2020 dining plan changes- game changer! DxDP - any plan changes or credit sharing issues?

[planecrazy63]

Wow! That's fast for them

What was even worse was the communication. If you were on a 2019 dining plan that checked out post 1/1 you were also hit with this. Hotels were not notified of this chance until late in the day 1/1 and were dealing with issues all day.

As of today be our guest was not able to process dining plan meals due to the IT Changes (par for Disney). You had to pay and go back to your hotel to get credits applied - the CM at port Orleans said I was the third person in a row she helped with this issue.

 

[Nancyg56]

But it would be nice if Disney simply downsized the portions as opposed to offering the same 2-3 foods across the board.

DIsney cannot win when it comes to childrens choices. People complained that the meals were nto all kid friendly, so many TS restaurants made changes and you now see tenders, etc instead of the meals that reflected the restaurant theme. Then they complained that the kids melas were nto healthy, and BOOM. "My kid likes nuggets, and white hamburger rolls on vacation. When it comes to offering meals that the vast majority of kids want and also keeping the cost down to reflect what the market will bear, both in terms of OOP spending as well as dining plan costs, Disney is in a no win situation.

The bottom line is that the dining plans are not for every family. If your child does not want the kids meals that are on the menu, buying a plan is not going to work, any more than the plans work for families who do not want two full meals per day, or who do not eat desserts and who drink water with meals. If the plan as written was not reasonable for my family I would choose to pay for meals OOP, buy adult meals for the kids and share. I woudl not fault Disney for insisting that people honor the plans they purchased.

 

[TeresaWen]

DIsney cannot win when it comes to childrens choices. People complained that the meals were nto all kid friendly, so many TS restaurants made changes and you now see tenders, etc instead of the meals that reflected the restaurant theme. Then they complained that the kids melas were nto healthy, and BOOM. "My kid likes nuggets, and white hamburger rolls on vacation. When it comes to offering meals that the vast majority of kids want and also keeping the cost down to reflect what the market will bear, both in terms of OOP spending as well as dining plan costs, Disney is in a no win situation.

The bottom line is that the dining plans are not for every family. If your child does not want the kids meals that are on the menu, buying a plan is not going to work, any more than the plans work for families who do not want two full meals per day, or who do not eat desserts and who drink water with meals. If the plan as written was not reasonable for my family I would choose to pay for meals OOP, buy adult meals for the kids and share. I woudl not fault Disney for insisting that people honor the plans they purchased.

I was thinking the same thing reading through this. I have seen so many threads complaining that the children’s offerings did not accommodate their picky eaters who only like chicken nuggets, Mac & cheese, burgers, pizza. Disney cannot win here.

 

[Nancyg56]

I was thinking the same thing reading through this. I have seen so many threads complaining that the children’s offerings did not accommodate their picky eaters who only like chicken nuggets, Mac & cheese, burgers, pizza. Disney cannot win here.

Remember the hullabalo around Skippers childrens menu when that restaurant first opened? Holy cow, you would have thought they were making kids eat blowfish. Back to nuggets and pizza! At some point I think we all need to recognize what works for our family and then accomodate them. If dining plans, kids menus etc that are offered do not work for us, we need to pay OOP for food so we do not have restrictions that need to be adhered to.

 

[otterpop]

 

[wishicouldgomoreofte]

I don’t think you’ll have a problem. Cali grill brunch has a child’s price they charge just like a buffet. A child is able to eat whatever they want on a buffet and they seem to treat this the same way since it’s technically an all you care to eat experience.

The only time I’d be worried would be if there was no longer a child’s price. Then I would imagine it would be 2 adult credits, but I would expect them to add a child’s menu before they did something like that.

Yes, it shows the child's price as $56.

 

[vinotinto]

Flaming? You or me? I am not afraid - I've been around for a loooonnngg time. I have the cellphone record and Disney has a log of the call. I believe it will be almost impossible to enforce but I was curious what they would say and I had to clarify the 1 child TS credit for buffets because I was still thinking it was totally worth it if we could do Character TS and also not have to settle checks between the families -us (2 adults) and them (2 adults + 3 children). Lots of QS places had at least one interesting food choice and snack credits could supplement meals.

I will state my opinion for the change is simple: Alcohol. It is MY OPINION. Looking ahead under the old rules. One adult sits with the 3 kids. 3 adults go up order 6 QS meals and gets 6 drinks (3 were technically from the child credits but the system didn't know) with alcohol and pay for 3 water/juice beverages because nobody is giving children alcohol on my watch ever but I digress. The other adult goes up and orders a QS with a drink. The 4 adults now have 7 drinks. I am certain this was happening just by reading all the crazy throw away and room splitting posts. My head was dizzier than consuming two glasses of wine at lunch.

Except that the reports on the ground consistently indicate that to purchase a second alcoholic beverage (yes, even at a QS), a second adult had to be there to show their ID. This was strictly enforced. No second ID, no second drink.

I don't think alcohol was the motivation at all. The motivation was that even though the policy stated that children must order from children's menu, since the credits were not differentiated, guests ordered adult meals using their pooled credits that would have otherwise been children credits.

 

[senadler]

Except that the reports on the ground consistently indicate that to purchase a second alcoholic beverage (yes, even at a QS), a second adult had to be there to show their ID. This was strictly enforced. No second ID, no second drink.

In my experience the limit was two alcoholic beverages per adult, not one.

