Help! Picky eaters on DDP. Arriving Sunday.

[sunruner]

Hi. My husband and I are taking our 2 sons to Disney this coming week. It's a first trip for us all. We purchased a package deal that included the dining plan before I did enough research. Now we're looking at a lot of situations that our kids won't eat. (They don't eat mac n cheese or hamburgers or sandwiches.) After looking around, I have a few questions.

1. Are we able to pickup a CS meal for the kids and take it to a TS restaurant for the adults to eat?

2. The pizza I see at many of the kids menus (Pizza with Mozz and chicken that is optional) is that a regular pizza with red sauce or something else?

3. On the Pizza delivery at the All-Stars Music, it's pizza, 2 drinks, 2 desserts for 2 adult TS credits. But on the menu the drinks listed are all 2 liters. Do you get 2 liters as the drinks in that situation?

4. What is the best character breakfast?

We currently plan on eating most breakfasts in the room, a CS for lunch either at the park or back at the hotel for swim/rest, and then probably a TS for dinner. Any recommendations of good restaurants we can go to that offer either hot dog, chicken nuggets w/ french fries, or pizza for kid meals would be REALLY great. Dad and I would like some nice meals but the boys have special needs and are very picky based on food textures. Makes situations like this VERY hard.

Thanks in advance for ANY help.

 

[squirrel]

The pizza's at the TS should be regular sauce-tomato.

The delivered pizza costs 2 TS credits (Adult), you can order the same food and pick it up at the food court and it's only 2 CS credits.

Our favorite breakfasts were: Donald's Safari Breakfast and Chef Mickey's. We didn't try O'hana with Stitch and Lilo, but plan on going this year.

Do the boys like pasta and sauce? I think a lot of the TS places have that on their menu. I think some also had fish of the day.

I shared a lot of meals with my niece at the CS places. I would order the 1/2 chicken meal. She is lactose intollerant and it saved a lot of time waiting for special orders. I also couldn't have eaten the meal by myself.

 

[kaytieeldr]

1. Probably not. Consider it this way - while all the restaurants are at a single resort property (Walt Disney World), each is its own entity as a business. Nobody would expect a local restaurant to allow it; Disney restaurants shouldn't be expected to permit it, either.

2. Unless the description reads otherwise - e.g. pita pizza - yes. Note that except menus posted at disneyworld.com, everything you see online is unofficial and subject to change.

3. No, you do get two paper/plastic cups with fountain soda in them.

4. Really, too subjective for a definitive answer. You might even want to post this as its own question on the regular Restaurant forum.

 

[sunruner]

1. Probably not. Consider it this way - while all the restaurants are at a single resort property (Walt Disney World), each is its own entity as a business. Nobody would expect a local restaurant to allow it; Disney restaurants shouldn't be expected to permit it, either.

Actually many restaurants allow this. If it means us bringing in a kids meal from somewhere so that we can eat their food, they'd rather have the 2 adults sales than lose them all.

Thank you for your information and suggestions! It's appreciated.

 

[sunruner]

The pizza's at the TS should be regular sauce-tomato.

The delivered pizza costs 2 TS credits (Adult), you can order the same food and pick it up at the food court and it's only 2 CS credits.

WOOHOO!! Thank you thank you for telling me this! I will definitely be using that!

Our favorite breakfasts were: Donald's Safari Breakfast and Chef Mickey's. We didn't try O'hana with Stitch and Lilo, but plan on going this year.

We were looking at Chef Mickey's. I'll look at Donald's Safari as my youngest loves Donald. Let me know how O'hana goes!

Do the boys like pasta and sauce? I think a lot of the TS places have that on their menu. I think some also had fish of the day.

I shared a lot of meals with my niece at the CS places. I would order the 1/2 chicken meal. She is lactose intollerant and it saved a lot of time waiting for special orders. I also couldn't have eaten the meal by myself.

They do not eat pasta at all. Plain or with sauce. It's a texture thing. We may end up having to do the adult buys the meal the kid eats and we eat the kids meal.

Thanks for the information!!

 

[danceintherain]

I take it you've probably already looked at the menus for all the restaurants?

Something you could consider trying is buffets or Family Style... the kids food and adult food is all available for anybody to take.

