How much food is given in a child's meal vs. adult

[DisneyBliss7]

How much of a quantity comes w/ a child's meal at a quick service and table service? My DD will be 9 when we go but I'm wondering if a child's meal will fill her. We are getting the DDP. Should I upgrade her to an adult price or will she have a big enough meal? And if I do pay for her at an adult price and we go to a restaurant that doesn't have an option she likes on the regular menu (she is picky) will they give her something from the kids menu but just a larger amount? We've never used the DDP so I'm not sure what rules they have and I'm not familiar w/ the amount of food Disney restaurants give for kids/regular meals.

 

[TDC Nala]

In general, the children's meals are much smaller than the regular menu meals.

 

[WantToGoNow]

Most of the child qs meals haven't been enough for my kids since they were sbout 6. However I read on here that people have severals kids share them and they are ocasionally ordered by adults. You get 4 nuggets, a pizza the size of a dvd, a uncrustable pb&j or a small cup of mac n cheese. Hot dogs and chicken legs are standard sized, hamburgers are about the size of a McDonald regular burger. You get to choose two sides - a few fries, a package of grapes or carrots or a cookie and you get a drink.

TS portions are larger and my kids were usually satisfied - of course the soda and ice cream sundaes helped.

 

[Geordietyke]

Hi, my DD's are 7 & 8 and we decided to upgrade them to the Adult DDP, simply because the child menu choices in most places consisted of rubbish chicken nuggets/PB&J sandwiches and mac and cheese - all of which they don't eat! I was also concerned about the size of the child meals as I'd read and seen various threads showing pics.

They are now able to have the same choices as us which is brill and gives them a chance to try lots of different cuisines not available here in the UK (we have 15 TS meals).

 

[TDC Nala]

I'm noting here that it's against the policy of the Restaurant board to discuss using children's credits for the purchase of adult meals, except where the restaurant has no children's menu.

Disney specifically states in its dining plan literature that children 3-9 on the child's plan must order from a children's menu where one exists.

 

[jenlov]

You can certainly call and have her upgraded to a 10yo so that she will be on the adult DDP plan. If you're staying in a mod or deluxe and are already getting DDP (vs QSDP in value and paying to upgrade to DDP), the cost is just the difference between a child's park ticket and an adult's ticket. We're on QSDP and upgraded my 9yo to a 10yo for the same reason as one of the PP mentioned- not liking the nuggets, pbj, etc. He is not really a big eater, but he likes REAL food. I paid just $20 total to upgrade him to an adult park ticket, which automatically gives him an adult meal credit, not a child meal credit. If you're staying in a value resort and paid to upgrade from QSDP to DDP, the cost difference would be quite a bit to upgrade her to an adult, b/c you're paying by the night to upgrade instead of the $20 ticket difference. Hope that made sense.

That being said, many have advised against using your adult meal credit for a child's meal b/c of the value you would be losing. Most people will pay OOP for a kid's meal if needed, then save that adult meal credit you didn't use for another meal entirely. She's 9, so it's not like you'd be breaking any rules if you bought a kid's meal for her w/ money instead of a meal credit.

 

[aubriee]

In general, the children's meals are much smaller than the regular menu meals.

True. The one exception I noticed was at Paradiso 37. We took our 3 y/o grandson there for lunch when we were there this past Feb. He ordered the Double Dog kids plate. It came with a cute mini hot dog, then a handful (maybe six) corn dog nuggets, a good size bowl of macaroni and cheese, then they let us substitute fries for the celery and carrots and he got a really huge adult size order of fries. No way could he possibly eat that much. I'm a pretty big eater and even I wouldn't have been able to finish it. I was shocked at all the food on his platter.

