppingnut]

I totally agree that the children's menu's stink. They were so much better before they were changed.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

I would PM WannaBeBelle or JPVonDrake. Either of them will probably have your answer. :wave:

 

[lscott933]

all you have to do is tell the people you want the adult meals when you make your plans. for the kids. or you could just order off the meal and pay for it when you eat. depending on what plan you choice. if your planning on going to the buffet style dinner. they get the same food as you. then you don't need to pay the adult price for the meal plan.

 

[BRER DAD]

When ordering CS meals I just ordered five adult meals. The two that were under the adult age ate great. The coumputer dosnt reconize (sp) child from adult on CS..........this was a hint a CM gave me. I did this the entire two weeks we were there.

 

[MichWolv]

Hi Everyone
Planning on going to Disney Jan 19 - 26 2008, taking our grandchildren and want to purchase the dining plan. However, we are very disappointed in the selections for children. Our grandchildren are 7 and 4 and they like to eat just about everything we eat. It seems the menus are stricly chicken fingers, mac & cheese, hot dogs & hamburgs. I was wondering if we could buy an extra adult plan and share that between the two of them. Otherwise, they won't have a nice selection of food to eat.
Any comments on this or anyone find themselves in the same predicament??

I experienced this two months ago, although I was on free dining, so it didn't bother me that much. First of all, although the system doesn't recognize adult vs. child meals, the cards themselves are now printed with the number of adult and child credits, and if you try to use more than the number of adult credits listed on the card at once, the server is supposed to stop you. So, for counter service, you'll be OK, although you will violate the rules, by ordering off the adult menu. Doesn't work for TS, though.

Next, as to the kids meals at TS restaurants. One thing to try is buffets and table service family style meals. There, everybody can eat the same stuff. And my 4 year-old prefers those not just for variety of food, but because he doesn't have to wait for the food to come. Some of those are...Biergarten (Epcot) Garden Grille (Epcot), Chef Mickey (Contemporary), Ohana (Polynesian), Cape May Cafe (Beach Club), Trail's End (Fort Wilderness), Tusker House (when it reopens -- Animal Kingdom), Boma (Animal Kingdom Lodge) - I'm sure I missed a few as well. Next, there are some places that have more intersting kids menus. Those would generally be the restaurants not run by Disney. We have found better kids menus at Wolfgang Puck, the Official All-Star Cafe, and others not run by Disney. Finally, we did find a few of the others that had more intersting kids stuff. Can't remember which were better, but there were a few. And finally, at one TS restaurant (I think it was the Concourse Steakhouse), we told the server that our son didn't like any of the kids choices (which was true), and asked for a small portion of one of the adult items that looked good. She was not happy about it, but did accomodate us.

Hope this helps.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

When ordering CS meals I just ordered five adult meals. The two that were under the adult age ate great. The coumputer dosnt reconize (sp) child from adult on CS..........this was a hint a CM gave me. I did this the entire two weeks we were there.

During our last trip, we were stopped from doing this quite a few times. Your cards indicate the number of adults and children on your plan. So if you've got 2 adults and two kids, it says so on your card. So if you go up to counter service and order 4 adult meals, they're supposed to be paying attention and tell you that you can only order 2 adult meals at a time because that's what you have in your package.

The easy fix to that was my wife and I standing in separate lines, each ordering two adult meals. :lookaroun Then they have no way of knowing. :zipit:

But for TABLE service... That's tricky... And often times will depend on your server. Don't forget, right now the server is tipped on the total amount of the bill... So I've seen servers that are more than happy to toss a prime rib at someone in a high chair. My guess is they watch it closer at some places than others, probably based on how close the manager chooses to watch it. But that's just a guess.

 

[Darlzee]

Thanks everyone for your comments! I think I'll just call disney and ask them if we could split one adult meal between two children. I heard that they are very generous in size for the sit down meals.

 

[rob85k5]

For the CS it depeneded on the cashier on whether they would allow the child an adult portion. It made no sense that Pizzafari's children's selections were Spaghetti and Peanut Butter and Jelly.