FD Newbie! How do you plan your credits?

[evcollins]

Trying to maximize the FD plan to it's fullest, however, not so sure I really want to eat a "snack" for breakfast. All our QS meals cover lunch and one resort "real" breakfast and all our TS meals cover dinner, which will be a nice break after a long day at the parks in September.

How do you distribute your credits? Do you end up paying OOP for meals? I hate the thought that we are paying more for a value to get FD and would still have to spend money on meals. We are a family of five "Disney" adults, so FD really works for us by any stretch.

We are staying at Pop with connecting rooms, so we'll have two mini-frigs. Do you bring food or do you end up using all your credits in some configuration to cover all your meals?

Thanks for your advice! I look forward to reading how everyone plans out their credits.

 

[spyderskiss]

I am alternating my TS between large Buffet style breakfasts and a few Character Dinners. I am planning on using my CS for Lunch on the go during busy park days so we can eat whenever, but you would be surprised how many real food items actually are snack credits..going to use some for breakfast on rope drop days and others for true snacks while touring the parks...However I will be bringing portable breakfast stuff and snacks to supplement and keep from actually using cash for meals if I don't have too.

 

[wdw4rfam]

We bring breakfast from from home. Cereal, bagels,etc. We go down to foodcourt the night before and get milk and OJ, so we don't have to wait in the lines in the AM. Saves major time and money. If we eat in the foodcourt for lunch or dinner (CS), we use our mugs to drink and get milk and OJ for our "drink" and put them in room fridge for breakfast the next morning.

 

[GMU MOM]

We are a family of 3 Disney adults and 1 child and when on the DDP, we almost always share meals - both QS and TS (unless it's a buffet or family style).
The size of the meals is huge and we would never be able to each finish a meal.

We just booked the FD for November for 7nts. We will be able to cover all meals this way except for Via Napoli which we will pay OOP since we tend to split a large pizza and an order of Zeppolis. Only one meal will be a character breakfast and we even have 2 signature meals for a total of 8 TS restaurants.

 

[GWhitten98]

We do a mix of things inlcuding eating food we have purchased outside of disney, splitting QS meals, using snack credits for meal items for the kids(although ours are 2, 4 and 6) and Eating a buffet for breakfast or lunch and then skipping a meal. Last trip we did not have to Pay OOP for anything food related, but did have one breakfast, one lunch and one dinner that was either skipped our brought from home during our 6 night trip.

 

[smokeyblue]

We did a few different things to cover breakfast. We did have a car so we bought bagels, cream cheese and lox, but this will get boring after a few days We also did some creative credit use. We found that we were eating so much food with just our QS and TS credits that we weren't using any snack credits. Some days we would just order one QS lunch and share and each get a snack a little bit later. That ended up freeing up a QS credit for breakfast. We would just order a breakfast platter and share. I'm not much of a breakfast eater so this worked fine. Also just using one QS for lunch allowed us to use QS credits to fill in the day where we didn't have TS credits for dinner because we used two credits for a signature restaurant.

 

[CaliDisneylandMom]

Just came back and had the DP- realized its best to NOT use credits on breakfast foods, as they are cheapest anyway. Use them for a hearty lunch for better value. If you have the frig and a microwave or toaster, you may want a quick breakfast in the room, then save your appetite for big early lunch. Only advice I have is don't make yourself crazy counting each dollar. You'll end up making it the Disney steak plan if you do. Just enjoy the freedom of the package where you can. Some places will let you substitute and appetizer or soup or salad for dessert which is nice too. Have fun!