Counter Service Kids Menus Are Really Limited!

[DCDisney]

Most of your suggestions make sense but Disney desiged the plan to be simple. It's easy just to have coffee and a muffin in your room for breakfast.

But it seems like at this point they know we've already paid for our dining plan meals so once we are there the main goal is to get dining plan folks to pay OOP for more meals. They seem to be trying to make it more difficult to share by decreasing portion sizes at TS and things like eliminating breakfast dessert which was allowing people to share 1 CS very easily. By easing up on snack credits I bet people use those credits up much faster and then buy more OOP snacks. Maybe they've found that kids are the ones asking for snacks and by giving them smaller meals people are more likely to spend OOP. Rather than spend a lot of money trying to reconfigure the computer system I think they are just tweaking things to see what results in the most OOP spending. I'm shocked that they don't have a sharing charge though now that most of the restaurants are filled up though maybe people who share end up buying more alcohol OOP.... In terms of the using kids credits for adult meals I'm not sure they lose much money on that unless someone is really working the plan which takes more time and energy than most people devote to it. We did get our kids cheese pizza at pizzafari on our last trip but they both got water to drink and shared a dessert so in terms of cost to disney it was less than if they had both gotten kids meals, drinks, and dessert.

Yvonne

 

[eeyore45]

We share CS meals, I dont know if the CM's can stop that - its just too plain busy, and it may not be in the problem, or in FAQ -

I get in line, get a large CS meal, and take it to dh who is at the table (oops, I know flame retardant suit on) and then I'll get in line and get dd a meal of her liking - I do this for breakfast and for lunch, sometimes I will pay oop for a side of bacon for breakfast -

We share CS because its a lot of food, and that we we get our 3 full meals a day - if I'm using a 2TS signature that day, then on another day we may eat 3 CS meals, we usually do character meals, buffets so TS we usually dont share - even at the 2TS, the portions seem to be smaller, but high quality, and we usually order alcohol (wine) to go with the meal...

and like many have posted, it will be interesting to see how the technology keeps up with this - maybe they will have someone at a central computer tracking all of the card swiping of ddp credits? Maybe at the resorts when we ask for a receipt they'll get the ruler out and smack my knuckles for sharing...

 

[Lewisc]

Some of us manage to complicate something simple. Have breakfast in your room, CS for lunch and TS for dinner. Avoid the two credit meals. The plan works well. A TS credit is designed to feed one person. It makes sense to shrink portion sizes since guests are now ordering a three course meal.

I suspect the internet has caused a lot more guests to pay for the kids meals in order to use the credits for adult meals than Disney anticipated. It sounds like a number of famlies used the plan to treat family members staying offsite.

I'm not sure the system is being tweaked to motivate more OOP spending but rather to ensure the system is being used as it was intended. That is to say to provide two meals a day for the family that bought the plan. NOT to provide food for three meals a day and NOT to feed friends and family members not on the plan.

Eliminating dessert from breakfast made CS breakfast a poor use of credits.

But it seems like at this point they know we've already paid for our dining plan meals so once we are there the main goal is to get dining plan folks to pay OOP for more meals. They seem to be trying to make it more difficult to share by decreasing portion sizes at TS and things like eliminating breakfast dessert which was allowing people to share 1 CS very easily. By easing up on snack credits I bet people use those credits up much faster and then buy more OOP snacks. Maybe they've found that kids are the ones asking for snacks and by giving them smaller meals people are more likely to spend OOP. Rather than spend a lot of money trying to reconfigure the computer system I think they are just tweaking things to see what results in the most OOP spending. I'm shocked that they don't have a sharing charge though now that most of the restaurants are filled up though maybe people who share end up buying more alcohol OOP.... In terms of the using kids credits for adult meals I'm not sure they lose much money on that unless someone is really working the plan which takes more time and energy than most people devote to it. We did get our kids cheese pizza at pizzafari on our last trip but they both got water to drink and shared a dessert so in terms of cost to disney it was less than if they had both gotten kids meals, drinks, and dessert.

Yvonne

 

[Pedler]

I'm not saying it's easy but it's not rocket science either. Disney invented 3 categories of meal credits; TS, CS and snack. All they'd have to do is have 4 or 5 categories instead of 3.

Alternatively they could have just stopped the pooling of credits. A child card gets a child meal. For that matter they could have just come up with a kids eat free program. An adult gets a TS meal they get a childs meal free. Don't even bother tracking the child meal credits.

For that matter Disney could have at least not waited over a year to change the rules in the brochure.

My guess is it took some time before Disney realized the number of guests who considered it a waste to use credits for child meals.

