Mistakes you made the 1st time you did DDP.

[DoctorK]

We saved snack credits, and then ended up with a bunch we rushed to use on the last day.

Also, we didn't realize at Coronado Springs that the big cinnamon and pecan rolls could be had for a snack credit. We would have used the snack credit on those to have for breakfast the next day.

 

[brymolmom]

We, too, tried saving our snack credits for 'big' things...and then regretted it. We have since used snack credits as soon as we get something, anything that qualifies as a snack credit. We usually still have extra at the end.

I would say to have a good idea of CS meals that you want. Especially if you want the most variety of kids meals. If you end up just eating near where you are - your kids might get sick of mac n cheese. You CAN find SOME variety - but need to know where to find it before everyone is hungry. Don't forget the kids CAN GET things like muffins/bagels at the bakeries - that breaks up the monotony by using it for a meal.

Also - JUST ASK. Most restaurants and most CM's have different ideas of what you get with your meal - so if you're not sure if you get a side or dessert at a CS place - ask someone.

 

[Nohal]

I was also guilty of saving snack credits. If I wanted a soda or coffee I paid out of pocket felt like it was a waste of a snack credit. At the end of our stay I had many snack credits left and got Mickey rice krispie treats to bring home. I plan to use my snack credits this time instead of saving them.

 

[duffy]

We didn't save our snack credits, but we did hoard the counter service ones, for some dumb reason, LOL.

Our stay was 5 nights at the Wilderness Lodge and then 3 at the Dolphin. Since we couldn't get the dining plan at the Dolphin, we figured we'd get food and take it back to the fridge at the Dolphin. Great idea, right?

On our last day, we still had 11 counter service credits--for 4 people!! (3 adults and 1 child. My daughter was 13 and my neice was the "child".) We ate and ate and ate some more!! We ended up going to the various countries in Epcot and getting meals to go. My husband and I walked back to our room with our arms weighed down with bags of food!! I think we got 6 meals to go. (But they were fine the next day--we tried to order things that would last a day or so.) And we ended up with a lot of desserts because we got them to go from our table service meals. One night, the 2 girls ate dinner in the room--and had nothing but desserts!! LOL!!

 

[mermaid&cinderella]

the first time we used DDP, we didn't budget well. Now we are much smarter.

We learned:

1. You DON'T HAVE to buy kids meals at the counter service. If you have two adults in your party, then limit your CS purchases to two at a time. Check out in two different cashier lines if necessary. For my family, we had 4 CS per day. We would buy 2 CS adult meals at breakfast, and 2 CS adult meals at lunch.

2. Supplement your CS meals with snack credits. Look carefully at what constitutes a snack. A Large French Fry in Epcot costs one snack credit. A Cereal+Milk also costs one snack credit. So does a tiny portion of peanut butter. Don't waste snack credits on tiny, inexpensive or less-filling items.

3. If you have snack credits left over, Use them to buy airplane food. Giant Rice Krispy Mickey Heads cost 1 snack and travel really well.

4. Watch out for "Signature Restaurants" that eat up your Table Service credits. They cost 2 TS credits per person. That caught us off guard the first time. Be aware so you can budget your TS meals effectively. Also -- character breakfasts only cost 1 TS (as opposed to character dinners, which cost 2. Just FYI.)

What character breakfasts cost 1TS and then at dinner cost 2TS I thinkk you are confused. Its only certain restaurants that cost 2 TS!

 

[rentayenta]

Honestly, I went too much on the advice of others and not enough on my instinct as far as where to eat. The ones with the rave reviews, Chef Mickey's and CRT, were by far the worst of the trip. Those that looked good to me but got mixed reviews as far as food and DDP value were the best, Cal Grill and Tony's.

 

[mermaid&cinderella]

if you have the DDP
don't put charging on your room key or they may charge your Credit Card and not take the DDP credit ...
if you have to charge on your room key Use your kids room key when paying for food on the ddp ..

That is a good one. That happened to us at Hollywood & Vine but we had a really terrible waitress.

 

[marcyinPA]

We actually concentrated too much on sharing meals in order to spread out the credits, and we ended up with extras (CS) at the end.

 

[tndisneyfan]

Here are just a few of the things we did the first time around that didn't work out just so.