 

[DisneyBliss7]

You can certainly call and have her upgraded to a 10yo so that she will be on the adult DDP plan. If you're staying in a mod or deluxe and are already getting DDP (vs QSDP in value and paying to upgrade to DDP), the cost is just the difference between a child's park ticket and an adult's ticket. We're on QSDP and upgraded my 9yo to a 10yo for the same reason as one of the PP mentioned- not liking the nuggets, pbj, etc. He is not really a big eater, but he likes REAL food. I paid just $20 total to upgrade him to an adult park ticket, which automatically gives him an adult meal credit, not a child meal credit. If you're staying in a value resort and paid to upgrade from QSDP to DDP, the cost difference would be quite a bit to upgrade her to an adult, b/c you're paying by the night to upgrade instead of the $20 ticket difference. Hope that made sense.

That being said, many have advised against using your adult meal credit for a child's meal b/c of the value you would be losing. Most people will pay OOP for a kid's meal if needed, then save that adult meal credit you didn't use for another meal entirely. She's 9, so it's not like you'd be breaking any rules if you bought a kid's meal for her w/ money instead of a meal credit.

We are staying AoA and have the DDP. We may be switching to (AK Villas though). So would it be worth upgrading her to a adult meal? I think I understand what you are saying, just want to make sure Also I know some of you have said the kids meals are kind of small at quick service places. How about table service restaurants? We are planning on eating at Rainforest cafe & Trex, Coral Reef and Be Our Guest(hopefully) or 1900 Park Fare. Are the kids meals bigger at these places vs the 4 nuggets, small pizza, etc.?

 

[JennLynn]

I can only speak for Trex. I was worried the meal wouldn't be big enough for my DD8 so we ordered an extra side of fries and she didn't get to them. The kids meal there was the biggest of the ones we had elsewhere.

The CS meals were too small for her everywhere we went and I ended up sharing some of my CS meals with her after she finished her child's meal.

 

[madelyn]

On our last trip this summer it seems like the kids' pizza was TINY! We had a split stay and purchased the dining plan for only part of our stay. My 13 year old son opted to order a kids' pizza (counter service). I felt that in no way was that enough for him but he didn't complain. My 10 year old son didn't complain either. Thought this was odd since both can eat at least 2 to 3 slices of pizza at a time!

 

[lovetogowdw]

If you get the PB&J option at any of the CS locations, it just isn't much food.

But if you go to say Pinocchio Village Haus in the MK and get the child's menu Pasta and Meatballs, then you get plenty of food. Some of the kids meal items at Epcot's Sunshine Seasons are quite large, too. Same with Wolfgang Puck Express at DD. It always seemed to me that the locations with better food had larger servings, but maybe that's just my imagination.

 

[jenlov]

We are staying AoA and have the DDP. We may be switching to (AK Villas though). So would it be worth upgrading her to a adult meal? I think I understand what you are saying, just want to make sure Also I know some of you have said the kids meals are kind of small at quick service places. How about table service restaurants? We are planning on eating at Rainforest cafe & Trex, Coral Reef and Be Our Guest(hopefully) or 1900 Park Fare. Are the kids meals bigger at these places vs the 4 nuggets, small pizza, etc.?

Well, since you have to pay for your upgrade to DDP when staying at AoA, you are now paying a little over $3 per night for her meals (the cost to upgrade from QSDP to DDP). However, if you upgrade her to an adult meal, you'll then be paying $16+ per night upgrade cost for DDP. I'm not positive, but I'm guessing you'd also have to pay the $20 to upgrade her park ticket as well. If you switch to AK, you'll automatically get DDP (that's what is included w/ that resort) and would only have to pay the one flat fee of $20 to just upgrade her park ticket from child to adult. She would automatically be getting adult meals once her ticket is upgraded. That's why we only had to pay the $20. We're not upgrading dining plans. Since we're staying on QSDP, all we had to pay was the $20 ticket cost.

 

[jenlov]

As for portions, I'm purposely NOT choosing certain CS restaurants because of the poor kids meal choices (i.e. pbj or mac n cheese). I'm trying to work out our meals so that we eat at places with better choices. There are some that we will be eating at where I plan on the 3 little boys sharing the 9yo's adult adult meal (upgrading to an adult ticket) b/c it will be plenty big enough. Wolfgang Puck for example has a big pizza that would feed all 3 easily. Pasta dishes are usually big too!