[B]2.5 yr old allowed on DDP w/out park ticket[/B]

[principessa7]

2.5 yr old allowed on DDP w/out park ticket They allowed us to pay for our 2.5 yr old to be on the dining plan as a child. If we were go to a buffet for dinner or character breakfast would we have to use a TS credit although he is under 3 years of age.
Sticky situation!! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. We were told he would not need a park ticket. He would only be designated a "child" for the DDP.

 

[brymolmom]

Wow- I didn't think they allowed you to do that until they're 3. Seems to me like it's pretty cut and dried - any time you either bring dc to a buffet or order a meal for him/her at a sit down - you subract a TS credit for the child plus any for the adults that you use.

Since they allowed you to specially buy the DP - I wouldn't personally think it would be fair to let the child be 'free' at the buffets and save the TS for later - If we did it for our dd - I would feel obligated to treat her like a 3 year old instead of a 2 year old.

Are you sure you want to buy it for the child? If you plan on doing a lot of buffets, maybe it wouldn't be worth it - since under 3 is free anyway. We did DP for free last Sept, and there is a lot of food - enough to share some meals with children who are under 3 in many cases.

I originally thought last year that we'd be buying a lot of meals for our 2 year old, but that didn't end up happening. This Sept - we're confident that we'll be all set with some meal splitting and a couple purchased meals - and she'll be only 3 weeks shy of being 3.

Good luck.

 

[dawnball]

We did that last fall, but had to buy one-day park passes for the <3 set. We just handed the cards to our server and let them subtract what was appropriate - but we were never charged credits for the tiny ones at buffets, even though the cards indicated the kids were on the dining plan. I suspect it was because the reservations indicated they were 1 and 2. We ended up just letting their "extra" credits expire, because we couldn't eat more food than the dining plan gave us.

 

[Letsbgoofy]

Why wouldn't you use a credit for his meal? What would you do with the extra credits?

Disney is being ver accomodating by letting you buy the dining plan without purchasing a ticket for your child. Keep that in mind when making your decision.

 

[bicker]

That was very generous of Disney to bend the rules for you. I agree with the others: Just go ahead an use the credits you purchased with the child credits for the meals for your two year old. If you run out of credits before the end of your trip, you can pay out-of-pocket for the extra.

 

[jjohnson]

Did you book your package directly thru Disney? I'm very surprised they allowed this & would doublecheck to make sure the CM knew what they were doing.

 

[beattyfamily]

2.5 yr old allowed on DDP w/out park ticket They allowed us to pay for our 2.5 yr old to be on the dining plan as a child. If we were go to a buffet for dinner or character breakfast would we have to use a TS credit although he is under 3 years of age.
Sticky situation!! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. We were told he would not need a park ticket. He would only be designated a "child" for the DDP.

It will show how many are on the plan on your room card so I expect they will charge you for your 2.5 year old at all restaurants.

I think they will charge you and I think they should.

 

[Tinkerbellmom33]

jjohnson:
Yes they will let you do this. My friend had a CM actually reccomend her putting her 2 1/2 yr old on the plan. She stated that if he ate a hotdog with a drink and had an ice cream, his 10.99 already paid for itself.

 

[p2oh]

I am very interested in this as my AAA TA told me this is not possible. Who should I call and speak with to verify this is possible. Thanks!

 

[beattyfamily]

I am very interested in this as my AAA TA told me this is not possible. Who should I call and speak with to verify this is possible. Thanks!

Just call Disney at their main number.

 

[p2oh]

The CM I spoke to said we could not do this. So I guess it is one of those things that depends on the CM. Oh well!

 

[beattyfamily]

The CM I spoke to said we could not do this. So I guess it is one of those things that depends on the CM. Oh well!

That's so true. You could call back 3 more times and get 3 different answers.

I have heard of others putting their under 3 year old on the dining plan but I believe they did buy a one-day ticket.

 

[p2oh]

I wouldn't mind doing that but we have nine day tickets and would have to put everyone on the same ticket and then upgrade the ones we want to upgrade. It would just be more hassle than it would be worth.

 

[Aristomommy]

So how does this work during the free dining plan period? I thought about asking if we could get the DP for DS since we are doing only a few buffets and he eats more than his 7yo big sister! I would rather pay a one day base ticket, if he would get free dining than mix credits and money everywhere. If it's not allowed, obviously we will just pay OOP.

 

[PrincessMommyof2]

Along the lines of the original post, can anyone answer me this. My 5 year old and 1 year old daughters always split meals at restaurant now. Neither of them can usually finish a whole plate, even kid's portions. Our AAA TA said that it was no problem and that they could share at Disney. Is this going to be a problem? Will I need to buy a DDP for the 1 yr old (she'll just be turning 2)?

 

[beattyfamily]

Along the lines of the original post, can anyone answer me this. My 5 year old and 1 year old daughters always split meals at restaurant now. Neither of them can usually finish a whole plate, even kid's portions. Our AAA TA said that it was no problem and that they could share at Disney. Is this going to be a problem? Will I need to buy a DDP for the 1 yr old (she'll just be turning 2)?

A 2 year old eats for free at WDW anyway, except at places where you order off a menu.

Also, they have no problem with sharing.

 

[bicker]

You could call back 3 more times and get 3 different answers.

That's why folks shouldn't rely on word-of-mouth. If you have a question and you're going to make important decisions bad on the answer to that question, write for a reply. Disney will respond, and then that written response will serve as back-up for your assertion that you should get what you expect:

[size=-1]Walt Disney World Guest Communications
PO Box 10040
Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830-0040

wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com. [/size]

 

[MommyPoppins]

Why would you pay to have your 2 year old on the plan anyway? All buffets are free for them and they don't eat that much that you can't share your own food. We're going for 10 nights in Sept. Three of those days my family is coming into town and we plan on sharing our credits with them. Even with sharing with them, we are still eating TS 9 of those 10 nights of our trip. There is WAY too much food to not share your meals. Last year we didn't share and were full and miserable all the time. We never even really got to enjoy our food.

 

[PreppyPolyMom]

Along the lines of the original post, can anyone answer me this. My 5 year old and 1 year old daughters always split meals at restaurant now. Neither of them can usually finish a whole plate, even kid's portions. Our AAA TA said that it was no problem and that they could share at Disney. Is this going to be a problem? Will I need to buy a DDP for the 1 yr old (she'll just be turning 2)?

We are taking 5 children and the youngest are: 2 (will be 3 end of August) and 1 (will be 2 in September). They are nor on the dining plan between me, hubby and the 3 other kids, they will share and that is perfectly fine and legal. All our kids don't eat very much, the only one that does is DS and he is 11 and on the adult plan anyway. We have 3 A and 2 C on the plan.

 

[Calliaz]

Why would you pay to have your 2 year old on the plan anyway? All buffets are free for them and they don't eat that much that you can't share your own food.

I wish we had put our 2.5 year old on the plan. Most of the time we did not want the same food and, therefore, sharing wasn't going to work. We ended up having lots of problems with credits because servers deducted for his kid's meals even when we wanted to pay cash. It wasn't about the quantity of food but the variety.