Crystal Palace....gastric bypass

[gschon]

Good Morning!!! We will be at WDW in 6 days!!!

My wife recently had the bypass surgery, and only eats very small meals.

Does anyone know if its possible to order a la carte at Crystal Palace????

 

[FelisLachesis]

Sorry, no. Since there's no way to verify how much someone's eaten (or not eaten) at an AYCTE restaurant, Disney charges the same price for every adult and the same price for every child coming in.

 

[Allison]

It is not.

 

[gschon]

Thank You

 

[Lisa F]

I had the sleeve done July 11th. I travel solo with my 9 year old so skipping character meals is not an option. I just planned for them to be breakfast because the cost is lower (and food is better IMO) and I just look it as... before surgery I paid $30 to see the characters and to get full on a meal. After surgery I am paying $30 to see the characters and get full on a meal. I don't think anyone can truly eat $30 worth of breakfast food anyway, it is all a matter of degree.

 

[bumbershoot]

I had the sleeve done July 11th. I travel solo with my 9 year old so skipping character meals is not an option. I just planned for them to be breakfast because the cost is lower (and food is better IMO) and I just look it as... before surgery I paid $30 to see the characters and to get full on a meal. After surgery I am paying $30 to see the characters and get full on a meal. I don't think anyone can truly eat $30 worth of breakfast food anyway, it is all a matter of degree.

That's a good way to look at it! We should all take that view instead of eating our money's worth.

 

[B-Ride]

This is a crazy idea but maybe with a Drs note you could order at a kid's price?

 

[Lisa F]

This is a crazy idea but maybe with a Drs note you could order at a kid's price?

Disney doesn't honor doctor's notes. If you have an allergy they will accommodate. They will not cut the prices for anyone for any reason. This would quickly become a way to game the system I am sure and they do not want to keep track of how much people eat there, which I can understand. Also they never want to be involved in doctor's notes for privacy concerns.

 

[Allison]

This is a crazy idea but maybe with a Drs note you could order at a kid's price?

No, it doesn't work like that.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Disney does not want to start taking MD notes. It opens them up to an entire new liability when the waiter is exposed to your personal health info

 

[TJDisneymama]

They will not cut the prices for anyone for any reason. s.

Not true. Every buffet restaurant in WDW charged my mother the children's price or didn't charge her at all, after we explained she had surgery and could only eat tiny amount of food.

 

[maxiesmom]

Not true. Every buffet restaurant in WDW charged my mother the children's price or didn't charge her at all, after we explained she had surgery and could only eat tiny amount of food.

She was very lucky. Outside of your post I have never ever heard of Disney discounting a buffet for any reason. And honestly, it was unfair of you to ask for a discount. Many people eat only a tiny amount of food at the buffet. Count your family exceedingly lucky.

 

[RangerPooh]

The only AYCTE restaurant on property that I was able to get the child's price was at Garden Grill, and that was after explaining to thew manager on duty (twice, once the day before then at check in) that 80% of my stomach was removed due to bariatric surgery and hat there was no way that I could eat more than a child's portion. We have CP booked for two meals during our X-mas trip and I expect to pay full price for both. If they honor great, if not oh well. I try to view it as paying for a character experience that just happens to have food included.

 

[TJDisneymama]

She was very lucky. Outside of your post I have never ever heard of Disney discounting a buffet for any reason. And honestly, it was unfair of you to ask for a discount. Many people eat only a tiny amount of food at the buffet. Count your family exceedingly lucky.

I don't think it's unfair at all. We asked if she could pay the children's price. Why should she pay $50-60 to eat literally 2 bites of food? I guess she could just not eat at all and ask to not be charged at all as she's really just accompanying the rest of us. (I mean, is there a 'rule' that if you're at a restaurant you HAVE to eat?)
And I've heard numerous instances of this happening on this board over the years.

 

[Faldred]

I don't think it's unfair at all. We asked if she could pay the children's price. Why should she pay $50-60 to eat literally 2 bites of food? I guess she could just not eat at all and ask to not be charged at all as she's really just accompanying the rest of us. (I mean, is there a 'rule' that if you're at a restaurant you HAVE to eat?)
And I've heard numerous instances of this happening on this board over the years.

A character meal is an "admission" meal, meaning you're paying the price of admission no matter how much or little you eat. Or, to put it another way, you're paying for the character experience, and the food is an included incidental.

 

[bumbershoot]

She was very lucky. Outside of your post I have never ever heard of Disney discounting a buffet for any reason. And honestly, it was unfair of you to ask for a discount. Many people eat only a tiny amount of food at the buffet. Count your family exceedingly lucky.

I used to hear of it. Not for a long time though.

I don't think it's unfair at all. We asked if she could pay the children's price. Why should she pay $50-60 to eat literally 2 bites of food? I guess she could just not eat at all and ask to not be charged at all as she's really just accompanying the rest of us. (I mean, is there a 'rule' that if you're at a restaurant you HAVE to eat?)
And I've heard numerous instances of this happening on this board over the years.

If the food offerings at a restaurant don't work for your party, don't go.

At a buffet you are expected to eat, yes. There is no one monitoring how much a person does eat, so this type of request is generally denied because it's so incredibly easy to lie about it.

You were very lucky.

 

[TJDisneymama]

wow, unfortunately my "luck" doesn't carry over to my purchase of lottery tickets.....but in WDW, every single restaurant we've eaten at the past few years (most buffets) - the manager on duty always had NO issue whatsoever charging her the children's price. And probably half the time, they didn't charge her at all. And at non-buffet restaurants, there was never an issue with her ordering off the children's menu either. They never once said no, and never batted an eye at our request. Doesn't seem so much luck to me at standard operating procedure. That's just been my experience on every trip, and we do a lot of character buffets.

