Mobile Order, Gift Cards and Teens

DH and I got into quite the conversation last night trying to figure out the logistics of our upcoming trip. Our immediate party is me, DH, MIL, DS23 and DD16 + 3 friends. I currently manage the plans in MDE for DS23 and all four girls.

The set up –
1 --The girls will be staying back in the room through the morning and early afternoon to do remote schoolwork several days of our trip. How will they pay for their breakfast and lunch without me being present? In the before-times, a tap of the magic band was it. easy peasy. I never thought I’d say I want the dining plan back! In the now-times mobile order is strongly encouraged and they can only go to the register if paying by cash. I’m assuming magic band tapping is out for QS meals.
2 – We are not fans of charging our purchases to a credit card, either directly or through the room. We typically use cash or gift cards. If we do any charges to the room, we pay them off before checkout with cash/gift cards.

The questions –
1 – Mobile ordering goes directly to a credit/debit/gift card, correct? Not as a room charge at the hotel that can subsequently be paid with cash/gift card?
2 – Do to the girls have to have their own MDE account? At first I was thinking yes they do to mobile order. Then I thought I could let them sign into my MDE. This thinking may be due to control issues on my part though disguised as “making it easier” This does not solve the direct charging to the credit card problem though. Clearly they need the app either way.
3 – What’s the easiest way to give them the money they need to buy breakfast and lunch w/o me being present? Do I give them my MDE login with access to my credit card? Do I give them each a gift card that would need to be entered in every time in the app?
4 – Does the MDE app allow for gift cards to be uploaded to apple pay? <---- this would be the ideal solution IMO

Thanks for helping us figure this out!

Mobile order now accepts gift cards as payment. I would think the easiest way for the girls to get their own food would be, have them log into your MDE for mobile order and have them pay with a gift card that you give them. The only difficult part is each time they pay they have to input the gift card number, the system can not store it.

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  1. Correct
  2. Either will work. If they sign in as you though they could change anything. I’m not suggesting they would do so intentionally but I know that was why I insisted my kids set up their own MDE account in the days pre-Covid whereby they couldn’t actually do any “damage” to our plans!
  3. A gift card would solve the payment problem. Entering the code shouldn’t be too much of an issue. They would need an account / sign in details.
  4. I think Apple Pay is accepted but not sure if it is for mobile ordering.

If they don’t have the app and sign in details they could go to a cash register and order there. They would have to explain it to the CM first.

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Where are you staying? Mobile order is definitely VERY strongly encouraged at the parks, but at both the Beach Club marketplace and Roaring Forks they could easily just walk into the QS to order/pay with the gift card or magic band. I imagine it’s similar at other QS especially ones like Beach Club or Saratoga, etc, where the QS is within the gift shop.

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@galuchies_463555 That’s the method I’m leaning most toward - giving them a gift card code that they can store in their iphone notes and quick copy/paste it into the payment screen.

@Nicky_S good point about them being able to change anything if they are using my login. I’ll have to think more about that.

@melcort10 We’re staying at Riviera so they’ll have access to Primo Piatto and Bar Riva. It’s a good point that you make though that hopefully they can walk up and order instead of using mobile order since it’s a slower pace at the resorts.

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