It's great to see you here today at the Disney Parks Moms Panel, Julie!
I really love using the
Disney Dining Plan when I go on vacation, and you're going to love how easy it is when you arrive at Walt Disney World Resort in less than two weeks! You'll only need to decide what you want to eat, tap your
MagicBand, and enjoy your delicious meal. To answer your question, your kids can even make their own purchases at food and merchandise locations. You'll assign a PIN to your account to authorize purchases, so make sure they have that memorized if they want to grab anything on their own.
When you use the Dining Plan, your credits are grouped together with anyone who is staying in your
Walt Disney World Resort Hotel room with you, so you will not be able to access your friends' credits with your MagicBand and they won't have access to yours. When you all go to dinner together, just let the Cast Member serving you know that you're using the Dining Plan and you'd like to split the check and they'll be happy to sort that out for you. A representative from each room will need to be present to use their MagicBand to deduct the Dining Plan credits from the correct account, and then you'll be paid for and finished before you can say "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious".
I hope this answers your question, Julie, and please let us know if there's anything else we can do to help you plan your magical vacation!
Jessica