Little Boy - Big appetite

[kidsportsw]

We are contemplating getting the dining plan for our trip in May. I have 3 DSs 13, 10 and 8. I know the older two will have to get the adult meal plan. Is it possible for me to get the adult meal plan for the younger one as well, even though his park tickets are child's tickets ages 3-9)? There are a couple of reasons for this.

1. He doesn't want to order off the kdis menu if his brothers aren't.
2. He likes the food on an adult menu much more than what is offered to kids.

I guess my question is this.... Is there any link between the park tickets (which we already have) and the dining plan. He would be a child for the park tickets and an adult at dinner.

Thanks for the help!

Scott - 4 weeks and counting....

 

[formernyer]

There's really no way to do it unless you lie about his age. My recommendation is to order the kid's DDP for him.

You'll be very surprised, but the adult sized meals are huge even for people with big appetites. Even if all four of you have huge appetities I'd feel pretty confident in saying that you could order 4 meals plus an extra plate and meal-share. You'd probably still have leftovers. Many people order one meal to feed two people or two meals to feed three people. I've never seen somebody post that they tried to meal-share and came up short on food. You won't have to feel funny about asking for extra plates...Disney employees are very used to it and they are more than accommodating.

The child credits that you save by meal-sharing can be used to purchase adult meals at another time. So if you were to have four TS meals and only use four credits at each meal instead of five, then you'd have enough "saved" credits to get an extra ADR for the five of you.

When you are ordering CS meals, just don't bring your son to the counter when you order. If he isn't there, they will never question the age and allow you to order the adult meal.

 

[kidsportsw]

OK.... Let me ask this. When you do the DDP for the 5 of us for 5 nights will it show up on the computers as 25 TS, 25 CS and 25 snacks. Or, will it show up as 20 Adult TS, 5 child TS, 20 adult CS, 5 child CS, etc.......

I'm happy to lie about his age and pay the difference in price when I order the DDP but if there is no distinction in the computer then I may not have to.

 

[formernyer]

Credits are pooled and can be used by anybody. Disney makes no distinction between adult and child's credits when they encode it onto your dining card. You could use every credit for an adult meal if you wanted, or you could use every credit as a child's meal.

The only time you will be required to use a child's credit is if you dine with your entire family (5 people) and you order 5 meals. The server will know from your ADR that you are four adults and one child. In fact, when I dined at Sci-Fi last month the hostess said to me before we were seated, "one adult, one 9-year old, and one 8-year old?"

 

[gigi1313]

to the op: have you looked over the kids' menus for the restaurants you are considering? (if not www.allearsnet.com has most of them) you'll see that kids' meals are not all mac/cheese and pizza... your 8yo ds might be quite happy w/the selections...

also, like formernyer suggested, you can share meals... i know w/my two (one "child" one "adult) they would often order both meals after conferring w/one another and picking things from both menus that they both enjoy and sharing, which might work for your three boys as well

the one thing i would caution against is lying... i don't condone it, i don't suggest it, and i don't think it's a good example to set for one's children... in that same vein, i don't recommend scamming by "hiding" your 8yo while you order adult meals at cs restaurants... but that is just one girl's opinion!

 

[gigi1313]

the computer read of the credits is from a "pool" (25 TS, 25 CS, 25 Snack) but the card itself will say 4A/1C and that is where you will need to use the credits as purchased...

we had more than one instance on our last trip where we had two rooms w/one card reading 1A/1C and the other reading 2A and we were hard-pressed to get 2A meals w/the 1A/1C card... some servers said, "oh, just use one card for this meal and the other card for the next" only to have another server say "oh, no, i cannot take 3A/1C off a card that says 1A/1C" *and* at CS restaurants, i was unable to purchase 3A/1C meals off the card that only said 2A w/out a big argument and having to call a manager in...

ergo, "scamming" the system or "using" the loophole is not as easy as some that have never tried it purport it to be

 

