What would you do? DDP Question

[disneyholic family]

The CS for kids is where the majority of the complaints come in. As mentioned, TS kids menus are not too bad and buffets are one way of getting around it altogether.

If the kids are on a child's dining plan you have to purchase a child's meal, unless the restaurant does not have a kids menu. It is written on the official DDP brochures.

Yes, kids CS menus usually have one or two options like a PB&J Smuckers processed sandwich or chicken nuggets.

If you do a bit of homework there are good kids meals to be found but it helps to know where you need to be at mealtime. Being in the middle of Japan at Epcot is no help at lunctime when the better choices are kids are at Sunshine Seasons.

To be fair I never really had a problem with the kids menus before, but we have always had plenty of food from my adult meals which made sharing very easy.

if it were me, i'd upgrade for the £42...
seems it's worth it...

 

[2Tiggies]

if it were me, i'd upgrade for the £42...
seems it's worth it...

Oh so would I without question. And for the OP, who has two other children to split the extra quantities between them, I would upgrade without hesitation. My above post was simply to give an objective perspective as it can be done with a bit of planning.

Also, the OP only has one buffet meal planned and would thus benefit from the upgrade

 

[disneyholic family]

Oh so would I without question. And for the OP, who has two other children to split the extra quantities between them, I would upgrade without hesitation. My above post was simply to give an objective perspective as it can be done with a bit of planning.

Also, the OP only has one buffet meal planned and would thus benefit from the upgrade

when i helped my friend plan her first trip to WDW last year, i completely forgot about the child meal thing....fortunately i remembered before they left for florida and she was still able to call up and have her daughter switched to adult...
actually, i think i saw a post here about children and free dining and that's what made me realize she should upgrade her daugther..

 

[joolz1910]

Oh so would I without question. And for the OP, who has two other children to split the extra quantities between them, I would upgrade without hesitation. My above post was simply to give an objective perspective as it can be done with a bit of planning.

Also, the OP only has one buffet meal planned and would thus benefit from the upgrade

This is what I was thinking too. DD(8) is not a big eater but we could effectively share 2 adult meals and 1 kids meal between 3 kids. Might save the arguments and I will avoid eating grapes for dessert.

 

[chocolateMinnie]

if you can do it then it is an amazing price. However, when we asked in the past we were told that everything had to be changed - the park tickets have to be adults and any surcharges for extra adults in rooms have to be paid too. Not sure if this has changed.

 

[JulieBarlow]

if you can do it then it is an amazing price. However, when we asked in the past we were told that everything had to be changed - the park tickets have to be adults and any surcharges for extra adults in rooms have to be paid too. Not sure if this has changed.

I thought this too, would love to know where OP got a quote of £42 to upgrade from child to adult DDP as we would love to do this for our 9 year old who turns 10 while we are there. Did you go through your travel agent or direct to Disney for this quote? and was it for a time when it's free dining or not?

 

[crabbie1]

Its the difference in price between an adult ticket and a childs thts if its free dining. I think ours was £16 to upgrade dd who is 9 to the adult. You dnt hv to pay room supplements not if booked direct or CO tht i know of As only ticket is Adult and the ddp room occ is free for kids under 17 anyway.

 

[chocolateMinnie]

Its the difference in price between an adult ticket and a childs thts if its free dining. I think ours was £16 to upgrade dd who is 9 to the adult. You dnt hv to pay room supplements not if booked direct or CO tht i know of As only ticket is Adult and the ddp room occ is free for kids under 17 anyway.

that's great if this is now the case - we have tried twice as we generally have mainly buffets but then pay for our dd to have adult choices at the other ts (and that soonn stacks up at places like Le Cellier and hbd) although with cs we usually take it in turns to have a kids meal so she gets two in a week, I do etc. We have always been quoted huge amounts by Virgin to do this and the year we booked direct with WDW they were going to charge us extra $$$ too. Much more than £42

I will try and phone Virgin for quote next week

 

[joolz1910]

As far as I know £42 is the difference in price between an adult's park ticket and a child's. My accommodation is OKW, so we would not incur any extra charges for an 'extra' adult. We booked this with Disney. I know £42 isn't a huge amount, but now I'm worried about how this will increase tips over 14 days.

 

[Elise79]

Juliette - what is your biggest concern with the kids menus? Is the TS meals or CS meals or desserts?

If you explain what you think might be a problem we can help you find a workable solution - either to upgrade or buy a few things OOP.

