Under 3 at disney

[hookedonears]

Disney considers you an adult at age 10.

10-11. It's been a few years and a few trips. All I remember is it pi&% me off.

 

[SEC]

I agree with pp about watching bill. We are staying at BLT now and have eaten at Chef Mickey's twice. At dinner they charged for my 2.75 year old. When I pointed out that she was under 3 they quickly adjusted my bill. When we entered the magic kingdom on Saturday a cast member asked how old she was. She is very tall and is often thought of as older.

 

[MommytoaSweetie]

That is EXACTLY what GS's recommended we do. Take food off our plate and place it on the TABLE in front of the child. Um? Like I would feed my dog? Then they suggested she (or guess or he, lol we only have girls) could sit on an adults lap and eat from their plate. Sounds fun huh?

Honestly after that I upgraded her so we would have the extra meals in case the server refused to take her off the tab we would have DDP meals to use.

It was only (I think) 12.99 a day to add her and she got her own two snacks plus we had the meals to use for the meals that weren't buffets. It always saved us money and I didn't have to worry about making my very independent daughter sit on my lap at 2.5 to eat from my plate. Or making her eat off the table. Which she would have not done anyway (she has OCD and this would NOT have flown ~ ever).

That's so weird! I guess that technically, those are the rules... from the DDP wording, "The Disney Dining Plan is unavailable for Guests under the age of 3, but they may share from an adult plate at no charge, or a meal may be purchased from the menu." I always took that to assume an adult plate at a non-buffet restaurant, where the food on the plate is all we're getting, but I do remember reading that before our first Dining Plan trip (back in 2008) because I remember getting two plates at a buffet but holding them together (one on top of the other) and then dishing the extra food I got for my DD onto the second plate at the table. I figured that way it was OFF of my plate, but onto a random empty plate I got. I don't think I did that last time, though, and then we had two under 3 who were free and never got charged. I'd be super annoyed if we did!

Anyway, my long rambled point is that I totally agree about checking the bill - I would assume that the restaurant would be more willing to correct the issue, but GS can't do anything so they just give you the standard answer (that's ridiculous!).

 

[2binak]

I remember getting two plates at a buffet but holding them together (one on top of the other) and then dishing the extra food I got for my DD onto the second plate at the table.

This is what we did at the 2 buffets we ate at last year and plan to do again this year (DD will be 33 months old during our trip). We grabbed an extra empty plate from the buffet lines, put the food on our plates & then gave DD the empty plate and took food off of our plate and put it on her's. At table service restaurants, we just asked for an extra plate for DD and gave her some of our food from our plates. We didn't have any problems getting the extra plate and we weren't charged anything.

I'm not saying that being charged for an under 3 yr old at buffets doesn't happen, just like with most everything else at Disney, I'm sure there are CM's who aren't aware of all of the rules, I'm just saying that this is what we've done and we have not been charged for DD's meals.

It's always good to check your bill before you pay, whether you're eating at Disney or anywhere else. We've even been given the check for other tables before (not at Disney though). Mistakes happen.

 

[TandLMommy28]

My son turned 3 during our trip just three weeks ago and he was most definitely free. He didn't have a park ticket and he didn't get a dining plan. We never had an issue with our meals, but we did all buffets and the server asked us each time how old the kids were.

The one thing I DID do was pay for his MNSSHP ticket because we went after his birthday. Even though I was told he was free for the whole week, that was a separate ticket event and we were going after he was 3. I just felt better about it. I wasn't sure if "infants" were allowed to trick or treat.