Dining Plan with Disabled Child

[disneyobessed]

How does Disney handle families with children that are handicapped in regards to the dining plan. My son is 10 and has cerebral palsy and in the past the dining plan is fine b/.c he eats a grilled cheese or peanutubtter and jelly.. cut up small easy enough for him to chew/swallow and other small finger foods. . When we go next year he has to be considered an adult and I dont really want to pay $41 a day for him to eat peanutbutter and jelly. Could he be excluded from the meal plan or simply be counted as a child?

 

[Maggie'sMom]

Unfortunately no, he cannot be excluded or counted as a child. There have been threads from other families with special needs or adults who have had bariatric surgery who called WDW about excluding some people from the dining plan due to these special circumstances. I haven't seen one post from someone who received a positive response. Everyone has been told no, everyone in the room must be on the same plan, and anyone 10 or older cannot be charged as a child.

In your case, you may wish to rethink whether the dining plan is best for your family financially. It may be more cost effective to pay out of pocket. I know that once my DD turns 10, we will no longer be purchasing the dining plan. It currently makes financial sense because I come out ahead on her meals, especially since we like to do character dining. But the cost of the plan for me is pretty much break even. I'm not saving money overall as an adult.

 

[dclfun]

You could use his credits though for someone else in your party and then pay OOP for his sandwiches. The dining plan doesn't stipulate who must use the credits within your family and I've never seen anyone who has been denied the purchase of a "Kids Meal" regardless of age. Depending on your length of stay and how many guests are travelling, his credits may "pay" for another TS meal, for instance.---Kathy

 

[kknpj]

We just went in June on the basic DDP with our family of four. Our daughter is ten also, and has special needs. She eats foods very similar to your son - soft foods, or things cut up very small.

Since you pool credits for the room, we were able to use her TS credits to go to a couple of signature meals, etc. When we were at these places, we just bought something for her out of pocket and explained to our server that we weren't using the dining credits for her meal. (I hated the thought of using 2 TS credits for an order of mashed potatoes or mac and cheese. ) Every single restaurant was accommodating. Our server at the Yachtsman Steakhouse didn't even charge us for her side order of mashed potatoes and gravy for her meal!

We stayed at Coronado Springs and ate a lot at the Pepper Market for QS meals. Their portions are HUGE and we were able to share many meals with her there. For example, I would order a breakfast meal and she would eat the scrambled eggs and I would eat the rest of the food that came with it. Or I would order mashed potatoes for a side dish with a burger and she would eat the potatoes.

Plus, we were able to use many snack credits for foods that she could eat such as yogurt and bananas.

I would definitely get the DDP again. I think we made great use of our credits for our entire family. We did have to pay OOP for our daughter for many meals, but side items/kids meals are pretty cheap.

 

[disneyobessed]

Thanks everyone... I like the idea of using his credits for extra meals like breakfast.. or signature dining.. . We will def. look into this.!!