Talk to me about 9 year olds and the dining plan

[lillykat]

We had decided against the dining plan originally. Now we are re-evaluating adding the regular plan. 3 adults (one is 11) and 1 child (9). We are not doing any buffets, but are doing some family style and the rest are a la carte places. My concern is my 9 year old, and my DH and I would rather have a salad than dessert at some or most of the table services places. What is the deal with quick service? I see some say you can order 4 adult QS meals others no, you must order off the kids menu. I know TS she will have to, but will they do a kids portion of an adult meal? At home she rarely eats off the kids menus, but she will occasionally have chicken fingers or Mac and cheese, but doesn’t care for other pastas, hamburgers or other kids foods.

 

[rwdavis2]

You are making this really complicated and, IMHO, your original decision against the dining plan is the correct one. We had the DDP once, heavily discounted, and we would never pay full price for it. We just don't eat the way the plan tends to force you to.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Never heard of Disney providing a kid size version of an adult meal.

 

[siren0119]

When we were at Disney with my then-10 year old we were told that when ordering on the dining plan at TS locations, the meal must match the ticket (so adults order off the adult menu, kids off the kids menu). This was our deciding factor to NOT do the dining plan, because our 10 year old "Disney adult" wouldn't touch anything on the adult menus with a 10 foot pole. At the time we weren't choosing many buffets so it was going to be a huge issue. And honestly it ended up being cheaper AND more relaxed to just pay out of pocket. Everyone got what they wanted to eat, and we didn't have to worry about ordering things that weren't included in dining plan meals.

I have heard that at QS locations it doesn't matter as much or they won't pay as close attention to kid vs adult (with the exception of serving alcohol), but I don't have personal experience in this so I'm not sure.

 

[sharonabe]

We had decided against the dining plan originally. Now we are re-evaluating adding the regular plan. 3 adults (one is 11) and 1 child (9). We are not doing any buffets, but are doing some family style and the rest are a la carte places. My concern is my 9 year old, and my DH and I would rather have a salad than dessert at some or most of the table services places. What is the deal with quick service? I see some say you can order 4 adult QS meals others no, you must order off the kids menu. I know TS she will have to, but will they do a kids portion of an adult meal? At home she rarely eats off the kids menus, but she will occasionally have chicken fingers or Mac and cheese, but doesn’t care for other pastas, hamburgers or other kids foods.

QS, the kid can order an adult meal.
TS, the kid must order off the kid's menu and they won't do a kid size portion of an adult meal.

If you don't want the dessert, you can ask for a substitution, but each restaurant will decide what, if anything, they will give you. Most will do some sort of side salad, cup of soup, or an extra veggie.

 

[Meglen]

Just do without the ddp. With this situation it will make eating and your vacation much more of a headache. Just eat and do what you want maybe if you like the prepaid convenience start getting gift cards everyweek and use that to pay for food.

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

To be honest the dining plan does not sound like it suits you.

SOME TS locations will allow for a substitute of soup/salad instead of a dessert but you can't count on it.

QS credits are pooled and there is no distinction between adult and child so yes you can order child or adult meals.

No they will not give an adult menu item in a child portion. They have in the past though given a child menu item in an adult portion.

For you I'd recommend paying out of pocket.

 

[Rach3975]

On our last trip, my daughter was still 9 by about 6 weeks. We told Disney she was already 10 when we booked our trip and paid all adult prices for her since we knew that she found the kids' meals very limiting. Financially it would have made more sense for us to skip the DDP, but we like it for other reasons and have decided it's worth spending a little more on the DDP than we would out of pocket. (The admission prices for children are only a tiny bit lower than the adult admission prices...when we booked our trip under the old ticket system, the difference was less than $50 on a 5 day ticket. So the only significant difference was the extra dining plan cost, and we'd have been buying her adult meals if we were paying OOP anyway.)