Problems upgrading Child to Adult on DDP

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Princess Leia

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 15, 2011
I had wanted to upgrade my 8 year old son to adult dining. I have had disney dining previously but found that child choices were limited. He enjoys lots of different tastes including spicier options. He also has a nut allergy and one of the lunch-time options are limited with one of the staples being PB & Jelly sandwiches. Having looked through the forums it seemed all I needed to do was pay the difference between a child and adult theme park ticket. I have been in touch with my travel agent and been told that because we booked when they were doing free disney dining the cost to upgrade now would be to pay for the full adult dining plus the ticket price change. :( Needless to say I will not be paying that - if it comes to it I will pay for an additional main course or appetiser oop.
 
I haven't done it myself (our DD is only 4) but I think most people who do upgrade their child's age do so when booking and not usually on a package holiday.

Remember at all restaurants even CS to mention the allergy when ordering and they will give you more choices/safe choices.
 
if there are a few of you then you may find that by sharing out the food and using the childrens options as sort of side dishes then you may not need to buy that much anyway - the times you do will probably work out cheeper just to do that out of pocket. We found that the best way round this for the future is just to book as all adults at the time of booking.
 
We don't do the dining plan, this being one of the main reasons. My DS has always been an adventurous eater and would not have been happy with some of the offerings on the kids' plan. However, he can't very often eat a full adult meal so he and I usually end up sharing. I would think if the adults on the plan share with the 8 year old, there would probably be more than enough food to go round.
 


I haven't done it myself (our DD is only 4) but I think most people who do upgrade their child's age do so when booking and not usually on a package holiday.

Remember at all restaurants even CS to mention the allergy when ordering and they will give you more choices/safe choices.

I didn't know about the option of upgrading until recently.

Last time most places were really good about the allergy and a chef would come out and speak to us. All except Coral Reef they wouldn't let him have any substitutions and wouldn't allow chocolate as "chocolate is a nut!"
 
I did this last time but bought the tickets through disney as 3 adults. My dd was 8. Also remember to tell the airline as they sell nutty things and they tend to Announce onboard if someone has a nut allergy. I dont know what to suggest abt the ticket unless they bring out free dining again then u can cancel the one child ticket off and maybe pay the amendment fee for booking an adult ticket BUT it depends on the TA and the offers
 
Yes - it's a case of you live you learn. If it helps anyone else on the forum that's a bonus. I can't believe how bland some of the kid's offerings are in Disney. Who knows maybe free dining will come back before we go. All I know is that my son will choose what he likes to eat and the travel agent will not get any extra money for adding on a full adult dining.
 


Something which may partially resolve the problem for you.

With Counter Service meals, you can order an adult meal as the credits don't differentiate between adult and child. However, I understand that to do this, you would need to order two adult meals on their own, then go back and purchase a single adult meal - I can only assume that the system sees you have 2A and 1C so if you order three in one go, it will flag it up. I have seen this mentioned on numerous occasions on various forums, so it does seem to be acceptable.

You may find that you can share two CS meals between three of you anyway, as the portion sizes are quite large. Certainly last year, myself and my wife quite often split a CS meal, occasionally adding a "side" using a snack credit.

For TS meals, may be worth booking buffet meals, then your son could quite legitimately try the food other than the kids options. Should also work with the "family style" meals where you can ask for more food and your son could eat from your selection.
 
I upgraded my son to the adult plan in 2011 and it was more hassle than it was worth.


At the table service restaurants, the servers couldn't get their head around the fact that our son wanted to order a child meal using an adult credit. This meant that it took ages to get a correct bill as the system needed overriding. Also you need to take into consideration that the tips will be higher as it will be put through as an adult meal.

For the counter service restaurants it was pointless as like the previous poster mentioned, you can order an adult meal for your son using a child credit with no problems at all.

In 2012 we went back to using the child plan and probably will until he turns 10.
 
I had wanted to upgrade my 8 year old son to adult dining. I have had disney dining previously but found that child choices were limited. He enjoys lots of different tastes including spicier options. He also has a nut allergy and one of the lunch-time options are limited with one of the staples being PB & Jelly sandwiches. Having looked through the forums it seemed all I needed to do was pay the difference between a child and adult theme park ticket. I have been in touch with my travel agent and been told that because we booked when they were doing free disney dining the cost to upgrade now would be to pay for the full adult dining plus the ticket price change. :( Needless to say I will not be paying that - if it comes to it I will pay for an additional main course or appetiser oop.

