Still pooling all credits for dining plan?

[bunnysmum]

I know we all keep asking. I was just wondering if anyone has been in January yet and if they are still handling the dining plan the same way with pooled adult and child credits?

More specifically, I would be very interested to hear confirmations or denials of whether CM's really are encouraging people to pay out of pocket for their children's TS meals to permit more TS dining? (Or maybe I misunderstood this in previous posts??)

I really wouldn't want to do this if it were unethical. But if CM's *truly* are encouraging / instructing people to use the dining plan this way, is it wrong??

Any thoughts?

 

[Hanover]

I'd like to know also

 

[hugpooh]

Yes it is still pooled. We were there from 12/23/05-12/31/05. Had a wonderful time and fabulous food.

I was the one who always went to the counter services to get food while my DH and DS (3.5 years old) waited at the table.
Most of the time we only needed to order two adult meals which were enough for three of us. So we had extra CS credits left for breakfasts. The only time someone actually looked at the card was when we were at the Japanese pavilion CS at Epot. The cashier looked at the card and asked if we are a party of 2 adults and 1 child. I said yes and she said OK you could order 2 meals from adult menus and one from child menu. No problem since that was exactly what I wanted to do- DS really wanted his own desert that day.
We still had CS left on the last day to get a sandwich to eat at the airport!

On the dining card it does said 2A and 1C.
I guess if you only order the adults meals to share and skip the child's, nobody will question you. That way you could save credits for more CS. But when it comes to ordering three meals, they may question like in our case since it indicates that it is 2A and 1C.

We never tried to do the pay out of pocket for the child's meal at the table services. DS always ordered from his menu since there were always something attractive on the child's menu. It was still a great deal.
No CMs ever encouraged us to pay the child's meal out of pocket. I don't know if they will deny since we never asked for it.

We only paid about $650 for the DP and ate over $1000 of food (we kept the receipts and added them up)! I would not spend too much energy trying to figure out how to maximize the plan since I think most people should come out ahead as long as you do eat at some nice sit down restaurants. Too much to calculate that.

The snacks worked great for us. We were able to get bottled water, milk, juice, sodas, apples, bananas, oranges, Mickey's icecream etc. We used them up.

Hope this helps.

 

[Canuckdad]

Well, maybe I'm the first to report this, but on New Year's Day, we were at Chef Mickey's and we were told no more paying OOP for kids meals. A new policy as of Jan. 1, we were told.

 

[MaryKatesMom]

We did the dining plan in December and won't do it again. Yes we "saved" money if you add it up, but we would never have ordered that much food.

We like to do TS for both lunch and dinner leaving us with way too many CS and BC has the WORST CS breakfasts.

Also, the only snack my DD 8 wanted were soft pretzels which were not covered.

The only dessert available at BW or BC with CS was the rice krispy treat which I guess would be fine once, maybe.

 

[bunnysmum]

Wow, thanks Canuckdad. That is good to know ahead of time. I think I'm going to have 2 plans, then. There has been so much discussion of this in the past but I do think you're the first to report no more paying for kids meals OOP.

Thanks for letting us know.

Anyone else have this experience?

 

[bunnysmum]

Thanks, Hugpooh, for all the info!

 

[WISH3]

Anyone else back from a January trip with info on this??? Would love to know??

I just can't see how they can forbid you to order child OOP when they let you share meals and pay for a guest with dining plan etc.....

What are the Jan. dining plan experiences like........................

 

[NMW]

Well, maybe I'm the first to report this, but on New Year's Day, we were at Chef Mickey's and we were told no more paying OOP for kids meals. A new policy as of Jan. 1, we were told.

Well that seems really interesting, because a CM did tell me that it was coming while we were there in Dec. She said a lot of people have been "abusing" the plan and paying oop for kids meals to save credits. She said that Disney did not expect this. We are going in Oct with the dining plan and since our son is 10 we will be 3 adults and 2 children on the plan. I think if we want to do a signature meal, I would just pay oop for an ENTIRE meal someplace, so we had an extra ts credit for everyone. That seems way easier than trying anything else.

 

[lkohawaii]

just subscribing...since I was planning to do this.

 

[nbodyhome]

I guess they didn't expect that if someone got a $10.00 childrens plan, that they could spend up to $75 or so on it each day. I expect at some point, they will be making sure that the childs meals are not pooled with the adults.

Denise

 

[zippehsmom]

We were just there on the dining plan, and in some cases we just ordered 2 adult meals (appetizer, entree and dessert). It was 2 adults & 2 kids (although DD2 was not on the plan).It was more than enough food for all of us to share.

We are adding the dining plan this summer and it will be 2 adults & 4 kids (2 of the kids are over 10). So we will order 2 adult meals & 1 kids meal. We will just all share our meals. So we still end up spreading our TS meals out. So, we will not be using our child TS credit for an adult, we will just all be sharing our meals. This works great for us because you get a ton of food.