 

[Pumbaa_]

Interesting. I have never heard of this being honored

No adult should go to any fixed price and expect to not pay an adult price.

Also, there is no patrolling of who eats or not. You enter, you are charged. I gave heard a few times where a child who slept through the entire meal was not charged but I have also read of a person on a feeding tube, incapable of eating, being charged

If your family was not, consider yourself very fortunate but it is not routine and you should always expect to pay the full charge

Ordering a child's meal is different than buffet or family style meals. There is no correlation

 

[Lisa F]

wow, unfortunately my "luck" doesn't carry over to my purchase of lottery tickets.....but in WDW, every single restaurant we've eaten at the past few years (most buffets) - the manager on duty always had NO issue whatsoever charging her the children's price. And probably half the time, they didn't charge her at all. And at non-buffet restaurants, there was never an issue with her ordering off the children's menu either. They never once said no, and never batted an eye at our request. Doesn't seem so much luck to me at standard operating procedure. That's just been my experience on every trip, and we do a lot of character buffets.

I don't think this is standard operating procedure as the DISboards is not the only place I've ever heard of people being denied the ability to pay kid's price on a regular basis... It is all over every bariatric support boards too, people complaining that disney won't honor their "please charge this patient less money" cards. There is lots of disappointment out there about the fact that Disney is not going to monitor food intake at AYCTE experiences and they charge by age ONLY.

It's just not realistic to do it any other way in a place as huge with as much volume as Disney. At what point do you decide that someone ate too much to charge for a kid's meal? Who gets to decide how much at a AYCTE place is "too much" to justify a kid's price? What about older people who eat like birds and who are there with the grandkids? What about people who don't want to eat a whole lot but do want to see the characters... if people PROMISE to only eat a certain volume of food, shouldn't they be able to pay kid's price too? It is just not practical to enforce and Disney would lose a mint if it got out that all you had to do was say that you had some kind of bariatric surgery in order to get charged the kid's price... they cannot (due to HIPPA rules) require any sort of medical proof (they cannot and do not for the DAS pass either), so it would be based on your word only. Anyone who believed that they were justified in being charged kid's price because they do not feel like they eat enough to justify the adult price would have to be allowed to be charged the kid's price for consistency. This would be a logistical nightmare.

Although I personally do not relish the idea of paying $30 for a breakfast where I will eat 3-4 oz of food, it is just part of the price for going to Disney and eating at a character meal, where everything is overpriced and as I said, it's just a matter of degree. I am fairly new at this but have done just fine at restaurants recently. We went to a chinese buffet my boyfriend frequents and they have a "to go" price per pound... he asked if they would allow me to weigh out my food and then eat at the table with the rest of the (large) party... since he is a regular there they allowed me to do this but one of old ladies who works (or maybe the owner) there basically stared at me the entire time, probably to make sure I was only eating my $2.27 worth of food and not eating off of my kid's plate. I can't possibly imagine how this would realistically work at an operation like Disney... you would have to rely on the "honor system" to police it, and we all know how well that goes.

Disney DOES allow adults to order off the kid's menu without question (and they don't ask or care why you are doing it) and I had great luck doing that at a Red Robin... the waitress had no interest whatsoever in why I wanted to order off the kid menu and was friendly and accommodating. They also allow you to share plates without a plate splitting charge (doesn't work for me since I travel with my picky kid and I am not eating what he eats to save a few $$ but when I am out with the boyfriend he will often accommodate my tastes and let me eat a bit off his plate). Appetizers are an option too. But at the a la carte places I'm going, if I want an entree I will order it and eat what I can and pitch the rest rather than arguing with the restaurant that they should make me a half portion.

But if you want an AYCTE place you kind of have to suck up and deal with the rules from everything I've read and not just here. Which is fine by me... even though I got the surgery, believe it or not I was never a huge eater and never went to buffets so that I could stuff myself full of "$50 or $60 worth of food." I could never eat that much at one sitting and there is nothing on the disney buffets remotely worth that in reasonable volumes. I have never tried to "eat my money's worth" at any buffet, but especially not a Disney buffet when it is often hot out and we are doing a ton of walking and riding on rides... none of that is fun if you feel like a python that is trying to digest a pig. it was always more about the overall experience and ambiance and getting myself fed and satisfied and if I was ok paying the price for that before, I am ok paying it now. I mean really, if I could eat a dozen more eggs I'd get another $2.79 value out of it? yuck, who wants to do that?

As I said, breakfast is a great option because it's not $50 or $60, it's "only" around $30 and the protein options are varied and plentiful. It's $10 more for adults over kids. Really it is completely not worth even batting an eye over in the context of a multi thousand dollar vacation! Perspective is a great thing

 

[Lisa F]

I don't think it's unfair at all. We asked if she could pay the children's price. Why should she pay $50-60 to eat literally 2 bites of food? I guess she could just not eat at all and ask to not be charged at all as she's really just accompanying the rest of us. (I mean, is there a 'rule' that if you're at a restaurant you HAVE to eat?)
And I've heard numerous instances of this happening on this board over the years.

No one cares if you eat, they only care if you pay The point is exactly that, no one is going to monitor how much you eat. They charge by age and then they are done with it. There are some 9 year olds who do a lot of damage but they are not charging them adult prices because of it either!