Character meal price

[dolphindan1]

We are taking my 2 year old Niece on our next trip...I am trying to budget now...I cant find the price for a 2 year old anywhere for any meal..I see where it says price for 3-9 but what is it for under 3...been to Disney many times but never with anyone this young...

 

[TDC Nala]

Children under three eat free at buffets and all you can eat family style restaurants.

At a la carte restaurants you can share with her or just buy her a kids' meal.

 

[Suellen]

Children under three eat free at buffets and all you can eat family style restaurants.

At a la carte restaurants you can share with her or just buy her a kids' meal.

I just want to point out that we were charged the 3-9 price at two buffets because we got DD her own plate. When I called GS they said they are only free if they eat off your plate or you can take food off your plate and place it on the table in front of the child.

We have been a lot with kids under 3 ~ but now we upgrade the childs age to 3 so she can eat off her own plate.

YMMV.

 

[bamamolly]

I just want to point out that we were charged the 3-9 price at two buffets because we got DD her own plate. When I called GS they said they are only free if they eat off your plate or you can take food off your plate and place it on the table in front of the child.

We have been a lot with kids under 3 ~ but now we upgrade the childs age to 3 so she can eat off her own plate.

YMMV.

I didn't have that problem with my child when we were there when she was 2. We got her her own plate and weren't charged anything since they knew she was under two. This time we're going back and will be buying one child's meal as my then 2 year old is now 5 but we will have our second dd with us who is just 2. If this has changed, please let me know. Neither of my kids eat much so I'd hate to have to pay for another meal when not much food will be eaten and I'd hate for her to not have a plate. She eats off a plate at home so she should when were are out too.

 

[Suellen]

I didn't have that problem with my child when we were there when she was 2. We got her her own plate and weren't charged anything since they knew she was under two. This time we're going back and will be buying one child's meal as my then 2 year old is now 5 but we will have our second dd with us who is just 2. If this has changed, please let me know. Neither of my kids eat much so I'd hate to have to pay for another meal when not much food will be eaten and I'd hate for her to not have a plate. She eats off a plate at home so she should when were are out too.

My DD was about 2.5 then and now she is almost 5. They kids meal plan is so cheap it was just better for us than making her eat off the table.

It only happened to us twice ~ it happened to be on a three day trip. The GS person I talked to was quite rude about it too. They eventually did refund our money ~ but it was a hassle. Since we ended up paying for her other meals anyway it was cheaper and less stress than worrying about paying for her anyway.

Like I said YMMV ~ also check your bill carefully if you are on dining. We have had them use DD5 credits for DD2 even when DD2 wasn't on the meal plan. We have had to have that fixed at least a dozen times and it takes forever.

 

[bamamolly]

My DD was about 2.5 then and now she is almost 5. They kids meal plan is so cheap it was just better for us than making her eat off the table.

It only happened to us twice ~ it happened to be on a three day trip. The GS person I talked to was quite rude about it too. They eventually did refund our money ~ but it was a hassle. Since we ended up paying for her other meals anyway it was cheaper and less stress than worrying about paying for her anyway.

Like I said YMMV ~ also check your bill carefully if you are on dining. We have had them use DD5 credits for DD2 even when DD2 wasn't on the meal plan. We have had to have that fixed at least a dozen times and it takes forever.

Yeah, it's nasty to have the kids eat off the table. I'll definitely be checkin our bills after each meal to make sure they don't charge us. Sounds like our kids are the same ages. Should be fun for both of them!!

 

[Suellen]

Looks like you are going about the same time as us too! We checkin on the 16th at BCV. My girls LOVE WdW and the 4.5 loves to eat at all the fancy TS.

 

[Tiger926]

I just want to point out that we were charged the 3-9 price at two buffets because we got DD her own plate. When I called GS they said they are only free if they eat off your plate or you can take food off your plate and place it on the table in front of the child.

We have been a lot with kids under 3 ~ but now we upgrade the childs age to 3 so she can eat off her own plate.

YMMV.

RE: Under 3 - When was this, and what restaurants? Did you speak to a manager? Kids under 3 are free as Nala said, at buffets and all you care to eat places - you may get them their own plate at a buffet, and at places like CRT and Akershus, they bring them their own kids' meal for free. If you eat at non-buffet TS restaurants and order a kids' meal, then you will be charged. Although we have had some places not charge us for meals, and some restaurants actually bring out beverages for the kids for free too. I think there is some confusion in this area, from time to time.