[formernyer]

the computer read of the credits is from a "pool" (25 TS, 25 CS, 25 Snack) but the card itself will say 4A/1C and that is where you will need to use the credits as purchased...

we had more than one instance on our last trip where we had two rooms w/one card reading 1A/1C and the other reading 2A and we were hard-pressed to get 2A meals w/the 1A/1C card... some servers said, "oh, just use one card for this meal and the other card for the next" only to have another server say "oh, no, i cannot take 3A/1C off a card that says 1A/1C" *and* at CS restaurants, i was unable to purchase 3A/1C meals off the card that only said 2A w/out a big argument and having to call a manager in...

ergo, "scamming" the system or "using" the loophole is not as easy as some that have never tried it purport it to be

My card from two weeks ago did not say this on it. My card said, "ADULT" on it and my kids' cards said, "CHILD;" however, my card contained all of the credits for the three of us. Short of pulling up our reservation profile in the system, there's no way of knowing how many people were on our reservation or what our ages were.

 

[kidsportsw]

Having seen a variety of advice in this thread (thanks all for posting), I decided to call Disney and ask them what my options were. My situation is 4 adults (by meal standards) and 1 child.

When I purchase the meal plan I have the option of buying 4 adult and 1 child meal plans or I can just buy 5 adult meal plans. I'm sure they are happy to see me spend an extra $27 per day to go from child to adult on the one plan.

If I do purchase 5 adult plans then we can all eat whatever we want, we can all order at the same time, we don't have to play games/lie for CS meals to get 5 adult meals instead of 4 and 1. Even with the extra $135 I spend on the adult meal plan, we will still save money over going without the plan.

As somebody earlier said, playing by the rules is a better lesson for the kids than teaching them the loopholes.

Thanks for the help!

 

[gigi1313]

My card from two weeks ago did not say this on it. My card said, "ADULT" on it and my kids' cards said, "CHILD;" however, my card contained all of the credits for the three of us. Short of pulling up our reservation profile in the system, there's no way of knowing how many people were on our reservation or what our ages were.

do you still have your cards? (the key to your room/meal card/ticket to the parks card) if so, have another look... i'd be shocked that they do not have a # and a letter (or in your case two #s and two letters, i.e. 1A/2C) because both times we used the DDP our cards did, as well as the friends we traveled with... i know this a) from looking at them, and b) from having it pointed out to my friend when she attempted to order three adult meals and had 2A/2C printed on her card and the cm at the cs in mexico said NO WAY JOSE!

 

[gigi1313]

Having seen a variety of advice in this thread (thanks all for posting), I decided to call Disney and ask them what my options were. My situation is 4 adults (by meal standards) and 1 child.

When I purchase the meal plan I have the option of buying 4 adult and 1 child meal plans or I can just buy 5 adult meal plans. I'm sure they are happy to see me spend an extra $27 per day to go from child to adult on the one plan.

If I do purchase 5 adult plans then we can all eat whatever we want, we can all order at the same time, we don't have to play games/lie for CS meals to get 5 adult meals instead of 4 and 1. Even with the extra $135 I spend on the adult meal plan, we will still save money over going without the plan.

As somebody earlier said, playing by the rules is a better lesson for the kids than teaching them the loopholes.

Thanks for the help!

i think you made a good choice... enjoy your trip and all the delicious food you are sure to encounter along the way

 

[formernyer]

do you still have your cards? (the key to your room/meal card/ticket to the parks card) if so, have another look... i'd be shocked that they do not have a # and a letter (or in your case two #s and two letters, i.e. 1A/2C) because both times we used the DDP our cards did, as well as the friends we traveled with... i know this a) from looking at them, and b) from having it pointed out to my friend when she attempted to order three adult meals and had 2A/2C printed on her card and the cm at the cs in mexico said NO WAY JOSE!

You're right. It's there right next to where it says Disney Dining.

Disney Dining 01A02C

I never read the numbers before since it just looked like a code, but that's obviously what it was.

