Coping with the pitiful kids meals

[molly2004]

Hi, there. We're planning our next trip right now and I've been hearing loads about the pitiful options for kids meals. My guys (DS 4, DS 4) are moody when it comes to eating. Sometimes they'll eat anything, sometimes they can be seriously finicky.

We're hoping to get a villa onsite so maybe I can pack their lunches. Are any of you planning ahead for your kids' meals? What are you doing? Would be great to get one adult meal and have them share, but who am I kidding?

Love to hear your thoughts!

 

[tinkandpan]

The best thing to do is to take a look at the menus on allears and note which places serve a few things the kids will eat. That way you know when you are at the park- where you can head to without getting there and having them not eat anything. I usually pack some snacks for the kids but for the most part we rely on the fare there to eat. My ds6 will eat almost anything but my dd2 is very picky. She does mass consume fruit and yogurt so I have always known ahead of time places where I can get that if we are doing a cs day.

 

[goodferry]

We had no trouble finding food on the kids menu that my girls would eat. They did have fruit and carrots and applesauce available everywhere, so I never worried about them getting enough to eat.
They often did pick off our plates also, they have two big brothers who are adults on the DDP, so there was always plenty of food. The only place we had trouble was at Pizzafari, they wanted pizza, duh, and it's not on the kids menu, which is possibly one of the stupidest things we encountered while dining at WDW.

 

[Tricia1972]

When we went I created a Word document that had all of the CS Menus printed on them. One for each park. Mid morning we'd sit on a bench and take a rest. EVERYONE in the party would take a look at the menus and see what 'mood' they were in. Usually we all ate together, but when some of us wanted Chicken but the others wanted hot dogs - we'd split up if necessary. It worked great for us! (we were also more efficient when it came to ordering because we knew what we wanted before we even got in line)

 

[HM]

Also, if you are not using the dining plan, then think about skipping any kid meals that don't appeal and share your adult meals with your children. We found that our kids (when younger) were more interested in what we were eating than having nuggets or mac/cheese.

 

[MimiYo]

I guess the kid cost in DDP is only $10/day so, for 3 days and 1 kid, not such a gamble for us as she can eat from our meals too...

However, is your experience, at the park and resort restaurants, that the kids menus are primarily of the mac cheese/chicken nugget type fare?!

 

[goodferry]

You can find the menus for all the restaurants at allearsnet to get an idea of what is available.

 

[MimiYo]

I had a feeling that was going to be the reply... Thx for the link.

I guess I just wanted to know folks' feelings about it. maybe the mac cheese is really good...? Maybe the kids plates are really fun and kids ate it anyway...

 

[sukhakuli]

I know I'm a weirdo, but we never buy kids meals. They share our meals in general. They really like adult food better. And trust me, my youngest is probably the pickiest little guy on the planet since his sensory issues run rampant with meals. He has a very, very, limited diet, and I have found that even he does better with adult meals. And it keeps my dh and I from overeating.

 

[distherapy]

I had a feeling that was going to be the reply... Thx for the link.

I guess I just wanted to know folks' feelings about it. maybe the mac cheese is really good...? Maybe the kids plates are really fun and kids ate it anyway...

I had a friend tell me her kids didn't like the mac and cheese (which is terrifying to me, as it's one of the few "guarantees" I have with my son). She said it was Stouffers-ish and her kids weren't used to that. Also, I thought if they had PB&J, I could obviously also get just PB, but sounds like the PB&J offering is just Uncrustables, which is not appealing to me (or my picky eaters).

We're just going to pack some PB crackers and try. I figure they won't starve - and maybe they'll even learn to like some new things!

 

[KimR]

We love the kids meals - where else but Disney can you find salmon on a kids menu? My DD is so excited because she loves salmon and normally just shares mine. Also, sometimes my kids will order an appetizer off the adult menu if that appeals to them or like others have said, they will have something off our plate. Our kids have never gone hungry in Disney.