RE: Eating off the table - I'm not even sure what the heck you are talking about...? They don't make kids eat off of tables, so not sure what happened? Some restaurants might make a child share from an adult plate, so why not do that?

Not sure what happened with you, but we've eaten everywhere, and haven't heard of this happening. Must have been a fluke in your case, so sorry this happened to you. I wouldn't want people thinking this is the norm, because I am pretty confident it is not.

Tiger

 

[bamamolly]

Looks like you are going about the same time as us too! We checkin on the 16th at BCV. My girls LOVE WdW and the 4.5 loves to eat at all the fancy TS.

How fun! I like the "fancy TS" too since I never got to eat in restaurants in Disney as a kid. We always camped so we ate back at the camper. We will be checking in on the 22nd and surprising my ODD for her 6th birthday. We're staying at All-Star Movies.

 

[Suellen]

It happened to us at Crystal Palace and 1900 Park Fare. I didn't talk to the manager because DH paid and didn't think anything of it. When I was looking at the receipts when we got home I realized it.

I called GS to get it taken care of and the rep told me that the kids are ONLY free if they eat off your plate. If you get them a plate you are required to pay. I told her that my child wouldn't like to have to eat off my plate and that she would want her own "food". Guest Service suggested I could take my food off my plate and place it on the table in front of her as long as she didn't have a plate.

I am just saying ~ it happened to us twice during a weekend trip. When we went back about 3 or 4 weeks later I just paid the 9.99 per day for her because it was easier and actually worked out cheaper for her too.

I don't know if something was going on that weekend but we were also questioned about having a ticket for her and when I said that she was under three the CM rolled his eyes and said "That's what they all say" Granted she is tall (always has been) and started talking at 5 months old so she has quite the speech patterns.... but still. I asked if he wanted to see her Birth Certificate and he opened the gate for the stroller.

Again ~ it has never happened to us since with DD2 ~ but we got dining for her in Sept and did for this next trip too.

I am just warning ~ watch out for it ~ it HAS happened.

 

[humboldthny]

I don't know if something was going on that weekend but we were also questioned about having a ticket for her and when I said that she was under three the CM rolled his eyes and said "That's what they all say" Granted she is tall (always has been) and started talking at 5 months old so she has quite the speech patterns.... but still. I asked if he wanted to see her Birth Certificate and he opened the gate for the stroller.

After reading your original post I wondered if that's what happened...our dd has always been tall for her age, has really clear speech, and just 'looks' older than she is. She's 6 now and she's regularly mistaken for a 7 or 8 year old. Altho' we didn't have to deal with this at WDW as she was 4 when we went the first time, we've run into the same issue other places, so I can totally sympathize. Those looks you get get a little old after awhile.

 

[Tiger926]

It happened to us at Crystal Palace and 1900 Park Fare. I didn't talk to the manager because DH paid and didn't think anything of it. When I was looking at the receipts when we got home I realized it.

I called GS to get it taken care of and the rep told me that the kids are ONLY free if they eat off your plate. If you get them a plate you are required to pay. I told her that my child wouldn't like to have to eat off my plate and that she would want her own "food". Guest Service suggested I could take my food off my plate and place it on the table in front of her as long as she didn't have a plate.

I am just saying ~ it happened to us twice during a weekend trip. When we went back about 3 or 4 weeks later I just paid the 9.99 per day for her because it was easier and actually worked out cheaper for her too.

I don't know if something was going on that weekend but we were also questioned about having a ticket for her and when I said that she was under three the CM rolled his eyes and said "That's what they all say" Granted she is tall (always has been) and started talking at 5 months old so she has quite the speech patterns.... but still. I asked if he wanted to see her Birth Certificate and he opened the gate for the stroller.

Again ~ it has never happened to us since with DD2 ~ but we got dining for her in Sept and did for this next trip too.

I am just warning ~ watch out for it ~ it HAS happened.

Thanks for the explanation - sorry it happened to you. But I thoroughly believe it was a total fluke. We have eaten everywhere, multiple times, with both babes, who are very advanced for their ages, and quite tall, and not 1x has this happened, in this way. Does it mean it can't happen? Obviously not, since it happened to you, and I believe overcharging or mispricing happens at tons of restaurants each day, but the way it happened is hard for me to understand. You should have spoken to the manager straight away. Did you discuss your child's age with your server before ordering? Remember, servers go by what is put into the system for the age of your child, so if the correct age was placed into the system by you, then you should have spoken to a manager and gone from there. They have the right to question an age, as I've seen people scam before, but the whole process of what you describe is problematic.