 

[dawnball]

the computer read of the credits is from a "pool" (25 TS, 25 CS, 25 Snack) but the card itself will say 4A/1C and that is where you will need to use the credits as purchased...

we had more than one instance on our last trip where we had two rooms w/one card reading 1A/1C and the other reading 2A and we were hard-pressed to get 2A meals w/the 1A/1C card... some servers said, "oh, just use one card for this meal and the other card for the next" only to have another server say "oh, no, i cannot take 3A/1C off a card that says 1A/1C" *and* at CS restaurants, i was unable to purchase 3A/1C meals off the card that only said 2A w/out a big argument and having to call a manager in...

ergo, "scamming" the system or "using" the loophole is not as easy as some that have never tried it purport it to be

Ugh - that's going to be a pain in the butt if they're doing that this fall. We have 2 rooms (one 2A/2C and one 2A) and if we're going to have to fiddle around with "here, you take my room card so you can order us all lunch" we'll be mighty cranky. I don't mind so much for TS - but even then we occassionally left just one person to pay the check (Sci-Fi was painfully slow for example).

What happened to "You can use your credits any way you want"?

 

[wdwobsessed]

Ugh - that's going to be a pain in the butt if they're doing that this fall. We have 2 rooms (one 2A/2C and one 2A) and if we're going to have to fiddle around with "here, you take my room card so you can order us all lunch" we'll be mighty cranky. I don't mind so much for TS - but even then we occassionally left just one person to pay the check (Sci-Fi was painfully slow for example).

What happened to "You can use your credits any way you want"?

The "you can use your credits any way you want" is balanced out with "children must order off the children's menu where available."

We never had a problem using our credits in a pooled way. In fact at LeCellier they let my then 9yr old order off the adult menu knowing we were 2A 2C.

The catch is getting two adult meals at cs when the kid is right there and then it's only a catch sometimes...For counter serve at Roaring Forks at the WL sometimes we would go through the line and DH would pay for 2cs and I would pay for 2cs but I think this was like only once or twice? Then a few times we got 3cs or 4cs all adult and nothing was said even though we had cards that said 2A 2C. I The only place we had a problem was at Wolfgang pucks ... but they said we HAD to order pizza and we didn't want pizza so we left anyway.

For the most part it's not a big deal to work it out. Or just pay OOP for kids meals if that is what they want.

WDWO

 

[gigi1313]

fear thee not dawnball... it depends on how you booked your vacation package... for the last vacation (jan '06), we had two separate ressies ('cause it came out cheaper) which is why our cards were split like that... but when we went in sept '05 we had booked the four of us on the package in one room and the second room "room only AAA rate" and at that time, we were all totally pooled... so, if you are all booked on the same reservation, you should be fine

formernyer... just to be sure i was not going crazy, i checked ds' card (he keeps it as a souvie) this morning and it was there... glad you found it too

 

[dawnball]

The "you can use your credits any way you want" is balanced out with "children must order off the children's menu where available."

We never had a problem using our credits in a pooled way. In fact at LeCellier they let my then 9yr old order off the adult menu knowing we were 2A 2C.

The catch is getting two adult meals at cs when the kid is right there and then it's only a catch sometimes...For counter serve at Roaring Forks at the WL sometimes we would go through the line and DH would pay for 2cs and I would pay for 2cs but I think this was like only once or twice? Then a few times we got 3cs or 4cs all adult and nothing was said even though we had cards that said 2A 2C. I The only place we had a problem was at Wolfgang pucks ... but they said we HAD to order pizza and we didn't want pizza so we left anyway.

For the most part it's not a big deal to work it out. Or just pay OOP for kids meals if that is what they want.

I'm not trying to scam adult meals for my 3yrold. I'm trying to make only one person stand in line for our party which spans 2 rooms without having to pass around room keys. We locked ourselves out quite enough last year without fiddling with passing keys around. Maybe we'll claim there's a child in each room (instead of 2 in one room) so that we can permanently trade a card.