 

[angel659]

I noticed that too at Pizzafari. I was rather baffled myself.

I was getting rather fed up with the children meals towards the end of the holdiay. It was either hot dog, mac n cheese, nuggets etc...

After eating at Ragland Road where my dd and sons ate Shepherds Pie it was a relief for us and for them.

Next time we go we will get the boys to share an adults meal. Casey will be 10 by then anyhow.

 

[disneyfan2]

the mac and cheese was not what my kids liked either. they really did not enjoy it. And my DD8 loves KD but HATED the mac in cheese everywhere in WDW. so our options were limited. as for CS sides they don;t like the applesauce and grew tired of grapes after the 2nd day. We were never given any substitution side dish options though?

 

[momx2]

I had a friend tell me her kids didn't like the mac and cheese (which is terrifying to me, as it's one of the few "guarantees" I have with my son). She said it was Stouffers-ish and her kids weren't used to that. Also, I thought if they had PB&J, I could obviously also get just PB, but sounds like the PB&J offering is just Uncrustables, which is not appealing to me (or my picky eaters).

We're just going to pack some PB crackers and try. I figure they won't starve - and maybe they'll even learn to like some new things!

Same with my kids. They do not eat mac and cheese or uncrustables. They won't even eat pb&j . They will eat a plain pb sandwich without the j. We had a horrible time with the meal plan.

 

[Hootch]

sprinkle in a few buffets they won't go hungry. Kids can eat off of the "adult" buffet and parents can eat off of the "kids" buffet.

My daughter is a very picky eater and we didn't have a problem getting her to eat at the CS locations.

 

[LilyWDW]

I noticed that too at Pizzafari. I was rather baffled myself.

From how I understand it from past posts about this, the machines they use to make the mass quantities of pizza only support a single size. As such, they are unable to make a smaller sized pizza for a kids meal option. If they just threw the current size into a kids meal, no one would pay a higher price to get the same thing as an adult meal.

 

[mom2aredhead]

There are as many posts complaining about "nothing but mac and cheese" as there are posts complaining that the kids meals are too extreme for the "picky eaters". When we were there last month, I found the TS choices to be decent - 1 or 2 "kid standards" and something to satisry a more adventurous eater. For every menu someone pulls up that has a hot dog, mac and cheese, and beef and macaroni as the only option, you can find one that has some sort of fish, grilled chicken or steak on it. The kids TS offerings really aren't that bad.
Sometimes we had an issue at the CS places, but we would either just share our adult meal with him OR (she says wearing a flame suit) my husband and I would split up on line and we would order 3 adult CS meals. And I slept perfectly soundly the nights we did that.

 

[MAKmom]

I guess the kid cost in DDP is only $10/day so, for 3 days and 1 kid, not such a gamble for us as she can eat from our meals too...

However, is your experience, at the park and resort restaurants, that the kids menus are primarily of the mac cheese/chicken nugget type fare?!

I thought the kids meals were great. Most restaurants had a kids choice that reflected where we were eating for TS.

My feeling is for $10.00 a day it is the bargain of the year.

 

[Brian Noble]

At CS locations, we ordered adult meals for our 6 and 8 y.o kids about half the time. We weren't on the plan, so it didn't really make much difference to us---a few extra dollars here and there is no big deal in order to get something they actually wanted.

We tend to stick to character meals and buffets for the most part for TS, but the few a la carte places we've tried always had something they'd eat.

 

[hoosiergirl7]

We are going in April and my DS who is 4 is not a picky eater by any means (and I am so thankful he's not). He likes everything from Sushi to Salmon. I think this time we will try and get 2 different adult meals and make him share with us. I tend to find that some of the adult meals offer a lot more food than I really need to eat anyhow. We won't be eating a lot of TS meals, but right now I have at least 2 buffet meals on our agenda and I know DS won't be content with what's offered but will also want to eat what we eat.