We were at POP for Free
DDP 2 years ago. We arrived 8/11...2 days before free dining started.
We had a rough start but that was due to the "shoe bomber guy" who had gotten on a flight and was discovered in flight trying to detonate his shoe bomb...remember that? We were not sure if we were gong to go becasue all of the last minute changes of liquids etc, but all was fine, actually the BEST and smoothest airport security experience ever.
OK Back to the topic...so we arrive at POP, maybe 8 people ahead of us...went quickly, off to a great start of a split stay 3 nights Pop, 7 Poly.
Park crowd levels were great, dining was great, busses were great, pool was great....then on 8/13...the first day of free dining package...OMG!
The flood gates opened! We came back from MGM which we had noticed was FAR more crowded than usual...and the line for check in at POP was huge! I had never seen that many people in line for a resort ever. It looked like the line for Peter Pan. CM's were working theimselves like crazy, but it was more than they should have ever had to deal with.( I think a lot of folks were tired and cranky due to the sudden luggage restictions, remember, we flew out the very next day when a lot of folks cancelled, but by this time people knew how to pack and were going ahead with plans, but securuty was a delay for many.) We pretty much knew we were doomed from then on. Pop was jammed everywhere, since the values are the best bang for the buck during free dining, they of course were jammed. I knew people who had booked rooms to get the didning and never actually stayed in the rooms...seriously...anyway, we checked out on the 14th and checked into the Poly ( we were celebrating our 20th Anniversary and decided free dining was the ONLY way we'd get a deluxe accomdations/deluxe eating trip, something we had never had the budget for)
The Ploy was crowded, but not as much as Pop, Captain Cooks was being refurbished but other than that, no real difference felt by us in crowds...until theparks! Yowza...they were crowded...the monoral was jammed...getting from point A to a ADR was not an easy task, and then, the worst was while waiting for our ADR's ( yes, we had to wait longer than usual) the amount of peolple who would walk up to try and make a ressie, hot , tored, hungry, w/kids...to be turned way becasue the TS places were booked solid. That in turn caused the CS places to be jammed. We found working our schedule around where we were to eat was not our style, but we knew we HAD to because if we cancelled our ADR's we would be like the folks being turned away! Not to be doom and gloom, and we were there in mid August when many families could still go and not worry about school, so I am SURE that was a big part of it, but I don't think we will take part in free DDP again for a while. We had 10 glorious nights and we did 1/2 of what we usually do. We still had an awesome time, got to try amazing TS places we would NEVER have been going to if not for free DDP....(we tend to cut the food budget more than the resort budget)kids thought the snack credits were the best, as we had a ton left over and we let them go nuts at Main Street Candy store the day we left..got to bring home some great stuff! It was more food than we'd normally eat, we gave away quite a few appetizer and desserts to tables around us. We felt so bad for the servers as they were really hoofing it.
So, my story is not what you wanted to hear, but since you asked...however, if faced with free DDP or no trip at all...I would do it again, just be prepared that you may possibly use more time for eating than you thought, but I think September/October woudl no way be as bad as August was. We even asked a CM on the monorail one day, was this out of the ordinary, and she said, yes, that normally the week we were there was "dead" and that the dining was really filing the place up which was good for business, but bad for the CM's. We had the chance to talk with her since the monorail was backked up and stuck on the track. We luckily had our ADR info with us and called Chef's D' France to tell them we were stuck...they said no problem, that we would not lose our ressie. That was nice and and that was our BEST meal of the trip, they were so overworked, but truly made the dining great!
Enjoy your trip, and enjoy the food,it is delicous!
Pam