1. We planned our dinner ADR's around 5:00 or 5:30, after eating a full CS lunch we just weren't really hungry at our ADR time. We found we did better eating an hour or so later.

2. Bought a bunch of snacks and stuff to have in the room. We did use our breakfast items but with the CS meal and TS meal with dessert and appetizer (it was included at that time), we were just too full to snack in the room. We had to throw some stuff away but was able to take some home with us.

3. Saved up snack credits. I don't know why we did this, we were worried I guess about having them later in the trip. We ended up with a bunch left over, but we were able to get stuff to take home. It would've been better just to use them as we needed them.

4. Trying too hard to maximize CS and snack credits. It's really just better to get what you want.

That's all I can think of right now.

 

[JLC5266]

We actually concentrated too much on sharing meals in order to spread out the credits, and we ended up with extras (CS) at the end.

I was thinking of sharing meals to conserve CS credits...but may not..I don't want to end up with those left over...Snack credits are one thing...but CS credits!

BTW - I see you are from the Lehigh Valley....I am from Nazareth, PA...so we're practically neighbors...not too mention...from your countdown ticker..I see that we will be down in WDW the same time...we are staying at ASMO..

 

[PrincessPeyton]

Our biggest mistake was ordering pizza delivery to our hotel room at ASMo. It took 2 adult TS for a pizza and a 2 Liter bottle of soda. I think pizza delivery is only available at the value resorts. we could have used those credits so much better!

 

[Mackwell]

Double check your dining reservations.

A few years ago, we used 2 TS credits to go to Hoop Dee Doo. At some point before the trip, our travel dates changed, and my DW was supposed to change the dinner reservation date.

Cut to check-in at Port Orleans. We've been traveling all day, and we're dead tired, but we're looking forward to going to Hoop Dee Doo the next day. When the front-desk CM prints out our dining reservations list, she wonders how we are going to get to Hoop Dee Doo from Port Orleans in 15 minutes. The reservations never got changed.

The CM was very helpful, but the best she could do was to get us booked into the last show that same night. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. We made it to Fort Wilderness in time for the late show, but no one at our table could stay awake for the show. One of our kids had a single piece of corn bread and then put his head down on the table and fell asleep.

So I highly recommend that you double check your dining reservations in advance.

 

[marcyinPA]

I was thinking of sharing meals to conserve CS credits...but may not..I don't want to end up with those left over...Snack credits are one thing...but CS credits!

BTW - I see you are from the Lehigh Valley....I am from Nazareth, PA...so we're practically neighbors...not too mention...from your countdown ticker..I see that we will be down in WDW the same time...we are staying at ASMO..

Hi neighbor! We're in Bethlehem! I get to Nazareth pretty often...to Nazareth Music....always needing instrument repairs!

Can't wait till June 20!! We'll be staying at the Wilderness Lodge. Couldn't pass up the deal with the buy4/get 3 free!

Are you flying? I can't find decent airfare for nothing. I've been checking and checking. All the good-priced flights are late night arrival, early am departure. Not going to work for us! We're actually going to drive, unless the perfect airfare comes up!

 

[JLC5266]

Hi neighbor! We're in Bethlehem! I get to Nazareth pretty often...to Nazareth Music....always needing instrument repairs!

Can't wait till June 20!! We'll be staying at the Wilderness Lodge. Couldn't pass up the deal with the buy4/get 3 free!

Are you flying? I can't find decent airfare for nothing. I've been checking and checking. All the good-priced flights are late night arrival, early am departure. Not going to work for us! We're actually going to drive, unless the perfect airfare comes up!

Us too! A great deal for sure. Yes, we are flying...went through AAA...was hoping to fly out of ABE but no go...boo hoo...we are out of Phila...so we have decided to drive down the night before, stay at the Hampton Inn at the Phila Airport with free shuttle over to the airport and we can leave our car there the entire trip...I believe it will be just about $100 for the night, and leaving our car there...so that's not too bad....and we can sleep in a little the morning of our flight with knowing that we are "already there" and don't have to stress over the drive, traffic or any unexpected problems with Tuesday morning rush hour traffic, etc. We were booked with AirTran on a 11:40 AM flight arriving into MCO at 2:15 PM but I believe the flight is totally booked...you are welcomed to PM me...!

