Two short DDP questions

[TikiGoddess]

I was reading an article in the Hartford Courant about the DDP this morning (how nice to wake up and see something other than doom and gloom in the newspaper...).

Some of their dining plan tips I questioned though:

1. "Sharing meals on the dining plan is allowed... We could share three counter-service meals for lunch, leaving us two counter-service meal credits for breakfast."

I know you can share counter service but can you share table service? I seem to remember some rule about all the people at a table needing to use a credit at table service.

2. " If you have children in your group and eat at a sit-down restaurant, the children must order off the kids' menu. But that's not the case at counter-service restaurants, something we discovered halfway through our trip. And this made a big difference when we could order chicken breast nuggets off the adult menu... instead of the processed and disgusting nuggets served as part of the kids' menu meals."

Really? I thought that they had actually divided up the credits on the plan so you had a set amount of child credits and adult credits. If this is so, that will be very helpful to us, as the kids menus are so limited at many places, and we don't want our kids to be eating nuggets for an entire week.

Thanks for the help... sorry I've only used the plan once and it was back in 2006.

Kathy

[bicker]

1. "Sharing meals on the dining plan is allowed... We could share three counter-service meals for lunch, leaving us two counter-service meal credits for breakfast."

I know you can share counter service but can you share table service? I seem to remember some rule about all the people at a table needing to use a credit at table service. No, that's not a requirement, except at set-menu venues, i.e., buffets.

The only sticky issue regarding sharing on the Dining Plan is that you cannot use sharing to facilitate violation of the prohibition against using child meal allowances for adult meals.


2. " If you have children in your group and eat at a sit-down restaurant, the children must order off the kids' menu. But that's not the case at counter-service restaurants, something we discovered halfway through our trip.This is advocating a direct violation of the rules of the Dining Plan, which all patrons implicitly agree to abide by. Even though Disney doesn't actively police this, it is despicable that a "journalist" actually advocated doing this. Utterly despicable.

[TikiGoddess]

This is advocating a direct violation of the rules of the Dining Plan, which all patrons implicitly agree to abide by. Even though Disney doesn't actively police this, it is despicable that a "journalist" actually advocated doing this. Utterly despicable.

I KNEW this sounded fishy. How were they able to do this though? I thought that Disney (after the first year or so) separated the dining credits into adult and child credits. They do that for the table service, right? They don't for the counter service??

Kathy

[illini]

Even though the credits were supposedly split on our last trip, in actuality, they weren't. At least 3-4 times at CS, the CM would ask us if we wanted to pay OOP for the kids' meals and go on to explain we could save the "kids" credits for adult meals. We didn't do it, but it was more than possible according to the CMs. It was weird that they actually encouraged it even though WDW was supposedly cracking down on it. I suspect it's still the same way now, and I'm sure lots of people do this. Not something I'm comfortable doing, but....

Our 2005 trip was at the very beginning of the DDP. They actually told us at check-in to use the kids' credits for adult meals.

Coming back to add that I *know* the credits weren't split last trip because we actually lost track. When we tried to see how much we had of what, they were all lumped together.

[TikiGoddess]

Here is the letter I sent to the reporter to wrote the article -- tell me if I got it right! (too late to fix anything now, but anyway....)

I was very happy to see an article on Disney World dining in this morning's paper. I am an avid Disney World fan and spend a considerable amount of time on all things Disney. When I reached the end of your article, however, I was taken back by this passage:

" If you have children in your group and eat at a sit-down restaurant, the children must order off the kids' menu. But that's not the case at counter-service restaurants, something we discovered halfway through our trip. And this made a big difference when we could order chicken breast nuggets off the adult menu -- which were actually made with real chicken-- instead of the processed and disgusting nuggets served as part of the kids' menu meals."

The Disney Website CLEARLY states that this is a violation of the rules of the Disney Dining Plan.
http://xxxxxxxx/08Dining.pdf

Page 6 of PDF:
Can Guests ages 3-9 order anything off the menu?
No, Guests ages 3-9 must order from a children’s menu, where available.


The Table Service credits are marked as Adult and Child credits on the plan. You cannot use a TS child credit for an adult meal. The Quick service credits are not marked as such... so yes, you could conceivably use a counter service child credit for an adult meal. Disney restaurant staff are (supposedly) trained to notice what members you have in your party (i.e. 2A/2C) and keep you to ordering within that number.

Obviously there is a way around the system, as you found on your trip. I cannot believe that a journalist would recommend cheating the system and breaking the stated rules of the Dining Plan. If the kids' menu does not appeal to your children, Disney does allow you to buy an Adult meal plan for anyone at any age, plus they allow sharing among party members.

Sincerely,
Kathy X

What gets me is that, like the previous poster, there is so much contrary information floating around. CAN you use kids TS for adult TS? DO the CMs let you buy more adult CS meals than stated on your hotel card? I am not interested in cheating the system, but would love to understand how the dining plan works before I actually use it next August.

Kathy

[TikiGoddess]

And this was supposed to be a short question thread.... sorry folks!

So I got a reply from the reporter:

Thanks for the email. We ordered the adult nuggets after staff members (more than one) recommended it, and said it didn't make a difference on the plan. We weren't "cheating the system," just doing as what the employees -- who are the experts on the plan -- said was allowable. And the chicken was so much better, that is what should be available to all, whether you are a kid or not.

