Pay for 3yo meals?

[rugrat]

We are first timers. Do I have to pay for dd 3yo meals? Is it ok for her to split a meal with 5yo sister.?Does it matter if it is buffet? I posted this on another board, but forgot where!

 

[tyandbash]

I think that if you are at a Buffet you will have to pay for your child at the child rate. However I think when you are not at a Buffet you can have your two children split a meal, if you want to.

 

[*Fantasia*]

Sometimes me and my (then) 3 and 19 mo would split our lunch and dinner. I am very pettite and can only eat so much and our kids can only eat so much too. ASMo food court are very generous, they give plenty for two (in our case-three!) But since my son loves Mickey waffles for breakfast, he gets his own order of breakfast.

However...at the Crystal Palace and Chef Mickey's, we were not allowed to split our meal. We paid for our son. It was kind of a waste though. They are both buffet, our son and I only went one round (we don't eat much) while my husband have a big appetite went two rounds at the buffet.

 

[skeezixspud]

As in, Character meal or not? If it is a character meal you will usually have to pay the full child's charge, because part of the cost of the meal is the character entertainment.

My DS is the world's lightest eater. Many times at non-character buffets the waiter will notice that he only nibbled on a muffin and drank a cup of milk, and will tell us that they did not charge for him because he really didn't eat. That said, I think you should assume going in at a buffet that you will be charged for your child. We tend to avoid character meals (except for the Ice Cream Social) for just this reason.

If you order a la carte, then your child can share off your plate with no problem, but this precludes character meals (except at Gulliver's at the Swan.)

 

[SandraC]

April 2001, ds was 15 months old. He ate free everywhere!

We would feed him breakfast in room but he would snack during our meals and I made him a sandwich for lunch most days, I also brought jars of baby food, he enjoyed that.

Cindy's ~ they gave ds free pancake and he ate from our plates, FREE, he ate two muffins and tons of other food FREE!

Chef Mickey ~ ate free buffet, really only ate two muffins.

Crystal Palace ~ ate free, he was very hungry and chowed down on lots of mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and desserts.

Donald Breakfastosaurus ~ ate free, only wanted a danish.

On the scale of things, he doesn't a ton, so I guess Disney doesn't mind giving out a free muffin or danish now and again.

I don't know what the age limit is for paying for babies.

 

[newtodisney]

The policy regarding buffets is children under 3 are free, the same as admission to the parks. When we went in Jan w/ dd's 2 & 6, we ate at a lot of buffet's, paying only for 3 meals, which often was cheaper then buying 4 ala carte meals off of menus.

 

[Patricia]

More times than not the server would tell us that they didn't charge for my little ones at the buffets. I believer the policy is as previously stated, under 3, but they give a great deal of leeway to the server . We were always pleasantly surprised to hear the words " no charge for the little one" and it happened quite a bit.

 

[BevS97]

we paid for my dd at all the character buffets - she was 3 1/2 and ate some food but not a great deal. However, we enjoyed the character meals so much, that I felt we were paying for the entertainment as much as the meal.

For most other meals, however, we did not order her any food and she just shared our meal. That worked out great, especially as she prefer's to eat 'grown-up' type food (such as chicken, rice, potatoes, veg) rather than the kiddies menu - which is nearly always PB&J sandwiches, or macaroni and cheese.

My dd won't eat either of these, so until we realised we could share, we were really struggling to find something nice for her to order of the kids menu. A few restaurants do a Mickey pasta with spaghetti sauce which was very nice.

Bev

 

[disneefamily]

Don't do any buffets. In all honesty if you are a lite eater, you can order childs meals
for the child, and eat whatever she doesn't, which will be more than half! When my neighbor went to WDW in 1997, (because we did!) she ordered a grilled cheese kids meal, ate half, and most of the fries and everyone was happy.

 

[disneefamily]

WAIT, If buffets are free for those under 3 go for it!!!I never checked into it because it did not concern us. But my other advice still sticks for when you are in the parks!

 

[Tiggeroo]

If you tell your server that your two children would like to split something, I have heard that they bring it out on two seperate plates give them each their own drinks etc. No extra charge.
Tina

 

[BevS97]

Tiggeroo -
I don't know about an official policy, but we certainly got an extra plate for my daughter without any trouble.

If you want to do a character meal but are worried about paying for a buffet that won't be eaten there are 2 options. you can do the Garden Grill Ice Cream Social which I think it $7 - we really enjoyed this and had great ice-cream and great interaction with the characters.

Also, if you have flex features on your pass you can use this for a free character meal. What we did was use 1 feature for each meal (always an adult meal), so we only paid for 1 adult and 1 child, this way we had 3 character meals for a reasonable price. No point in wasting a flex on a kids meal as it is significantly cheaper than the adult one.

We enjoyed the character meals immensely and felt they were well worth the money.

Bev

 

[LMHB]

I just thought I would mention, if you are considering character meals, with regard to the ice cream social...this seems like it would be the perfect option for those not wanting to pay for a full meal. But, it is at a terrible time! It is either 3:00 or 3:30, a time when many 3 year olds, and certainly their younger siblings, are napping. Since so many people with small children take an afternoon break after lunch, this meal is out for them. I wish it was later, we would do it!!! Just thought I would mention.

 

[WDWMommy]

Free buffet meals for kids under 3 is one of the reasons we decided to go ahead with our daughter's birthday trip Jan.31st-Feb.5th, she will be turning 3 Feb.2nd, but, hey Disney doesn't have to know that Does anyone think that would be a problem? She is a very picky eater-we have to "force-feed" her most of the time, so it's not like she'd be eating enough to pay for a child anyway. We are taking our little boy, too, he turns 1 on Feb.14th, and he will probally eat more than her!
*************************WDWMommy

 

[HeatherPage]

WDWMommy, I think I've heard other people on this site say that when they've gone on a trip and their child's birthday is during the trip, Disney will consider them the age they were when they first started the trip for purposes of ticket buying, etc... so I don't see why that would not be the same for meals. And to me the idea that a child will be eating more a day or two after turning 3 just because they are older now, seems ludicrous.