I think your guess is correct. To determine what the abuse level is would have taken a bit of data minning to do. Not overly complex but they would have to have a DBA with knowledge of how the systems were setup do some data anlysis after they determined what they were trying to look for. One potential for the delay in looking at the data and making any changes is that the people with the skills to do this task probably are not just sitting around waiting for something to do. Odds are if Disney is like any other large corporation they are scheduled out for 6 months or more on other projects.

This also applies to making the system change. From the outside it looks easy but there are several factors to consider. First is how the data is structured. If they are using older style mainframe technology and the data is positional, and lots of large companies still do this, then there are issues with just adding data. Then there is the interfaces on the POS systems that need to be changed to accomodate the new type of credits. (There also may be multiple POS systems depending upon the venue type.) There needs to be some type of data validation to help prevent using child credits by servers for adult meals. Of course that requires catagorizing every meal on the menu as adult or child or both. Then there is the reporting functions. First at all the POS systems including the hand helds at the snack carts. Then the reports that you can get at the hotel. Of course that is a different system at well that has to be modified with the new reports. Nothing would really change on the cards because none of this data is stored on the cards. (They just have a unique ID that allows the card information to be looked up on the central computer.)

Of course after you identify all of the systems that you need to change you need to identify what the changes are and then establish a testing plan to test not only the functionality of the changes that you made but retest any other functionality that is in those modules to insure that you didn't inadvertently affect those functions as well. Once you have come up with the project plan for all of that, assuming you had the analysts available to do it, you then need to allocate the resources in developers and testors to implement the plan. Most likely the same developers will not be working on multiple systems. That is the people that work on the reports for the resorts most likely will not have worked on the POS changes. Of course with the POS changes you will also have a mulitude of skill sets. The persons developing for the TS / CS terminals will most likely not be developing the code for the hand helds. Different skill set. And some of this may need to be outsourced or maybe all of it. Then you have to go through the whole RFP process and work with the vendors schedules.

And prior to all of this you would need to establish a budget for the project, determine the cost benefit of doing the project and allocate the cost to the various departments.

The above isn't even close to an all inclusive list of the tasks that would go into making a "simple" change. From my experience in IT something like this that touches so many different systems and would be considered mission critical there is no such thing as a "10 minute" change. At best this is a 6 month project once you have done the analysis and decided to move forward. And that depends heavily upon the resources being available. BTW I didn't even mention the hassel of setting up a test environment to run in parrallel prior to implementation and deciding how to deal with guests credits that are mid vacation when the system goes live.

Sorry for the long winded response but for those that feel Disney could make the change quickly if they wanted to there is a lot more involved in making even the simpliest change to a mission critical enterprise IT system than adding a few fields to a database.

 

[Lewisc]

Disney still could have changed the brochure quicker. They could have stopped pooling meals. We don't know what kind of computer system they are using. It might be as easy as adding two more meal types or it might take as much time as you project. They can make the change before they have all the checks in place to prevent servers from ringing up the wrong meal type.

I don't think Disney anticipated that the internet would cause that many guests to work the system. It's really the meals being bought for guests not on the plan that hurt Disney. Paying for a child meal out of pocket in order to use the credits for a two credit meal doesn't hurt Disney. The two credit meals are a bad use of the plan--the numbers favor Disney.

Posters said they wouldn't waste child credit on a child meal and planned to pay OOP for all their kids meals. I don't think Disney anticipated this level of plan use.

I think your guess is correct. To determine what the abuse level is would have taken a bit of data minning to do. Not overly complex but they would have to have a DBA with knowledge of how the systems were setup do some data anlysis after they determined what they were trying to look for. One potential for the delay in looking at the data and making any changes is that the people with the skills to do this task probably are not just sitting around waiting for something to do. Odds are if Disney is like any other large corporation they are scheduled out for 6 months or more on other projects.

This also applies to making the system change. From the outside it looks easy but there are several factors to consider. First is how the data is structured. If they are using older style mainframe technology and the data is positional, and lots of large companies still do this, then there are issues with just adding data. Then there is the interfaces on the POS systems that need to be changed to accomodate the new type of credits. (There also may be multiple POS systems depending upon the venue type.) There needs to be some type of data validation to help prevent using child credits by servers for adult meals. Of course that requires catagorizing every meal on the menu as adult or child or both. Then there is the reporting functions. First at all the POS systems including the hand helds at the snack carts. Then the reports that you can get at the hotel. Of course that is a different system at well that has to be modified with the new reports. Nothing would really change on the cards because none of this data is stored on the cards. (They just have a unique ID that allows the card information to be looked up on the central computer.)