The other thing is that they just can't add a child's DP without adding a ticket. As a DVC member, we can add the DP without tix, but we are the only ones?How did they handle the ticket portion? Are you a DVC member?

Again, a total fluke and one that I really don't think is a problem at Disney World on a regular basis. You are the first person I have ever read about on the Disboards with this happening. The CM who told you to eat off of the table, was absolultely ridiculous too! But the other thing, is that you always need to handle this type of issue at time of purchase. Guest Relations is now having to deal with some lady calling on the phone, claiming that she was overcharged for her kid. Imagine how many of those calls they get in a day? Always best to deal with this at the restaurant. We've had this happen several times at other restaurants - servers make errors, and so it needs to be corrected at that time.

Tiger

 

[Suellen]

You should have spoken to the manager straight away. Did you discuss your child's age with your server before ordering? Remember, servers go by what is put into the system for the age of your child, so if the correct age was placed into the system by you, then you should have spoken to a manager and gone from there. They have the right to question an age, as I've seen people scam before, but the whole process of what you describe is problematic.

The other thing is that they just can't add a child's DP without adding a ticket. As a DVC member, we can add the DP without tix, but we are the only ones?How did they handle the ticket portion? Are you a DVC member?



Tiger

To the first part. She was listed as 2 on the reservation ~ of as infant as what they call it. Also if you read my post you would have seen that I said I didn't see the bill until we got home and DH didn't know any better so he just paid it.


As to the second part of your post this is just NOT true. AP holders also can add dining without buying tickets. We are annual passholders. Please don't give out information like that that isn't true.

As DVC you have a different reservation for the room and the dining. For Z this next trip we did upgrade her age on the dining portion of the reservation without messing with our BCV room reservation (it would make 5 in a 1 bedroom) because DVC does have two different reservations ~ one for the room and one for dining and they are not linked.

As an AP holder you CAN upgrade the age of your almost three year old to get dining for the child. On top of that we told the person on the phone exactly what we were doing and they were fine with it.

So she cost us 20.99 x 7 = 147.00 more than 1/2 our meals we will have to buy a kids meal for her.

Say 7.59 X 10 = 75.90
She will get her own mug = ~14.00
She will get her own snacks = ~ 56.00

That is $145 so for about $2 more we get all her meals covered AND don't have the stress of:

a. making sure they aren't using DD(5) meal credits for DD(2.5) and YES this has happened to us a LOT.

b. making sure we aren't charged for DD(2.5) at buffets.

the math just makes sense for us. With the QS dining it makes even more sense.

When we didn't have AP we would have just a 1 day ticket on our package and upgrade to what we needed while saving DD's tickets for her in the future. We have burned through all those and she has an AP now.

No waste and a MUCH less stressful dining experience for us.

 

[TLinden16]

I'm going to move this over to our restaurant board.

 

[Tiger926]

To the first part. She was listed as 2 on the reservation ~ of as infant as what they call it. Also if you read my post you would have seen that I said I didn't see the bill until we got home and DH didn't know any better so he just paid it.


As to the second part of your post this is just NOT true. AP holders also can add dining without buying tickets. We are annual passholders. Please don't give out information like that that isn't true.

As DVC you have a different reservation for the room and the dining. For Z this next trip we did upgrade her age on the dining portion of the reservation without messing with our BCV room reservation (it would make 5 in a 1 bedroom) because DVC does have two different reservations ~ one for the room and one for dining and they are not linked.

As an AP holder you CAN upgrade the age of your almost three year old to get dining for the child. On top of that we told the person on the phone exactly what we were doing and they were fine with it.

So she cost us 20.99 x 7 = 147.00 more than 1/2 our meals we will have to buy a kids meal for her.

Say 7.59 X 10 = 75.90
She will get her own mug = ~14.00
She will get her own snacks = ~ 56.00

That is $145 so for about $2 more we get all her meals covered AND don't have the stress of:

a. making sure they aren't using DD(5) meal credits for DD(2.5) and YES this has happened to us a LOT.

b. making sure we aren't charged for DD(2.5) at buffets.

the math just makes sense for us. With the QS dining it makes even more sense.