Are you on the full Dining Plan or the Quick Service?

It has been said before here (which is how I discovered it!) so I don't think I'm speaking out of turn, but there is no distinction on your KTTW card on adult or child counter service meals. As far as I'm aware the official rules are that kids have to order from the kids menu but the cards do not distinguish. Our daughter sometimes likes a kids meal but other times there are no options that she will eat, so we order an adult meal. The same doesn't apply to table service but for quick service we have never had a problem.
 
We are on full dining. We also have a daughter who will have adult dining. Last time we ended up getting 3 adult and 1 child meal at Quick service and sharing them between us. My issue is more with some of the blander options with table service. He is keen to go back to Boma and Sanaa.
 
I'm not sure why your having issues I know plenty of people who have upgraded their child ( through travel agent) and even when it has been free dining but changed its still honoured! Let them know that all you want to do us change the child to adult on park tickets which will then entitle you to upgrade to free adult DDP!

We have done this ourselves through Disney and through agent both times was months after we booked! I would keep telling them that you know they can do it until they change it.
 
I upgraded my son to the adult plan in 2011 and it was more hassle than it was worth.

At the table service restaurants, the servers couldn't get their head around the fact that our son wanted to order a child meal using an adult credit. This meant that it took ages to get a correct bill as the system needed overriding. Also you need to take into consideration that the tips will be higher as it will be put through as an adult meal.

For the counter service restaurants it was pointless as like the previous poster mentioned, you can order an adult meal for your son using a child credit with no problems at all.

In 2012 we went back to using the child plan and probably will until he turns 10.

That's such a shame we have ha no problems when doing this and we upgraded 3 kids at one point!
The servers sis ask the child's ages and then say that they thought our cards was wrong but we just explained that they wanted to eat adults meals some of the times.
When it comes to tips you only pay tips based on the meal cost so it would not work out more unless your child actually ordered a adult meal, if they ordered a child meal at the TS then the price of the child meal is what you pay the tip on, they just take the adult credit off the card.
 
That's such a shame we have ha no problems when doing this and we upgraded 3 kids at one point!
The servers sis ask the child's ages and then say that they thought our cards was wrong but we just explained that they wanted to eat adults meals some of the times.
When it comes to tips you only pay tips based on the meal cost so it would not work out more unless your child actually ordered a adult meal, if they ordered a child meal at the TS then the price of the child meal is what you pay the tip on, they just take the adult credit off the card.

You must have been very lucky with your servers because it goes against Disney's written policy on the Dining Plans and those servers are risking their jobs.

If the OP has booked flight inclusive, then this is the reason they are struggling to upgrade. The whole booking has to match the ages of the children, which needs to match their passports for the flights. By upgrading, they have to list the child's age as 10+ on your reservation. If for flight purposes the child is 8 for example, there is nothing you can do about it. I know because this happened when DD was 7 or 8.
 
If the OP has booked flight inclusive, then this is the reason they are struggling to upgrade. The whole booking has to match the ages of the children, which needs to match their passports for the flights. By upgrading, they have to list the child's age as 10+ on your reservation. If for flight purposes the child is 8 for example, there is nothing you can do about it. I know because this happened when DD was 7 or 8.

I can understand what you are saying and I too thought that would be a reason why they might have said no. The thing is they haven't said I can't change his dining to adult just that I would have to pay them a lot of extra money to do so.
 
If the OP has booked flight inclusive, then this is the reason they are struggling to upgrade. The whole booking has to match the ages of the children, which needs to match their passports for the flights. By upgrading, they have to list the child's age as 10+ on your reservation. If for flight purposes the child is 8 for example, there is nothing you can do about it. I know because this happened when DD was 7 or 8.

I can understand what you are saying and I too thought that would be a reason why they might have said no. The thing is they haven't said I can't change his dining to adult just that I would have to pay them a lot of extra money to do so.

