Free dining-possible to upgrade 8yo to adult?

[toothfairy74]

We will be at Disney world very soon- and we have the free dining plan. I read on this board that you could upgrade your child to an adult ticket so that they could choose meals from the adult menus instead of childrens menus. My 8yo DD always got upset over her limited choices last year and ended up eating my food and picking at hers. She also was jealous of our desserts as hers was usually just a bowl of ice cream with sprinkles. I called to see if we could upgrade her age to 10 and said that I will happily pay the difference in the ticket price. I was told that we could not upgrade her to an adult because we are on free dining. Is this true? Have any of you done this successfully on free dining? Just wondering if it is worth trying to get a different CM. Thanks for your help!

 

[DaParkers]

We will be at Disney world very soon- and we have the free dining plan. I read on this board that you could upgrade your child to an adult ticket so that they could choose meals from the adult menus instead of childrens menus. My 8yo DD always got upset over her limited choices last year and ended up eating my food and picking at hers. She also was jealous of our desserts as hers was usually just a bowl of ice cream with sprinkles. I called to see if we could upgrade her age to 10 and said that I will happily pay the difference in the ticket price. I was told that we could not upgrade her to an adult because we are on free dining. Is this true? Have any of you done this successfully on free dining? Just wondering if it is worth trying to get a different CM. Thanks for your help!

Don't ask. Just do it. Call and tell them that the age of the child on your reservation is wrong and to change it to 10. That's it. You're not doing it to get something for nothing. You're going to have to pay more for the ticket anyway, so they actually get more money. That's what I would do.

 

[Laurin612]

I am on free dining and did this recently. I was told by CM Mitzie that people do it all the time and that it makes no difference if you are on free dining! It cost $35.15 to pay the difference between the child and adult Parkhopper pass for the amount of time we will be there.

ETA: Some CMs seem to be misinformed. Before talking to CM Mitzie, I spoke to CM Clora, who told me that it would also raise the price of our room (which it would not, because in terms of rooms Disney considers adults 18+, not 10+! The bottom line is that if you get a misinformed or inexperienced CM, ask to speak to a supervisor or call back and speak to someone else.

 

[toothfairy74]

Thank you for the replies! I am glad to know it can be done! I will call back tonight and try again.

 

[irishdadx4]

yes, we have done this our last two times. Worked great. We didn't do it the first trip Aug '09. DD was upset a bit. We put her age in as 10 on the next two trips. One was QSDP and the last one was DDP. no problem doing this.

Mike

 

[toothfairy74]

Hi! I called back today and spoke to the lovely CM Glenda. I told her what I would like to do and she said "Absolutely!" She changed my dd's age to 10 and commented on how quickly she grew . I thanked her for sparing me the horror of having to share my creme brulee! We then went on to have a five minute conversation of all our favorite Disney desserts. She said that during F & W France would be offering a chocolate cream brulee at their cart and a snack credit could be used. Yummy! The charge to upgrade her ticket to adult for 7 days PH was $50.14. Sooo worth it. Its so nice to talk to a CM that has the Disney spirit. Seems odd that the CM's either really have it or really don't.

 

[The_Aviator]

Glad to hear it's fixed!

On another note, how come everyone else gets to have such nice conversations with the CM's? The CM's we get are nice, but they never do anything like that for us lol. Perhaps they have trouble with our accents haha

 

[Laurin612]

Glad to hear that you got this squared away!

My kids are also 8 and 12 and my son would have been so upset and jealous of his sister's food if we had been unable to upgrade him. (And he would probably be eating all of MY food! ) The kids meal offerings were fine when he was 4 (on our last trip to WDW), but now he could probably put down 2 kids meals without a problem! The regular "adult" menus will work much better for him.

 

[TDC Nala]

They do have a chocolate creme brulee at the France F&W booth but I do not think it is that good.