This is confusing. Do you go with what Disney says in print, or what Disney CMs tell you??

Kathy

[illini]

I really don't know. It definitely IS confusing. For us, I wasn't comfortable getting something I didn't pay for so even though CMs said it was OK, we didn't do it. Well, we may have once we lost track but it wasn't like we set out to do it.

My gut tells me that most people would go ahead and get the adult meal. I can't really say I blame them when the CMs encourage it, but I'm still not personally comfortable with it.

[bicker]

So I got a reply from the reporter:

Thanks for the email. We ordered the adult nuggets after staff members (more than one) recommended it, and said it didn't make a difference on the plan. We weren't "cheating the system," just doing as what the employees -- who are the experts on the plan -- said was allowable. And the chicken was so much better, that is what should be available to all, whether you are a kid or not.

This is confusing. Do you go with what Disney says in print, or what Disney CMs tell you??

KathyThe reporter was wrong. Any reporter who claims that a cashier is more of an expert on the rules of a program than the printed rules themselves is just lying to themselves, and when put into print, lying to all of us. Reporters are real people, motivated by their own personal greed just like everyone else. And this reporter was clearly so blinded by self-interest that the reporter didn't realize the parallel between how much you pay and quality of the food, claiming that everyone should get the better chicken nuggets regardless of the fact that the child meal plan is less than one-third the price of the adult meal plan. In-friggen-credible. However, as I said, reporters are real people, too, filled with all the standard real people failings.

[magicofdisney]

This reminds me of the whole mug refill program (without trying to stir up controversy). Even though we all KNOW that mugs should only be used during the visit they're purchased, CMs will still tell customers it's ok to use an old mug. Some ppl allow the spoken word to trump the written word when it benefits them.

[TBY2225]

I have had no trouble sharing TS or CS with my DH. Also, we will share our adult CS with the kids and then let them us their kids CS for breakfast (kids breakfast platters) since they are big breakfast eaters and we are not! Portions are huge anyway, we are not cheating, but we are getting the max out of the plan we can! Why waste food when you can work it out this way!

[mrmcgiv]

we were just there last week and when i got my meal print out upon check in it had

16 adult TS
16 Kid TS
32 Counter svc

kids were not broken out in CS....but we ordered kid's meal until at col. Harbor house I asked if I could order chix off of adult meni for kid b/c all the had was Mac n Cheese and Chix salad (neither of which my kids would eat), the guy told me it was OK.

In the end we were not short any CS for adults from using that. We were just fine. sounds like the official rule is that it is a no no to do that.

MR

[ElenitaB]

Kathy, you did the right thing in calling the reporter out on the misinformation.

I wouldn't doubt that in 2009, Disney begins to enforce its own rules a bit better. (Hopefully, that will extend to the dinner dress code on the ships as well.)

[bicker]

I doubt the imposing of dress codes will get more stringent; the trends has been firmly, and consistently, towards more casual attire.

[brian2000boston]

This is interesting stuff.

At the end of the day of course people should do the right thing, however, isn't it interesting how visitors to Disney find enforcing these rules appear to be more important to the visitors then Disney itself? I can't imagine that fixing the slip to reflect adult vs child counter service ddp meals would be very difficult since it is already done for table service.

At some point Disney needs to take responsibility to enforce rules... not all people read handouts or rule sheets and they shouldnt expect people would... this of course does not make it right, but if you are a business you need to take resposability for enforcement and not expect the guest will.

[bicker]

At the end of the day of course people should do the right thing, however, isn't it interesting how visitors to Disney find enforcing these rules appear to be more important to the visitors then Disney itself?No, not really. Many times in the past, recurrent exploitation of loop-holes and such by guests have resulted in Disney changing or curtailing services, to the detriment of all customers. That prompts some people to implore all customers to use offerings in their intended manner.



I can't imagine that fixing the slip to reflect adult vs child counter service ddp meals would be very difficult since it is already done for table service. The difficulty has been explained many times, on several online Disney forums. The was it was explained to me is that the most basic input terminals for Disney's POS system have only a limited number of preset buttons, and that it is likely that the amount of abuse is not sufficient to justify sacrificing an additional preset.



At some point Disney needs to take responsibility to enforce rules...No, not necessarily. As long as most people voluntarily comply, it is often better to handle things that way, rather than employing enforcement.



not all people read handouts or rule sheets and they shouldnt expect people would... It isn't clear that that many people would be prone to such exploitation. Disney's likely just playing the odds.


this of course does not make it right, but if you are a business you need to take resposability for enforcement and not expect the guest will.And I doubt Disney would resist taking action if their bottom-line was at risk. However, they also won't work to protect rule-followers, unless that benefits their bottom-line.

[Figment!]

:cop: **Moderator Note** :cop:



As far as INTERCOT is concerned, Disney's Official Printed Publication is the rule to be followed.

Although Cast Members are intended to uphold the Walt Disney World resorts policies, their individual actions should not be interpreted as changes or omissions to the rules and regulations that the Resort has published and distributed to Guests of a participating program.

As the origional poster's questions has been answered as far as they can within the contraints of INTERCOT's Terms of Service, this discussion is closed.