 

[VickyJ]

Our last two trips have been on the dining plan and we have managed it well both times. First time round our middle child was 9 and dd was 6 this time ds was adult and dd was 7. She didnt mind a bit as a lot of our meals were wither family style (akershus brekkie, Garden grill, ohanas) or buffet. It was only roughly one in three of our meald that was menu option. I happily shared bits of mine with her as i never come remotely close to finishing it anyway !
there any many times that i do not even bother with my desert, but it never goes wasted courtesy of one of our three children !

 

[chocolateMinnie]

We have a week if it is any help with a dd 9 who eats more than her 13 year old brother.

Counter service and snacks obviously won't count for your tip dilemma.

We would pay more tip by about $40 on our week's buffets last year if she had been the adult she will be in 2012!!! However for the two meals we allowed her to order off the adults menu and paid oop (Le Cellier and Kouzzinas) we paid $90 for her meals.

Don't know if that helps.

Honestly if Virgin would let me upgrade her for £42 I would do it - to me it's a bargain then she would be able to have what she wanted at each meal without me working out the $$$.

It suits us for one kids counter service as we usually either share three cs meals or I have the kids meal as invariably I'm not hungry enough for an adults lunch.

Will be interested to see what you decide on :

 

[joolz1910]

Juliette - what is your biggest concern with the kids menus? Is the TS meals or CS meals or desserts?

If you explain what you think might be a problem we can help you find a workable solution - either to upgrade or buy a few things OOP.

I've never been to WDW, let alone eaten on the DDP, so this is all new to me. My concerns are:

DD (8) and DD (5) will both have an unbroken diet of chicken nuggets.
They will be jealous of their older sister's choices/ desserts.
We will spend a lot of time trying to find children's menus with variety (both CS and TS)
We will have to 'rotate' the adults' meals to ensure parity.
If we upgrade, we will have too much food! I hate waste!
If we upgrade, we will have to spend a lot more money on tips.
If we upgrade, DD(8) will say she prefers the children's menu choices.

I'm finding the whole thing exciting but quite overwhelming. I have looked through a lot of TS menus and the children's choices don't seem very appetising (to me anyway).

 

[chocolateMinnie]

I've never been to WDW, let alone eaten on the DDP, so this is all new to me. My concerns are:

DD (8) and DD (5) will both have an unbroken diet of chicken nuggets.
they will if you're not picky with your adrs but if you choose carefully they will have great chicken, steak or fish choices
They will be jealous of their older sister's choices/ desserts.
this is certainly true although we generally find that one person per table service meal is willing to trade for an ice-cream or we pay oop
We will spend a lot of time trying to find children's menus with variety (both CS and TS)
I think this is true -advance planning helps but a lot of the venues only offer pb&j sandwiches or nuggets or pizza none of which our dd eats.
We will have to 'rotate' the adults' meals to ensure parity.
yep but not if you do buffets or family style meals
If we upgrade, we will have too much food! I hate waste!
I'm a big eater - I love the buffets and can manage two courses at a ts but never a full counter service lunch and usually bring my snacks home
If we upgrade, we will have to spend a lot more money on tips.
Yes you will - this shouldnn't be underestimated. last year we went onthe dxdp and spent about $400 on tips
If we upgrade, DD(8) will say she prefers the children's menu choices.
now you know this is the law according to kids - but it isn't hard to order a kids meal for an adult but impossible to order an adult's for a kid unless paying oop. My DS twice had kids meals last year - at 12 he was considered an adult and they just gave him bigger portions.

I'm finding the whole thing exciting but quite overwhelming. I have looked through a lot of TS menus and the children's choices don't seem very appetising (to me anyway).

for proper eating children the kids meals generally are poor but there are some great places and buffets are definitely the best - I would still upgrade if I could do it for £42 for my daughter

 

[joolz1910]

for proper eating children the kids meals generally are poor but there are some great places and buffets are definitely the best - I would still upgrade if I could do it for £42 for my daughter

I think it's great value for £42 too. I will probably do it as I don't want to be counting the pennies if we have to buy OOP. I've had a look at my DDP choices and I haven't opted for a lot of buffets. Methinks more research is needed...

 

[monica23535]

I have upgraded the plan for my 5 year old son for our next trip. We have used the DDP twice over the last two years and were not too pleased with the Counter Service choices for kids. There are only so many grapes and dry carrots a kid can eat!

We intend to order a childs meal for him at the non-buffet restaurants as we were generally quite happy with these.

I have roughly estimated that it will cost us $3 extra in tips on the days that we will be eating a buffet meal, which during our 14 day stay in October is 7 times so $21, which we feel is worth it.