 

[Colleen27]

I was woefully uninformed as to all the things that qualify as snacks, so we ended up using ours for bottled drinks and popsicles and then taking a bunch of Mickey rice crispy treats home. Lesson learned - Read the snack sticky on the top of this board, and use it well!

Also, get to know the transportation system, and don't be afraid to book resort restaurants! On our first DDP trip, we planned every meal for the park we were in with only one exception for 1900 Park Fare, and we missed out on a couple of places that looked interesting and have since become favorites because I was unaware of how easy transportation from a park to the nearby resorts can be.

 

[squirrel]

I just wanted to clarify what a previous poster said you can do that is not allowed.

When ordering CS meals you are only allowed to order what is on your card (ie 2 Adults and 2 Children) you are not allowed to go up and get 2 adult meals and then go and get another 2 adult meals. You are only allowed to get the meals as they are written. You are cheating if you are only getting adult meals. Disney will seperate the CS meals if people continue to do this. There was a thread a while back saying that Disney is now keeping track of the CS, I don't know if this is true-but follow the rules!

 

[lacrosse_lady72]

We had the same problem as PPs with saving snack credits and ended up with half of them left on the last few days... we brought home a lot of fudge! But we make sure to use them up, since we're going during the F&WF, it's a good way to use credits there from sampling around the world. Plus, the $7 lobster roll at the Hops & Barley Market is a good value, one of the only things allowed as a snack on the DDP that is over $4 and it's good! So is the Sam Adams cream stout to go with it

We actually ended up with the same problem our first time with CS. We had more than enough left to eat during our last few days. Now we know to make sure we at least head over to Earl of Sandwich and pick a sandwich or to WPE for a pizza.

Now, I like to make a rough draft schedule of what days we will be eating a CS so that we go to the ones we want and don't waste any, with 14 nights of credits it can get a little wacky.



I also think one should pick their restaurants wisely. Do the research if you're not the most familiar with the restaurants to avoid having to eat repeat cuisine... this is most important to me as I am a picky eater. I ate so much rotisserie chicken one year... and I don't particularly like chicken.



If you opt to go for breakfast as a CS meal, instead of entree, dessert and drink you will get entree, juice or milk and an additional drink. Good to know so you can use the juice or milk with breakfast and get water as the additional drink and bring it with you to the park so you don't have to spend $3 on water or use a snack credit.



Not necessarily a mistake but something good to know, when we were in MK CS locations last time in September 2008 there were hand held pre-menus that were handed out. The explained what was covered by the DDP and what was not. It also said some other information about the DDP.

 

[lacrosse_lady72]

I just wanted to clarify what a previous poster said you can do that is not allowed.

When ordering CS meals you are only allowed to order what is on your card (ie 2 Adults and 2 Children) you are not allowed to go up and get 2 adult meals and then go and get another 2 adult meals. You are only allowed to get the meals as they are written. You are cheating if you are only getting adult meals. Disney will seperate the CS meals if people continue to do this. There was a thread a while back saying that Disney is now keeping track of the CS, I don't know if this is true-but follow the rules!

There are some CS locations, I believe, that do not have a children's menu. That is hear-say though as I don't have children so it doesn't apply to me and I don't care, but I remember hearing a lot of people mentioning some places are children menu free.

 

[squirrel]

I think Casey's is the only one left.

They have been adding children's menus at the few CS that didn't have them.

 

[Nicole721]

This wasn't from our first time on the DDP, but our first time on the Deluxe Plan.

If you eat three meals a day, you will have no room for snacks. If you have no room for snacks, you will end up with 40something credits at the end of the week. At that point, you may end up at Goofy's for over an hour trying to spend them all. Which you won't. You'll end up getting random things like bags of nuts and gummy cheeseburgers in the hotel gift shop 10 minutes before you leave. And then you'll have so much stuff from Goofy's at home that you'll never finish it and toss half of it.

This is what I learned in August LOL.

Though, I blame half of the too-much-from-Goofy's fiasco on the lovely CM who worked there and kept throwing free stuff in our bags because we were so nice and it was taking so long to finish our 15 custom orders (we spent the rest on cookies/cupcakes/candy/etc).