I think the menu restaurant kids meals are horrible.....very limited choices and reportedly poor tasting too.
Crystal Palace, Chef Mickeys and Akershus are all character meals, so while they'll be more chaotic and nosiy, isn't that exactly what most kids want! And you get to be hugged by Pooh and Friends, Mickey and Friends, and Princesses! The kids will enjoy these a lot more than a menu place with limited kid's meals food choices and nothing to do but eat.
Boma isn't a character meal, and it is definitely more exotic offerings than most kids are used to. I always encouraged my kids to try "just a bite" of new things at buffets....it's a great way to experiment without the risk of ordering off the menu and then not liking it. My kids almost always found at least one new thing that they really liked....something they'd have never discovered at a menu meal. There are also enough items for a non-adventerous child to find some things to eat.
Financially, you've picked some of the more expensive buffets so that will help get your "value" out of the
DDP. At he three character meals remember part of your cost is food and the other part is entertainment.
I personally don't advocate the DDP because for my family it would never be worth the cost, because we tend to share meals because of small appetites....but we do have quite a few buffets (where obviously you can't share) beacuse the entertainment/characters are what we are after. Even with all those the math doesn't work for us to save on the DDP.
If you are concerned about whether you'll get your money's worth during your stay.....check
www.allearsnet.com/menu/menus.htm for non-DDP prices and compare that to what you're paying for the DDP to see if you really want to do the DDP. If your kids are 9 or under, the DDP is only $10 a day for them, so that makes it possible to be a good deal for families who only want to eat at buffets or simple meals.....if your kids are over 10, though, it may not be worth $38 a day to feed them. Like I said, my kids and I tend to share meals because of small appetites....at CS we typically order 2 meals and share....at TS we tend to order 2 meals and an appetizer, and rarely have room for dessert, but if we do we get one and share as a few bites are all we want. They're over 10 so $114 for the 3 of us is wayyy more than we'll spend each day. A couple of days we'll reach that amount because of special restaraunts we've chosen, but the other days we're overpaying by quite a bit, so it's cheaper for us to use the DDE card and save.
