Disney dining plan questions?

[fflmaster]

I am looking at buying the plan, but my family is only going for a short trip of 4 days.

Twin boys are 12, and can't eat a full adult meal.

How strict is Disney with checking age?

Does all restaurants on the dining plan have a Childs menu? Do children have a different menu when on the dining plan?

I don't see that we spend 46 per person on food per day, but if I am paying the children price fr them then yes it would be worth the cost.

 

[chartle]

I am looking at buying the plan, but my family is only going for a short trip of 4 days.

Twin boys are 12, and can't eat a full adult meal.

How strict is Disney with checking age?

Does all restaurants on the dining plan have a Childs menu? Do children have a different menu when on the dining plan?

I don't see that we spend 46 per person on food per day, but if I am paying the children price fr them then yes it would be worth the cost.

Not sure what you mean by checking age, but the DDP is part of a package with tickets so if you are thinking of getting them the child's DDP, you would have to get them child's tickets. And we can see where thats going to take the discussion.

Now I think with the adult DDP you may be able to get a child's meal but its going to be a huge waste of money. So you really have to see if the DDP can save you money.

ETA: I'm pretty sure all the TS have child's menus but it pretty limited.

 

[fflmaster]

Not sure what you mean by checking age, but the DDP is part of a package with tickets so if you are thinking of getting them the child's DDP, you would have to get them child's tickets. And we can see where thats going to take the discussion.

Now I think with the adult DDP you may be able to get a child's meal but its going to be a huge waste of money. So you really have to see if the DDP can save you money.

ETA: I'm pretty sure all the TS have child's menus but it pretty limited.

Thank you I didn't know that about the tickets.

What if you already have tickets? Do they just add it to them?

 

[beautyqueen]

If you would like to be on the plan you could always think about having your boys split one adult meal and then you could have those extra credits left to use for a signature dinner.

 

[vinotinto]

How strict is Disney with checking age?

Their ages are already in the room/villa reservation. As the PP said, you will need to add tickets to make it a package, unless you are booked under an AP rate. If you are already booked as a package, then that's the easiest, you can just add the DDP. You will pay the adult DDP price for each child, so I would ditto what the pp said. You can have the two kids share one adult meal for the non-buffets and perhaps do a signature meal 1 or 2 nights. For the buffets/family-style meals, they will pay the adult price (so the DDP may save you $$ there). The DDP may not save your family $$ if both kids will usually eat a kid meal and you are not planning on doing buffets/family-style meals.

 

[DCDisney]

They do ask kids how old they are in a conversational way and there is no way 12 year olds can pass as 9. The kids meals are very small anyway--a serving of chicken nuggets is 4 or 1 chicken leg. Even if your kids can't eat a whole kids meal at a regular fast casual restaurant chances are good they won't have enough food at WDW especially with all the walking. On our last trip my kids were 11 and 13 and sharing 1 adult meal worked very well for them as it's a much better set of choices and amount than kids meals. We did 2 signature meals with the extra credits. We did tip extra but no one cared at all. I always drink water so we had enough drinks that they each could get their own.

 

[HuskerFaninIL]

What I would do is go through the menus at wdwinfo or allears.net and figure out where you might like to eat.

Once you got that narrowed down, do you best to guess what meal you might order. Take note however that the menus aren't perfect online (things change).

Add up how much $ you think you will spend on the food.

See if the amount you would spend is more or less than $736 (the approximate cost of 4 people for 4 days on the adult DDP)

If I was attempting to order my kids a meal to share (which also includes a dessert) I would probably avoid buffets. Buffets have a set cost so even if you child ate one chicken leg and a french fry you are still going to be paying upwards of $30.

FYI-the $736 assumes you are staying onsite for 4 nights.

 

[Cafeen]

Adding a dining plan requires that you purchase a package through Walt Disney Travel Company (or a Travel Agent that does the same). This package includes room, tickets, and dining plan. If you currently have a room only reservation, they will have to cancel that and rebook as a package since packages have different rules and restrictions, most notably about payments. Under a package, you must have it fully paid off by 45 days out, and any changes after that may incur a change fee.

Now, the biggest kicker for you most likely is the tickets, you must purchase at least a 1 day base ticket to go with the dining. If you already have tickets, this will add another ~$82 per person to your total. (DVC members on points, and AP holders may book ticketless packages, but I'm going to assume you aren't one of those since you mentioned already having tickets).

The other side will be your boys, if you don't think they'll eat from the adult menu at most of your restaurants, and most of your restaurants are fixed price/buffets, it's going to be much better to pay OOP for them. You won't reach anywhere near $46 per night ordering kids meals most of the time.

So, rest assured that your current plan is likely best for your situation and have fun .

 

[chartle]

Twin boys are 12, and can't eat a full adult meal.

You should know that you are not the first family in this situation where they have children that are adults for tickets and children when it comes to eating. Its just the way it is, Disney had to put the line somewhere.

So you just have to look over the menus and figure out if the dining plan is going to work for your family at this point in time.

I have a 20 year old and a very soon to be 19 year old scared1: ,first time I ever wrote that). And my oldest still wants chicken nuggets and pizza. I don't know how he keeps his ~180 or so lbs on him.