My Budget vacation with the DDP

[Catrin]

Hello All....

I did something different for our five night trip to WDW (coming home today). Because of the times we were arriving and leaving, and because I wanted to make this a budget trip, yet special... I ended up booking THREE different reservations.

Night One... ROOM ONLY (arriving at 7:00 PM)
Nights Two - Four - Package with 4 Day Tickets and DDP
Night Five - ROOM ONLY

With booking this way, we had Three Counter Meals, Three Snacks, Mugs and Three Full Service Meals.... and because we were arriving so late on day one, and leaving after breakfast on our last day, why waste a full day of the DDP?

We used two Full Service Credits for CRT. My daughters 8th Birthday and a once in a lifetime lunch. Totally NOT worth 2 DDP credits, but.. well, hey, it is special.

We used the other Full Service Credit in Norway for Princess Dinner. We did this our last day on the plan. We actually had FOUR days to use THREE days worth of the plan. This worked out great.

Quick Service - we were able to spread throughout four days. A couple Split Lunches (the salads at the ABC Commisary, Restrauntasaaurus and POP Century were huge!)
>> Pop Century Food Court - Kids Pizza, Mom's Night Out Meal, Build your own salad.
>> HS - ABC Commisary - Asian Salad was outstanding, Kids nuggets
>>AK - BLT Salad - HUGE and Filling Fruit Parfait for dessert was terrific.
>> Epcot - Chicken tacos (Split) - Good Serving of Tacos and Nacho Chips - I loved this meal. Kids Chicken Strips with huge portion of chips.

Snacks
Popcorn
Ice Cream x3
Ice Cream Sandwhich at Pop
OJ and Cinnamon Buns at HS (4 credits)

Cash
Breakfast - Kids Pancake or Waffle Meals
1 French Toast Meal
1 Yogurt Parfait at AofA


Would I do the DDP again? Sure! It is not an unbelieveable value, but I enjoyed not worrying about things. It is more of a convenience thing for us rather than money saver.

catrin

 

[Fredericks44]

Interesting! I never thought of it this way. Thanks for sharing! Now a question- with three separate room reservations how did that work? I'm presuming you got to stay in the same room the entire trip?

 

[Catrin]

Interesting! I never thought of it this way. Thanks for sharing! Now a question- with three separate room reservations how did that work? I'm presuming you got to stay in the same room the entire trip?

We did stay in the same room. I admit it was a pain, but I believe it was worth it.

I called the resort the day before we left and reminded them that I had a total of five nights and requested the same room. She took note and told me that this was a frequent request.

I checked in the first night. At 6:30 the next morning, I went to the desk, and checked in again. They issued me new Keys, this time with my Dining Plan and Tickets on them. Then on my night, I received a call that tickets would be delivered to my room between 7:30 and 8:30 am and I didnt have to do anything else. Well, I waited until about 8, but then went to the desk, because we wanted to head out. The good thing, is the dining plan is good until MIDNIGHT of the day you check out. So, in our case, we had FOUR days to use the THREE night dining plan!!

I would consider doing this again. It did not save us a TON of money, but enough to make a difference!

Catrin