When we didn't have AP we would have just a 1 day ticket on our package and upgrade to what we needed while saving DD's tickets for her in the future. We have burned through all those and she has an AP now.

No waste and a MUCH less stressful dining experience for us.

I did not realize this was the case at all - I thought it was only DVC members who could add the DP. When did this start? I wasn't trying to pass off false information at all - I was concerned that you ended up having to pay for a ticket, and that was confusing to me. That's good info to know for some of my friends.

I'm really not sure what you are talking about in regards to DVC and the room reservation. Are you talking about a split stay? Disney lets you add it to your room reservation without a ticket, and you can mix it up for split stays. It sounds like you are saying you make a separate dining reservation and resort reservation, and this is not how we have ever experienced this. You make a resort reservation, and can add the DP, but it's not a separate reservation number. You don't get reservation numbers for the DP. This is very interesting info...

Hopefully, it all works out for you - it sounds like you have spoken to them about it, and so it sounds like it will work out well for your family. They told us different info (several supervisors), as we contemplated the same thing last year for our hungry baby, but they said they would only allow us to add our infant if he was within 1 month of turning 3, and then there would be a tix issue at some point as the age in the computer was incorrect.

I might be confusing something, so pardon me if that is the case. It's all very interesting to me to understand these facts though, as I spoke to MS and Disney Dining about this very thing, and got different info than you did...which isn't surprising with Disney - LOL!

Have a great trip, and thanks for providing this info, Tiger

 

[Suellen]

We have upgraded DD's age since she was 2.5 and she will be 5 in July ~ so APH have been able to add dining since at least 2.5 years ago.

We have never been told "no" to upgrading either of the kids ages. Don't know why they would have told you that.

For the DVC we are 3 adults 1 child and 1 infant (Zoe at 2.5) we wanted to upgrade Z's age but that would have put us over the 4 person limit in the room. When we called to ask they rep told us that for DVC there are TWO reservations and that changing the dining doesn't effect the room ressie b/c they are not linked. When they started letting DVC add dining they couldn't do it in the DVC reservation system ~ so there is a different system for the dining. While they may have the same ressie number and be referenced somehow ~ they are not linked. So upgrading her age on the dining didn't effect the room. At least that is what she told us. So on the room she is listed with her correct age and on the dining she is listed as 3. She will actually (this time) be within 2 weeks of being 3 ~ but like I said ~ we have upgraded the age several times an not had a problem.

I even checked in to AKV and realized that she wasn't on the dining plan and went to the front desk and they changed her age ~ charged our card and printed us new KTTW with the correct information.

Sorry ~ I know this is all WAY OT.

 

[Tiger926]

We have upgraded DD's age since she was 2.5 and she will be 5 in July ~ so APH have been able to add dining since at least 2.5 years ago.

We have never been told "no" to upgrading either of the kids ages. Don't know why they would have told you that.

For the DVC we are 3 adults 1 child and 1 infant (Zoe at 2.5) we wanted to upgrade Z's age but that would have put us over the 4 person limit in the room. When we called to ask they rep told us that for DVC there are TWO reservations and that changing the dining doesn't effect the room ressie b/c they are not linked. When they started letting DVC add dining they couldn't do it in the DVC reservation system ~ so there is a different system for the dining. While they may have the same ressie number and be referenced somehow ~ they are not linked. So upgrading her age on the dining didn't effect the room. At least that is what she told us. So on the room she is listed with her correct age and on the dining she is listed as 3. She will actually (this time) be within 2 weeks of being 3 ~ but like I said ~ we have upgraded the age several times an not had a problem.

I even checked in to AKV and realized that she wasn't on the dining plan and went to the front desk and they changed her age ~ charged our card and printed us new KTTW with the correct information.

Sorry ~ I know this is all WAY OT.

Thanks - I didn't mean to hijack the thread at all. Interesting info, as it's different from what I was told.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it, as it's been helpful, Tiger

 

[Suellen]

Thanks - I didn't mean to hijack the thread at all. Interesting info, as it's different from what I was told.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it, as it's been helpful, Tiger

No problem. I never really thought about it being a problem since we were paying more money to them.

Unless you are over the 4 person limit I would just call and say you want to change the age on the little one.

We use our snacks to bring home stuff for family. They love the chocolate covered rice crispy mickey's and the fudge, chocolate covered strawberries. It works out well. We use very few snacks during the week. I mean DxDP provides plenty to eat with each meal!