How did you use your DDP?

[Figment4Me]

We are booking for the last week in September and taking advantage of the DDP for the first time in all of our visits! I can be rather detail oriented and don't want to constantly be thinking about the dining plan while we're there but don't want to have everything all mapped out before we go either.

Does anyone have a record of how they used the DDP? We have a family of four (our girls are both now Disney adults - aged 10 and 12) who love sit down restaurants but who don't always finish adult sized portions. We're going for 8 days.

 

[Smiling Cheshire Cat]

I took my DS12 last week also for 8 days and did the DDP for the first time. I definitely recommend making ressies at what TS restaurants you want to eat at. The restaurants were very busy and people who did not have ressies were probably waiting a long time. I planned what days I wanted to be in which parks and made the dining ressies according to that. For the CS meals we just ate whereever and whenever we felt like it. Initially I was concerned about using the snack credits on more expensive choices, but by the end of the week we were so full we used them on waters.
I hope you have a great vacation.

 

[1hero2princesses]

You will be there during free dining. You absolutely must have ADR's if you want to do any sit down restaurants. Seriously, I am not kidding. It is very, very hard to get ADR's while you are there during free dining, let alone walk-ins. Last year we went 3rd week of Sept during free dining. I had all my ADR's in place. Unfortunately my DD3 turned out to be terrified of head characters and so we had to try to cancel those ADR's and find other sit down restaurants. I spent hours of my vacation trying different restaurants trying to find an open time. A lot of places you just can't get in at all. Just do some reading to pick out what your family would enjoy in advance and make your adr's at your 90 day window. Your kids are probably past the character meals, but if they would enjoy one they are fun. Snack credits are great. I think the best way we used them was for treats at the MK bakery and at the Epcot bakery in France. We tried not to "waste" them on water. We figured vacation is 1 week a year. Let the kids eat cake and ice cream. For counter service I just studied the menu's and went with what my kids would like most.

 

[catne]

we did counter service for lunch, usually in the park but some times back at our resort when we left park for a break. We did our table service for dinner every night (and yes, had ADRs for all of them. Planning ahead meant we didn't have to worry/wonder what we'd do for dinner. Made for a much more relaxing vacation.) It's a lot of food on the DDP (for us, anyway) so after the first day we used our snack credits to buy a pastry for breakfast in the room the next day.

Here's a link to my reviews from 6 nights on the free dining last September so you can see some ideas for what & where to eat...

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1949596

 

[squirrel]

I would think you can spread out your CS meals a bit and make them stretch. Order 2 for breakfast and share and then 2 for lunch. I guess it depends on how much you are use to eating- but I found that I wasn't very hungry with the heat.

I shared the 1/2 chicken meals with my niece and there was often food leftover. We also didn't use as many snacks as I thought, we had quite a few leftover.

I packed a few things for us to eat, but we didn't eat a lot of what I packed. I had some oatmeal pkgs (I think I ate this 2 or 3 times in 2 weeks). I also ate some cereal bars/granola bars. My niece can't eat a lot of things as she is lactose intollerant so she always had CS for breakfast, unless we were going to a TS breakfast.

This year I am packing a box of Cheerios and she can have that in the morning with some soy milk and then we can get to the parks sooner.

 

[septbaby]

We booked a Signature meal for our arrival nite, non park day. Paid OOP for child. We only did one character meal, will do 2-3 out of 5 next time.

CS: light shared meal on arrival day, bfast once or twice, park dinner twice, park lunch once, we shared a lot of CS meal and had some left at the end, made "meals" at grab & go at resort CS for the trip home.

TS: lunch at Coral Reef, bfast at Chef Mickey's (adults OOP), Dinner at Boma, Fantasmic Pkg at Hollywood & Vine

Snacks: Popcorn and water at Fantasmic, Mickey bars/Itzakadoozies, Dole Whip/float, beverages, Goofy's candy and Main Street Confection, breakfast pastries at Main Street bakery

CS meals have lots of "parts" that coul be saved for later: saved carrot cake for snack, two drinks with breakfast so one was water for the park, the other for the breakfast meal, grabbed yogurt for dessert and kept for a quick in room bfast treat

Had all ADRs made prior to arriving at WDW. Cancelled one while there, ate CS instead. Was more than fashionable late for one and manager still seated us, made us wait, but not at all unreasonable.

We were very well fed on the DP. Mom aka Grandma had the most fun, she "owned" our snack credits.

 

[Figment4Me]

This is all really great information! Thank you! I guess it comes down to sitting down with paper and pencil and doing a bit of research and planning. I feel like we'll need to supplement on occasion with purchased food/snacks/drinks but from what I'm reading, most of you seemed to feel that there was plenty of food so maybe I'm just off. I do like the idea of sharing entrees. We do that a lot when we eat out as a family since my youngest doesn't always finish an adult portion and I 'try' to watch how much I eat.

 

[septbaby]

This is all really great information! Thank you! I guess it comes down to sitting down with paper and pencil and doing a bit of research and planning. I feel like we'll need to supplement on occasion with purchased food/snacks/drinks but from what I'm reading, most of you seemed to feel that there was plenty of food so maybe I'm just off. I do like the idea of sharing entrees. We do that a lot when we eat out as a family since my youngest doesn't always finish an adult portion and I 'try' to watch how much I eat.

Please don't plan on sharing at TS meals. The restaurant is well within the rules to charge everyone a TS credit at meal. I just don't want to plan on having "extra credits" due to sharing, get denied and now have your TS count out of whack. That would not be a Disney like surprise!

You can definitely plan to share at CS meals so eat up!

The only OOP money we spent was the following:

Adult beverage at CBR pool bar
2 Adults at Chef Mickey's bfast
1 Child meal at Narcoossee's
Since we spent an extra TS credit to eat at Narcoosee's (2TS) we paid for the next least expensive meal in cash. Also our 6yo only wanted a $6 pasta meal at Narcoossee's so we paid for that and even threw in some extra for tip (meal and service at Narcoossee's was that good). If you go to a 2TS meal you might want to use this strategy: Pay for kids meals for the kids (things like fish and steak can be options), use the 4TS for the adults and still only spend 4TS for the meal.

We did not feel it necesary to spend any additional money and had "free" CS credits at the end (which we used for to go items) that we could have used. We simply ordered what we want and not more. We did use all our snack credits, gotta ask Mom 'bout that. She was in snack heaven and that was just fine with us. At least she shared.

I just booked the same Free Dining trip for this August and this time I'm not sure if we will treat ourselves to a 2TS meal.