Of course after you identify all of the systems that you need to change you need to identify what the changes are and then establish a testing plan to test not only the functionality of the changes that you made but retest any other functionality that is in those modules to insure that you didn't inadvertently affect those functions as well. Once you have come up with the project plan for all of that, assuming you had the analysts available to do it, you then need to allocate the resources in developers and testors to implement the plan. Most likely the same developers will not be working on multiple systems. That is the people that work on the reports for the resorts most likely will not have worked on the POS changes. Of course with the POS changes you will also have a mulitude of skill sets. The persons developing for the TS / CS terminals will most likely not be developing the code for the hand helds. Different skill set. And some of this may need to be outsourced or maybe all of it. Then you have to go through the whole RFP process and work with the vendors schedules.

And prior to all of this you would need to establish a budget for the project, determine the cost benefit of doing the project and allocate the cost to the various departments.

The above isn't even close to an all inclusive list of the tasks that would go into making a "simple" change. From my experience in IT something like this that touches so many different systems and would be considered mission critical there is no such thing as a "10 minute" change. At best this is a 6 month project once you have done the analysis and decided to move forward. And that depends heavily upon the resources being available. BTW I didn't even mention the hassel of setting up a test environment to run in parrallel prior to implementation and deciding how to deal with guests credits that are mid vacation when the system goes live.

Sorry for the long winded response but for those that feel Disney could make the change quickly if they wanted to there is a lot more involved in making even the simpliest change to a mission critical enterprise IT system than adding a few fields to a database.

 

[Pedler]

Disney still could have changed the brochure quicker. They could have stopped pooling meals. We don't know what kind of computer system they are using. It might be as easy as adding two more meal types or it might take as much time as you project. They can make the change before they have all the checks in place to prevent servers from ringing up the wrong meal type.

I don't think Disney anticipated that the internet would cause that many guests to work the system. It's really the meals being bought for guests not on the plan that hurt Disney. Paying for a child meal out of pocket in order to use the credits for a two credit meal doesn't hurt Disney. The two credit meals are a bad use of the plan--the numbers favor Disney.

Posters said they wouldn't waste child credit on a child meal and planned to pay OOP for all their kids meals. I don't think Disney anticipated this level of plan use.

They definitely could have changed the brochure faster but I wonder if it took some time for them to look at the data and determine how much abuse was going on and then who knows what the internal process is for changing the policy on this type of programs. Large corporations have an amazing way of taking the simpliest of issues and dragging them out into months of meetings. Of course the lawyers probably had to be consulted as well.

If I had to guess I think the free dinning promotion starting up again would have been the trigger for the brochure change. For whatever reason it seems, at least here on the DIS, that more people are interested in the use of pooled credits when they get the plan for free than the people that pay for the plan.

They may go ahead and change the computer systems as well or they may just take a look at the data after the new brochure establishes the policy and see what the abuse level is then to determine if it is worth the cost of the change.

 

[frayedend]

Some of us manage to complicate something simple. Have breakfast in your room, CS for lunch and TS for dinner. Avoid the two credit meals. The plan works well. A TS credit is designed to feed one person. It makes sense to shrink portion sizes since guests are now ordering a three course meal.

I suspect the internet has caused a lot more guests to pay for the kids meals in order to use the credits for adult meals than Disney anticipated. It sounds like a number of famlies used the plan to treat family members staying offsite.

I'm not sure the system is being tweaked to motivate more OOP spending but rather to ensure the system is being used as it was intended. That is to say to provide two meals a day for the family that bought the plan. NOT to provide food for three meals a day and NOT to feed friends and family members not on the plan.

Eliminating dessert from breakfast made CS breakfast a poor use of credits.

The only thing I really disagree with is that they should be shrinking portion sizes. If they do that, then they have to do it for everyone. And if I decide the DDP isn't for me, should I be punished with smaller portions?

 

[Lewisc]

The only thing I really disagree with is that they should be shrinking portion sizes. If they do that, then they have to do it for everyone. And if I decide the DDP isn't for me, should I be punished with smaller portions?

That's really the biggest negative of the dining plan.

Restaurants are changing the portion size and menu selections so they can make money with the money that's allocated to them. Guests not on the plan also get the smaller portions. They may find menu items they were looking forward to getting were dropped. Restaurants find it's easier to drop items from the menu rather than try to exclude or surcharge those items to MYW Dining guests. Coral Reef changed the menu when it went from a two credit to a one credit restaurant.

 

[Sammie]

LewisC and Pedler have some very interesting points. As I have been told by friends that work for Disney, change is never simple. One when you have over 55,000 employees and hundreds of departments it is hard to get everyone on the same page. For example there are thousands of snack items available at WDW, there was no way they could simply add all of them to the plan.

