Is dining plan worth it for an 11 year old that eats like a "child"

[mamapooh]

Doing research for a friend. They were thinking of doing the dining plan and they have 3 children. Two of the children are over 9 years old so they would be paying for 4 adults and 1 child as far as the dining plan goes. One child in particular is very picky and won't eat very much at all. The cost difference between a child dining plan and an adult dining plan is so much that it can't possibly be worth it for them to get the dining plan, can it? Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[mckelvey72]

It depends on where they eat. My 13 year old always orders off the kids menu so I understand this question!! They really need to look at the menus, decide where they are going to eat and what they are likely to eat. If they go to mainly buffets, then the dining plan may be worth it cause you don't have a choice but to pay adult prices.

Have them go to allears.net, decide on where they want to eat and what each person is likely going to order and add it up to see if dining plan is worth it or not. If they are the type of people who want it paid for before the trip and not have to worry about it,then get the dining plan. When the "adult" wants chicken nuggets, they will allow them to order it and just add a few nuggets to adult size it.

Lots of threads on whether dining plan is worth it or not. For me personally, I would never pay OOP for it cause we something skip lunch if we had breakfast and then had a snack....stuff like that. We had free dining on our December trip and I ended the trip with 7 snacks, 7 counter service and 1 table service left over. So it would not have been good for me to pay OOP for it.

 

[supergoofy]

Like the PP said check on allears to see what you want to eat

Also I got this from here

http://www.distripplanner.com/

Its a spread sheet to help you see if its worth it or not

To me its worth it to plug in the numbers both ways and see what happens

 

[Disneylover99]

Personally, I don't think it would be worth it to pay oop. I would suggest packing some snacks from home and breakfast items like granola bars, small boxes of cereal, etc....Order ice water in the parks and stick to counter service restaurants. Even if they decide to splurge on a couple of nicer restaurants, they will still come out ahead.

 

[morethananyonex]

If they're eating at at least 1 meal that isn't a more expensive buffet where the 11 year old has to pay the adult price, I would say it's not worth it. Also, if the 11 year old wants to eat like a child at CS restaurants, again not worth it.

The dining plan itself at best breaks even IMO, even for adults who use it to it's full advantage. For a picky child, I would choose to pay OOP for our meals, and probably stay away from too many price fixed meals that would force me to pay $30+ for the child to eat chicken nuggets.

 

[summermac]

I don't think DDP is worth it even if the kids weren't picky eaters. LOL