DDP Newbie - Need HELP if free DDP is offered

[silmarg]

I have never purchased a DDP. I am an AP holder and also have the DDE card.

We are going to WDW in late late Aug this year (first time for us going this time of year) and there is very strong rumors that free DDP will be offered. As such, I will forego the AP room discount (which is $25/day in a mod - heck I may trade down to a value... but that is a different story) for the free DDP for the 4 of us (granted I will likely have to buy one day passes, but I can use those one day passes as a down payment to buy future APs).

My question is this: Typically our family does 2 Full Service restaurants a day - breakfast and dinner. In fact I have made all my ADRs already for this trip. A typical day would be Ohana's for breakfast and Crystal Palace for dinner... I know I will get one free FS on the DDP - so I will use that for a dinner since they are more expensive than the breakfast (and I guess I will use the DDE for breakfast). And I know we will use the snacks on the DDP (as we always will get an ice cream or popcorn during the day).

My concern is the Counter Service. What do folks use the CS part of the DDP on (if they are doing the DDP). Do folks just not do 2 FS's?

I need guidance from the experts.

Finally (a real dumb question) I assume you get the same number of DDP credits as the number of hotel nights you have right? Not the number of days (which is theoretically one more day than the number of nights for us).

 

[bicker]

Yes, the Dining Plan is based on the number of nights, not the number of days... it's actually based on how much you pay for it, and they make you pay a certain amount for each night of your reservation.

 

[n2mm]

We tend to do a light breakfast OOP and the CS for lunch and TS for dinner. However, hubby does like to eat a TS breakfast a couple of time so we do that OOP. Of course, then we both can't manage a full CS for lunch. Mid trip I try to keep track of the credits and if we get too many (as we often do), we will use a couple of our CS credits for breakfast at the parks. Several places (Tusker house and at MGM) will serve a CS breakfast. Sometimes we choose to do the TS for a late lunch then use the CS for a late dinner. Since you only get the number of credits for the nights you stay, there is always the last day when you are out of TS credits. You can use your leftover CS then too. Our last trip last month, we had 3 CS credits left. We both ate lunch, then bought a CS meal to go (cold sandwich) and packaged it in a thermal bag for the flight home. We also have the DDE and use it for out of pocket meals, especially breakfast. We also like to drop by Trail's End and it is not worth using a precious TS credit on, so pay OOP for this meal too (now you know why I end up with extra CS credits). Just remember to stop by the front desk every couple of days and check on your credits. The CMs can print out a list of where you used them and how many you have left. BTW, my biggest problem is using my snack credits. We are never hungary and seldom use them, so by the end of the trip we are usually running around the candy store trying to buy cookies, fudge, peanut brittle and more to take home. In October, we have 17 credits leftover by the end of our trip (12 night trip x 2 of us = 24 credits).