Yes lawyers were involved, which slows down everything and also there were glitches concerning some type of agreement with foreign travel agencies.

Plus as stated I don't think they are going to change something that is going to cost them money without determing if it is truly worth the cost of the change. This can takes months to determine. I think they are willing to absorb a certain percentage of abuse to the system.

Plus regardless of the fact they are a large successful company I have never been impressed with their computer system. I mean seriously their online booking system is one of the worst available , CRO's system is not much better and if anyone has had a discrepancy in their bill you know how horrible their billing system is. So it would not surprise me at all for them to be having problems making this work.

 

[Lewisc]

Plus as stated I don't think they are going to change something that is going to cost them money without determing if it is truly worth the cost of the change. This can takes months to determine. I think they are willing to absorb a certain percentage of abuse to the system.

Exactly, I doubt Disney had a problem when the "child" credit was being used at a signature restaurant (not a good value for the guest) and the kid was in a child's club. I suspect Disney had a problem when guests refuse to "waste" a kid credit on a child meal and were using "banked" credits to treat guests not even staying at a WDW resort.

 

[tlmdisney]

I agree that the childs menu leaves alot to be desired. So here is my question we are going this fall on the free dining plan. 3As and 2Cs it would be free if we had 5As it would be free if we had 1As and 4cs. What I am saying is disney is not getting my money from the dining no matter who is comming, so why would they care if I ordered 5As at a counter services.

 

[Blue62]

Yes many of the child's menu's are not acceptable. But many are just fine. The child's plan costs only $10.99 per day (unless of course your on the free plan, then you really shouldn't complain), so you can't expect lobster or caviar. They cater to average kids, most of which want the mac n cheese, chicken nuggets or hamburger, whether it's on the kid's menu or not.

When we visit, I have come up with a compromise. If there is nothing on the child menu that my daughter will eat, we will purchase an adult meal for her(no apetizer or desert, cause she'll share ours). We will then use the unused meal credit to make up for our 2x meals, and purchase her child's meal then. Everyone's happy. We are out the cost of a child's menu, about $10(Compared to a $3k vacation, who cares), and don't have to cheat the system.

As far as fixing the computer system, if Disney wanted it fixed, it would be fixed. It's certainly not 10 minutes, but it's very doable in a fairly short period of time. It's apparently not as much of a problem as some think it is, which is why it doesn't get fixed.

Just to reply real quick as the OP, I am not expecting lobster or caviar.... all I want is that the menu not be limited to 1. chilled chicken and 2. beans and franks or grilled cheese only. All I need is a burger, some form of chicken fingers/nuggets and then maybe one item unique to the restaurant such as pasta at an Italian place.

Let me give another example here... switching to TS... here is the Nine Dragons children's menu:


Fried Rice and Spring Roll

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Kid's Delight - shrimp toast, sweet & sour chicken $8.75

So basically two options: Sweet and Sour Chicken or Fried Rice/Spring Roll.


Here is what should be on the children's menu there:

1. Sweet and Sour Chicken
2. Lo Mein w/ chicken or shrimp or vegetables
3. Shrimp w/ Chinese mixed vegetables (name it whatever)
4. Fried Rice
5. Chicken Tenders
6. Mac-n-Cheese


My major point is that 2 items on a kids menu is not enough particularly when the items are odd and/or have little if any correlation to the rest of the menu. My kids probably would not eat caviar or lobster I just want a warm piece of chicken or burger..... I would like to buy da danburga

 

[kcrew]

Just to reply real quick as the OP, I am not expecting lobster or caviar.... all I want is that the menu not be limited to 1. chilled chicken and 2. beans and franks or grilled cheese only. All I need is a burger, some form of chicken fingers/nuggets and then maybe one item unique to the restaurant such as pasta at an Italian place.

Let me give another example here... switching to TS... here is the Nine Dragons children's menu:


Fried Rice and Spring Roll

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Kid's Delight - shrimp toast, sweet & sour chicken $8.75

So basically two options: Sweet and Sour Chicken or Fried Rice/Spring Roll.


Here is what should be on the children's menu there:

1. Sweet and Sour Chicken
2. Lo Mein w/ chicken or shrimp or vegetables
3. Shrimp w/ Chinese mixed vegetables (name it whatever)
4. Fried Rice
5. Chicken Tenders
6. Mac-n-Cheese


My major point is that 2 items on a kids menu is not enough particularly when the items are odd and/or have little if any correlation to the rest of the menu. My kids probably would not eat caviar or lobster I just want a warm piece of chicken or burger..... I would like to buy da danburga

I think that the adult menus are incredibly limited as well and therefore the the children's selections are going to be even more limited. I mean what restaurant do you go to at home that has so few entress as those at Disney. Ordinarily I spend 30 min. pouring over a menue at home trying to make a selection--at jDisney it takes about 1 minute to pick the only entree I like,,,,It makes it very hard to dine with large parties with differing tastes.