 

[PUSMMA]

Meh, Disney has offered the same child choices forever. When they went to Mickey check healthy meals, people complained.

so you can be sure the complaints will come regardless. But why would/should Disney care? It is all about the bottom line. This will impact the bottom line.

don’t like the kids meals? Vote w your $$. Right now disney is building more and more rooms. They really don’t care your kid gets tired of chicken nuggets. Either you will pay more, your kid will continue to choke down the nuggets, or someone else will.

Sad, but so very, very true

 

[HappyDisneyWife]

Remember the hullabalo around Skippers childrens menu when that restaurant first opened? Holy cow, you would have thought they were making kids eat blowfish. Back to nuggets and pizza! At some point I think we all need to recognize what works for our family and then accomodate them. If dining plans, kids menus etc that are offered do not work for us, we need to pay OOP for food so we do not have restrictions that need to be adhered to.

I couldn’t agree more... just do what works for your family (whatever Disney’s current guidelines are).

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

I was thinking the same thing reading through this. I have seen so many threads complaining that the children’s offerings did not accommodate their picky eaters who only like chicken nuggets, Mac & cheese, burgers, pizza. Disney cannot win here.

Middle of the road would be ice and fairly easy to accommodate. Just like they do for adults. Offer a smaller portion of the house 'dish' or two and chicken nuggets (or hamburgers or hotdogs or grilled cheese) just like every Mexican and Chinese restaurant in America does.

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

Except that the reports on the ground consistently indicate that to purchase a second alcoholic beverage (yes, even at a QS), a second adult had to be there to show their ID. This was strictly enforced. No second ID, no second drink.

I don't think alcohol was the motivation at all. The motivation was that even though the policy stated that children must order from children's menu, since the credits were not differentiated, guests ordered adult meals using their pooled credits that would have otherwise been children credits.

Clearly states 2 drinks per ID.

 

[vinotinto]

Clearly states 2 drinks per ID.

Interesting because there are many recent reports on this board of the second adult needing to go up to the mobile ordering window to show the ID for the second drink. Here is one thread that has various such reports:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/quick-service-alcohol-selections.3656989/page-10#post-59619310
If the issue was alcohol, they can very easily enforce 1 drink per ID, without having had to change the entire system and develop children’s menus for locations that didn’t have them (like Casey’s). They had to do a massive change to split the credits into children and adult. The issue was that the child entitlement was used for adult meals (that yes, could have included alcohol), which is a much higher cost than the child meal.

 

[Ashley689]

I'm not sure anyone ever answered you and I'm a little confused about what you want/plan to do. Are you staying in two separate rooms?

Yes & no. But we've successfully changed to include FD with DDP, so none of that matters anymore.

I'm just going to pay the $40 more to age up my two children who are 3-9 so that they can order off of the adult menu. And pay OOP if they for some reason want a kids meal

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

My DH and I have been able to buy drinks for each other or QS meals for years while the other looks for seating.

 

[vinotinto]

My DH and I have been able to buy drinks for each other or QS meals for years while the other looks for seating.

Yes, I understand that. My point is that it wasn't just the alcohol that pushed Disney to separate all the credits between children and adult, but rather, the use of what should have been a child entitlement based on the child cost for an adult meal, which has a higher cost (and yes, alcohol contributes to the cost of that entitlement).

In TS restaurants, you could not get an adult drink for a "Disney adult" ages 10 - 20 when using deluxe credits and have the adults in the table consume it. And there were many reports that within the last year, when purchasing an alcoholic beverage using a QS credit, that an ID was needed for each adult when picking up mobile orders when the second adult was not seen. It would have been very easy for Disney to consistently require 1 adult QS meal with alcohol per adult ID, and that would have been easier than having to revamp their entire system. But the chose to revamp the entire system because there was an impact that was more than just alcohol.

 

[Pumbaa_]

I hate to burst your bubble but many restaurants charged all alcoholic drinks to the ddp regardless of age of food consumer

so mom and dad ordered 2 cocktails each. Many servers manipulated the charges so they all credited to the plan. Happened regularly.

 

[Nancyg56]

I hate to burst your bubble but many restaurants charged all alcoholic drinks to the ddp regardless of age of food consumer

so mom and dad ordered 2 cocktails each. Many servers manipulated the charges so they all credited to the plan. Happened regularly.

Boy, I wish I had been the recipient of that little loophole. I tried trice this trip to see if I could order a glass of wine because we had two minor girls, both Disney adults. I was told gladly, if they could provide an ID> LOL! I knew that but I figured it was worth the ask.

 

[rdaky]

I am pretty sure none of the call center CM are on-site... please someone let me know if I am wrong. There are many people who answer Disneys phones that don't "work" for Disney. Unfortunately, CM do not really many times know what in the world is going on.

True. I once had a CM on the phone tell me that there is no such thing as a 5th pull down bed in CBR. Absolutely would not back down and said it did not exist and I could not have my family of 5 stay at that resort. I gave her a bad review and called back later.

 

[Lehuaann]

Boy, I wish I had been the recipient of that little loophole. I tried trice this trip to see if I could order a glass of wine because we had two minor girls, both Disney adults. I was told gladly, if they could provide an ID> LOL! I knew that but I figured it was worth the ask.

Same. Our server at Narcoosees would not allow the transfer of DD/19 drink entitlement to DS for alcohol. We gave him one of our entitlements.