How to make free DDP work with Universal?

[8esther8]

Hi, all. I'm trying to wrap my brain around how to make this work, and if it's even worth it, budget-wise. We've got the bounceback free DDP at Pop Century the first week in October. I'm taking 3 teenage boys, who went to Disney last year, and want to go to Universal more than Disney this time. We will probably go to Animal Kingdom or Epcot one day, and Disney Studios one day, but nothing else Disney. Maybe Seaworld, or other Orlando attractions. We're scheduled for 6 days. Big coasters are the draw. As far as meals, they are/were a big part of the trip. Must dos are Raglan Rd, O'hana, Cape May, maybe Narcoosee's, the day at Epcot we can figure out good meals. So most of our meals are out of the parks anyway. Most of our dinners were around $120. a night, so the DDP was well worth it at Disney. But what about lunches? Any ideas for making this work? Would it be cheaper to drop the DDP and just stay offsite and pay for all our meals? Acckkk! Any ideas would be appreciated!

 

[AmyMama2AvaNtheo]

Do you have the deluxe or regular dining plan??

Since you have older boys, who EAT I am sure .. I think if you have the regular dining you would be fine. You could eat breakfast before you hit the road and eat lunch wherever you are and then schedule dinner each night.

 

[PrincessTrisha]

Use your counter service credits for a hearty breakfast at the Pop food court before you go. Since you get two drinks for breakfast, take your second drink with you and use your snack credits for individual bags of chips or other "transportable snacks" and then just supplement by paying for snacks or sharing meals in the other parks.

 

[bangzoom6877]

Okay, you have the bounceback offer with the free DDP. This is the basic DDP which includes a CS, a TS and a snack each day per person. You could easily make this work even with Universal.

Here's what I would do...you are staying at Pop which has an excellent food court (we loved it when we stayed there in July). I would get breakfast there with my extra CS credits each morning...they open early so you could even send one person to pick it up and bring it back to the room while everyone gets ready and you can still head out early to get to the parks if that is your plan. Next, you could use your TS credits on your dinners that you had mentioned in your post. The snack credits could be used at Epcot easily, eating around the world, and save up enough CS credits for lunch at the Disney parks. On those days, you could use snack credits at the Pop food court for breakfast (you could get cereal with a snack credit, or a bakery item, or coffee, etc.). If you have extra snack credits leftover at the end of your trip, you could always bring home some rice krispie treats or candy that they also sell by the food court.

I think the only way you would run into a problem using all your credits would be if you had the deluxe plan. I think we would have a problem using all the deluxe plan credits even with staying on property all week and not leaving Disney World. Have a great trip!!

 

[missycj96]

Here's my suggestion - have breakfast in the food court. Or, if you don't want to take the time to sit down, use snack credits for bagels. If you have mugs, use your mugs in the morning and leave them in the car.

I would say take lunch from the refrigerator cabinets in the food court but I am not sure what they will already have out before you leave.
The evening before, can you order sandwiches at the food court and bring them for lunch the next day? Will you have a fridge or cooler?

 

[vikkymax]

My suggestion is also the same as missycj96 have breakfast.

 

[lurkernj]

We will be doing the same thing for our bounceback August free dining at ASsp. We wanted to fit in both Universal and Seaworld in addition to a few Disney days. On the seaworld/universal days, we will be doing CS breakfast in the food court and taking any extra drinks with us, and a later dinner in a resort. For the disney days, we will use our Snack creds for bfast, CS for lunch, and TS dinner in whatever park. It will be nice to dine in the resorts this time, as we couldn't do it much last year since we didn't have a car and didn't want the hassle of resort-park-resort transportation. Boma here I come!