Just back. Had hard time with DDP and 2-year old.

[Cree629]

Overall, we liked being on the DDP, and we thought we definitely saved some money by doing it. Our TS meals were LTT, CRT, Tusker House, Sci-Fi, H&V, Coral Reef, and Hoop De Doo. We enjoyed all of them-- with H&V being our least favorite if we had to choose one. We had some great servers, especially Mark at LTT! We also had some mediocre ones... H&V and Coral Reef.

Anyway, we weren't unhappy with any of our meals overall. LTT, CRT and Tusker House were our favorites... CRT more for the experience than the food, though.

Our only problem was being on DDP while our 2 (almost 3) year old was not. At buffets and family style places, fine, no issues. But at TS restaurants and especially CS places, we had issues. Our two-year old is a big eater. A few bites off one of our plates won't cut it. Plus, we often order fish, soups, salads, spicy food, or other entrees she just would not be interested in. So, most days we ended up buying a meal off the child's menu for her (often two or three times a day). We just paid OOP for her. However, looking back, this added up pretty quickly! We really wished we could have had her on the kids DDP for only 9.99 a day! This would have saved us a ton! Of course, we would have had to pay for a park ticket for her if she were three, we realize that. It was just sometimes hard to feel like we were making out on the DDP when we'd often pay somewhere near $40 at the end of a meal, anyway (for tip, DD's meal, and perhaps an appetizer or glass of wine at times).

Anyway, like I said, I do think DH and I saved some money doing the DDP, but definitely not any aggravation. It was always somewhat confusing to explain to the servers that DD's meal would have to be paid for separately. Also, DD's "bill" and our "bill" being separate was sometimes confusing because the "suggested tip" and spot to write in the tip was separate, so we didn't know if we should write two separate tips or put all of it on one bill... And then there were servers who deducted three CS meals from our plan accidentally even though we said we wanted to pay for DD OOP...

Just confusing! I'm sure some of it was our fault-- that we should have planned better in advance for how it would all work with our daughter.

 

[lillykat]

We were thinking of adding the DDP but obviously we don't want to pay for a ticket for our DD who will be 15 months at the time - she won't want to eat off of our plate either as we like spicy food and so we will probably end up paying for her at non buffet places. So your review was helpful.

Wait they gave you separate bills - not just one big one - so if you order say a drink, a glass of wine, and a kids meal - you will get one bill for DDP and one for the additional items? That seems a bit of a pain.

What did they do when they accidently took off an extra CS meal - was it replaced? How did they work that?

 

[sandym718]

Oh, that does sound like a pain! And it kind of defeats the convenience purpose of the DDP to end up paying so much OOP. Our DD was 2 when we went this past spring, but we also had our DS (4). They both eat like birds - shared the kids' meals and still had a ton left. We never paid for anything OOP (this was 2007 DDP). We'll be going next year and they'll BOTH have kids' meals, I think there will end up being a good amount left. DH will probably eat it though, LOL

 

[MagicAllison]

We'll be doing the plan with a 2 year old along. The main thing I know he'll confuse us on is that he insists on having his own drink just like the two older kids. But since dh and I plan on knocking back a few (no driving for a week!) I guess this won't be a prob because his drink will be on our booze bill

 

[sandym718]

We'll be doing the plan with a 2 year old along. The main thing I know he'll confuse us on is that he insists on having his own drink just like the two older kids. But since dh and I plan on knocking back a few (no driving for a week!) I guess this won't be a prob because his drink will be on our booze bill

You may be pleasantly surprised - at each and every restaurant, they brought us a drink (chocolate milk most places) for DD at no extra charge! We were prepared to pay OOP for it, but didn't have to! It was a bit of pixie dust!

 

[Cree629]

They likely will not charge you if all you get for your 2yo is a drink.

Yes, they always gave us two separate bills at TS restaurants. One that we had to sign for the DDP. It would, say, have a suggested tip of $15 on it, which we would then have to pay in cash, or charge to the room. Then, we'd have a bill for DD's meal and anything else we may have ordered (wine or app). It might be for $20 or so, with it's own suggested tip of $4. So, now we'd end up charging to the room: tip fromour DDP meals, and then total and tip from DD's meal. It really was confusing at times.

The time(s) we were charged for 3 CS meals when we had intended to pay for DD's kids meal OOP, we just let it be. We could have argued, I suppose, but for us it wasn't worth it.