 

[sorul82?]

I agree that the childs menu leaves alot to be desired. So here is my question we are going this fall on the free dining plan. 3As and 2Cs it would be free if we had 5As it would be free if we had 1As and 4cs. What I am saying is disney is not getting my money from the dining no matter who is comming, so why would they care if I ordered 5As at a counter services.

Excellent point!

 

[LizinSTL]

I agree that the childs menu leaves alot to be desired. So here is my question we are going this fall on the free dining plan. 3As and 2Cs it would be free if we had 5As it would be free if we had 1As and 4cs. What I am saying is disney is not getting my money from the dining no matter who is comming, so why would they care if I ordered 5As at a counter services.

hotel room and ticket costs, I assume. I really don't think that the CS kids vs adult meals are a big problem. They are essentially "free" meals because the cost of the plan (if you are paying) is absorbed by the daily TS meal anyway. If Disney cared so much about this, they'd have separated the credits a long time ago.

 

[Pedler]

Just to reply real quick as the OP, I am not expecting lobster or caviar.... all I want is that the menu not be limited to 1. chilled chicken and 2. beans and franks or grilled cheese only. All I need is a burger, some form of chicken fingers/nuggets and then maybe one item unique to the restaurant such as pasta at an Italian place.

Let me give another example here... switching to TS... here is the Nine Dragons children's menu:


Fried Rice and Spring Roll

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Kid's Delight - shrimp toast, sweet & sour chicken $8.75

So basically two options: Sweet and Sour Chicken or Fried Rice/Spring Roll.


Here is what should be on the children's menu there:

1. Sweet and Sour Chicken
2. Lo Mein w/ chicken or shrimp or vegetables
3. Shrimp w/ Chinese mixed vegetables (name it whatever)
4. Fried Rice
5. Chicken Tenders
6. Mac-n-Cheese


My major point is that 2 items on a kids menu is not enough particularly when the items are odd and/or have little if any correlation to the rest of the menu. My kids probably would not eat caviar or lobster I just want a warm piece of chicken or burger..... I would like to buy da danburga

I agree that these kids menus are limited at the TS places but when going to authentic or semi authentic restaurants with cuisine from other countries I generally don't find chicken nuggets, burgers or mac & cheese. Many don't even have a real kids menu. They just offer smaller portions at a discount for kids only.

 

[jmurphy625]

I think the the "misuse" of the dining plan is because people want an all inclusive family vacation. Knowing all of your meals are paid for ahead of time puts many families at ease (we loved that part) and lets them more freely enjoy the vacation. I think the problem with the current plan is that there are a number of gaps in it.

First of all it does not cover all of your meals and I think that is what many people want and the main reason why families pool meals.

Disney Wonder / Vero Beach March '06
POFQ Aug' 05
Plus numerous trips to Disneyland 1972-1992

But I think Disney does offer an all inclusive family vacation that covers all your meals...We used it in "02" and we had three meals a day and snacks...and lots of other (non food) things included as well..It was not confusing at all. I think it's called the Premium or Premier plan. I was a wonderful vacation!!

Some of the reasons we haven't used it since is 1. we really don't eat like that on vacation or ever! and 2. You do have to get certain passes # of days/hopper-and we don't usually hop 3. We bought DVC.

Next time we go I'm getting the older kids (21 & 24) Disney gift cards for their meals & snacks. They'll have their own money for other things but I want their meals to be prepaid & hassle free.

 

[MemoryMakers2669]

To comment on what the OP said....I know of someone that came back just last week. They were allowed to order off the adult menu and DID, at every meal, for the 3 and 6 year olds!!!!!!!

Every TS place allowed this??

 

[Sammie]

Just curious those parents who are saying that the children's menus are too limited, what did you do to feed your children prior to the Dining Plan?

Did you always purchase adult meals for them?

I guess I am curious as I don't remember much discussion of the lack of edible children's meals until the Dining Plan became popular. I do remember discussions from Adults "wanting" to eat the Kid's meal. They must like that crappy food.

 

[UtahMama]

if the limited menu at least has either chicken nuggets or mac n cheese we're set! I guess our kids have unsophisticated palets! Seriously, if you ask and say the kid wants a burger and it costs about the same, they totally are accomodating and it ISNT "cheating" if you ASK! This is for counter service though. I wouldnt for table service. Tackiness and all.