Also, if you're kids are good with breakfast food, you could get a late breakfast ADR that could cover lunch. This is not the best way to take advantage of the DDP, but your kids could eat at TS meals.
My whole family is picky eaters (including myself), so I've looked at a lot of different options.

For our trip in July I sent some menus to my little sister and had her pick a TS from each park that she would eat at (except AK, because there's only a couple TS there anyways...)
She actually picked one that I never would have guessed she would, but I'm glad, because I think it will be fun to eat there.

Of the two character breakfasts we did on our last trip I think we enjoyed Ohana the most. I enjoy Family Style much better than buffet. However, they did bring us a whole second platter, and we felt bad because we couldn't finish it.

 

[sunruner]

The delivered pizza costs 2 TS credits (Adult), you can order the same food and pick it up at the food court and it's only 2 CS credits.

Just to verify. We should be able to purchase a whole pizza, 2 drinks and 2 desserts and use 2 CS if we pick it up instead of them delivering? Will they also use the kid CS or just adult CS? We'd have to get two pizzas, and 4 drinks to feed us all.

Thanks!

 

[KristiMc]

Hello,

Welcome to the boards. I just wanted to check to see if you had made ADR's? If you want to get into Chef Mickey's you might want to call and see what is available.

Have a great trip!!!

 

[TDC Nala]

Actually many restaurants allow this. If it means us bringing in a kids meal from somewhere so that we can eat their food, they'd rather have the 2 adults sales than lose them all.

You won't be permitted to do this at any buffets or all you can eat family style places. As for the a la carte restaurants at Disney, it's going to be up to the restaurant whether or not they will allow you in with outside food. You could also feed the kids before arrival and buy them something small when you get there.

 

[Allison]

It doesn't sound like you have made any reservations for your table service meals. If you have not and you are only a week away from your trip you may be limited in your restaurant choices. Chef Mickey would be difficult to get into as a walk-up guest as would many other restaurants.

 

[squirrel]

The pizza at the food court - one large pizza, 2 drinks and 2 desserts for 2 CS credits. The credits are combined, but they are suppose to count as Adult credits.

If you purchase a refillable cup or two you can refill as often as you wish at the resort food court. The cost is about $12.50. All the resort food courts have soda (Coke brands), coffee, hot chocolate and tea. Some have juice and or slurpees.

 

[DCDisney]

If you don't already have reservations for those dinners you may really be better off canceling the dining plan if you can. It is going to be hard to get dinner reservations at any decent dinner at any of the popular places at this point. Allears.net has pretty accurate menu info to figure out where you can find foods your kids will eat. For us it worked out well to buy breakfast for them using some of the CS credits and then just buying an adult meal for them to share at lunch. In some cases we would buy 1 big adult meal and other times kids meals for breakfast. We always had plenty of drinks and desserts to share at lunch from the adult DDP eaters.

 

[TinkerbellinLouisian]

I had to do a lot of research my last trip....I was tired of the kids eating hamburgers at every meal...and last trip I had Somewhat Picky DS, VERY picky DD1, and newly vegetarian DD2.

MK: Cosmic Rays has HUGE selection
EP: The Land has the best selection (Sunshine Seasons)
HS: Sunset Market (Near ToT and RnR) has best selection.

For TS - go for Buffets or "Family Dining"....like H& V (HS), Cape May (BC), 'Ohana's (we go for B'fast), etc.

One meal - we order 'regular' pizza in the room for the kids and run off for TS for DH & I ...
Hurry up and do some quick research....you don't have much time!

Have a Magical trip!

Mary

 

[hroyale]

Hi,
I can totally relate to your situation. I have an insanely picky 5 year old. He's on the autism spectrum and only eats a handful of foods. Eating out he will basically just eat fruit, hot dogs and maybe french fries. That's it.

So despite what other posters have advised, I've always brought in food for him. However, I also "pay" for a meal for him. We were on the DDP too. We went to many buffets, because he could usually find some fruit and desserts to eat. Even thought we're charged credits for him, I'd also bring the food I knew he would eat in my bag and he'd eat that with us.

The DDP was still worth it because the food I was bringing for him was very inexpensive, didn't count as credits AND even without the DDP we'd need to do it anyway so the rest of us could eat.

You didn't mention the age of your boys, but if they are young still you might want to stock your room with some food you can carry in without using a credit for it.

Have fun!
Heather