You know the part where I said it had happened to me? I did this about four years ago. There was a hefty charge for it! A few months before we left I wasn't really happy about things not tying up. It didn't make sense. So I called Disney in the US and was told that she was listed as a child on the CRO and would be getting a child's plan. The short story is that Disney UK had upgraded her, charged me, but it was not upgraded on the booking. When I spoke to someone who knew something about it, one of the managers eventually, it was explained that it should not have been allowed because despite having paid, it is all linked to the system by the child's age, which is what determines the park ticket and DDP they are allocated. So your TA should be telling you that they can't, not that they will charge you extra. The only way they could have done mine was to cancel and re-book flights separately. Needless to say it was the last time I ever did a flight inclusive booking but just giving you a heads up that I fought with them for months on this and eventually was paid out compensation on top of my refund when I started quoting and copying them their own emails and terms and conditions. The outcome for me was fine financially, but it cost months of hassle and DD STILL ended up going on the kids DDP. That too was fine. The kids choices are a lot better and even at 10 she could not manage a full adult meal
 
You must have been very lucky with your servers because it goes against Disney's written policy on the Dining Plans and those servers are risking their jobs.

If the OP has booked flight inclusive, then this is the reason they are struggling to upgrade. The whole booking has to match the ages of the children, which needs to match their passports for the flights. By upgrading, they have to list the child's age as 10+ on your reservation. If for flight purposes the child is 8 for example, there is nothing you can do about it. I know because this happened when DD was 7 or 8.

Really?
Well that's a lot of servers then as we was doing 2 TS meals most days! They even allowed the kids to share an adult meal at pretty much every TS and gave 1 of them a free drink so they didn't have to share,
Thats how we managed to do a load of signatures and extra meals!! We have done this twice now and never had a problem considering they are 3 wk trips I don't think the servers have any problems with it.

When we called Disney travel company to change the ages they never had a problem with it either?
 
Really?
Well that's a lot of servers then as we was doing 2 TS meals most days! They even allowed the kids to share an adult meal at pretty much every TS and gave 1 of them a free drink so they didn't have to share,
Thats how we managed to do a load of signatures and extra meals!! We have done this twice now and never had a problem considering they are 3 wk trips I don't think the servers have any problems with it.

When we called Disney travel company to change the ages they never had a problem with it either?

We upgraded DS on his last trip as well without a problem (only thought about doing it after reading all the posts in the main section from people who had done it- would have never thought of it otherwise!). It wasn't a flight inclusive holiday though. We were just told that DS's age would be wrong in their system, but given that he'd be an adult by the time his next trip came around anyway we didn't see that being a problem.

Unless 2Tiggies misunderstood and thinks you didn't upgrade, just tried to get adult meals for your child?
 
We upgraded DS on his last trip as well without a problem (only thought about doing it after reading all the posts in the main section from people who had done it- would have never thought of it otherwise!). It wasn't a flight inclusive holiday though. We were just told that DS's age would be wrong in their system, but given that he'd be an adult by the time his next trip came around anyway we didn't see that being a problem.

Unless 2Tiggies misunderstood and thinks you didn't upgrade, just tried to get adult meals for your child?

No I didn't misunderstand :goodvibes

You upgraded no problem because flights were not included, as detailed in my earlier post.

Regarding ordering adult meals for children on a child's plan, all I was pointing out is that it is in violation of Disney's DDP terms and conditions which are clearly stated on the brochure and on their website. I don't challenge that servers did this so I'm not questioning Tinkerpea who is simply relating her own experience. All I am saying is it is seen as bad form to pay for one thing and then claim something else. Tinkerpea, this is not a knock at you - I'm just stating the facts because there seems to be a lot of confusion about this. If you changed your children's ages by calling Disney then that is a different matter as they would than have been on the correct plan for the meals they were ordering. But as you confirmed, yours was not flight inclusive and that is what stops guests from changing ages. It's the TA and airline that are unable to implement this, not Disney's own policy.
 
Regarding ordering adult meals for children on a child's plan, all I was pointing out is that it is in violation of Disney's DDP terms and conditions which are clearly stated on the brochure and on their website. I don't challenge that servers did this so I'm not questioning Tinkerpea who is simply relating her own experience. All I am saying is it is seen as bad form to pay for one thing and then claim something else. Tinkerpea, this is not a knock at you - I'm just stating the facts because there seems to be a lot of confusion about this. If you changed your children's ages by calling Disney then that is a different matter as they would than have been on the correct plan for the meals they were ordering. But as you confirmed, yours was not flight inclusive and that is what stops guests from changing ages. It's the TA and airline that are unable to implement this, not Disney's own policy.

Sorry, I thought Tinkerpea had originally said that she had upgraded her kids which is what I'd done and the servers were fine (but sometimes said something to the effect of "what, he's an adult?") so I was confused and I thought you were saying that we couldn't upgrade. Sorry, I'm too confused and muddling things for everyone ! :lmao: Time to go away and have more coffee! :lmao:
 
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