Just as a side note, when I took my neice, nephew and mom last July, I told them the goal is no leftovers. WDW is not like dining at home where you can stick the leftovers in the fridge and eat later. So, this philosophy worked really well for us when we planned our meals using the dining plan. We shared so that we had just enough food, not extra.

 

[nbodyhome]

I think that is great to spread out the meals. The amount of food they give is a LOT, if you order all the items - appetizers, desserts, entrees, etc. Definitely way too much for me.

Denise

 

[pedro2112]

Well, maybe I'm the first to report this, but on New Year's Day, we were at Chef Mickey's and we were told no more paying OOP for kids meals. A new policy as of Jan. 1, we were told.

Are they now distinguishing between an adult credit and a child's credit on your banked pool of credits? If not, then the CM gave you wrong information as it would be impossible to run the program otherwise. If the dining plan covered all meals, then it would be possible to do this without distinguishing credits. But since the plan doesn't cover all your meals, there is no way on earth a CM could deny you paying for any person in your party's meal out of pocket. There is no way for them to know what other restaurants you will eat at, and how many credits you will be using at them and who will be using them.

The reason I am saying this is because a neighbor of my paralegal is in the World right now and emailed us to let us know the credits are still pooled with no distinction between adults and children, and she did pay for many of her kids meals out of pocket over the last few days. She did leave before the first of the year, so perhaps this claimed new policy doesn't affect her.

I"d be more interested to hear from people coming back.

 

[tweedlewtwinsmama]

We will be going in June and have included the DP. Our two boys are light eaters and normally share 1 kid's meal, DH can clean his plate but I may not. Will they let us share meals? exp. At a TS (not buffet) order 2 adult meals no kid meals and let kids eat part of ours. If we can't share meals we will be wasting a ton of food.

 

[eeyore45]

I think the difference is where you eat. For instance, Character meals, Chef Mickeys etc you cant pay oop is new policy, and easier to enforce (? well easy for some, not necessarily *me* lol)

But if we were at LeCellier, and dd wanted to share, and I wanted to pay oop for drinks, I'm thinking that should be ok - but like many have posted, its a lot of food, and we dont want to waste either, so we just would share some meals, or eat CS meal, then skip a day of a TS meal, then we "took advantage" (within the structure of the plan) and ate a signature place!

Also when we shared the CS meals, so we had enough for breakfast and lunch each day!!

 

[salmoneous]

Note - this is pure speculation...

The only way to really make the "no kids OOP at CM" is to have a rule saying that if you have a party paying cash and dining credits, the credits go first towards the kids meals. So adults can pay OOP, just not kids.

 

[DisneyWisher]

We are adding the dining plan this summer and it will be 2 adults & 4 kids (2 of the kids are over 10). So we will order 2 adult meals & 1 kids meal. We will just all share our meals. So we still end up spreading our TS meals out. So, we will not be using our child TS credit for an adult, we will just all be sharing our meals. This works great for us because you get a ton of food.

Just to let you know anyone 10 and over is considered an adult for the Dining Plan. Children are considered 3-9.


When we used the DP it was 2 adults and DD12. The only place we shared meals was ESPN Club because we always ordered the Nachos as an Appetizer and I would have Dingers as my meal (which is considered an Appetizer) regardless of the DP or not. Since we had 1 TS left on our last day we went to Sci-Fi and let DD12 order whatever she wanted. While we enjoyed the DP, we would probably never use it again, as others have reported it just too much food.

 

[DisneyWisher]

Note - this is pure speculation...

The only way to really make the "no kids OOP at CM" is to have a rule saying that if you have a party paying cash and dining credits, the credits go first towards the kids meals. So adults can pay OOP, just not kids.

OMG, could you just imagine the outrage. For that one I would love to be a fly on the wall.

 

[Canuckdad]

Are they now distinguishing between an adult credit and a child's credit on your banked pool of credits? If not, then the CM gave you wrong information as it would be impossible to run the program otherwise. If the dining plan covered all meals, then it would be possible to do this without distinguishing credits. But since the plan doesn't cover all your meals, there is no way on earth a CM could deny you paying for any person in your party's meal out of pocket. There is no way for them to know what other restaurants you will eat at, and how many credits you will be using at them and who will be using them.

Just to expand on the original story (and answer the question) all the receipts just listed the number of total credits, no difference between adult and child credits. And it should be noted that it took quite a while for the server to come back to explain the "changed policy", and I could see him and another server having an animated discussion at the till. Pure speculation, but upon reflection, maybe they were having an ethical debate along the same lines as the ad nauseum debates on this topic on these boards. And, as it appears I'm the only one who's run into this, perhaps it was just our server making a stand without company backing. For the record, on an otherwise joyous fun-filled night at Chef Mickey's with happy families and happy servers, he was the only one without a smile on his puss (and we noticed this long before the bill arrived). His name was Tom, which we decided was the Seminole Indian word for "Stick up his butt".

One other note — we paid OOP for our child (not to save credits, but to get him an adult meal because the child meals looked boring; he's much more adventurous than chicken strips and macaroni) the next night at Sci-Fi and had no problem. Maybe it's only for buffets???