Trying to order the most expensive items and maximizing the plan. Evey time I see a post about how to get the most from the DP I want to tell them to eat where they want and stop worrying about making money on it.
I have also never paid for the plan we go durin free dining so I feel more comfortable with just eating what we want
I think during free dining it
is easier for people to order exactly what they want without worrying about whether or not they are maximizing the plan.
We (partially) paid for DDP in July. (Work covered my share since I was attending a conference at the time.) In Sci Fi, hubby looked at me and asked,
"should I get the ribs since it's the most expensive?"
I replied,
"No, get what you feel like and don't worry about it!" He got a burger. (
I got the ribs... I love ribs!
)
I will, however, add that
since we aren't always on the dining plan, I used this as an opportunity to experience some restaurants/meals that we'd never done before because of price. I like the idea of having new experiences. After seeing what we would've paid for those wonderful meals like Les Chefs dinner, Le Cellier dinner, and Chef Mickey's dinner, I could suddenly recall why we hadn't tried those before! It was like each of those single meals paid for that day's worth of DDP themselves!
I figure, I could try something like a Liberty Tree lunch some other time when we weren't on the DDP. For a more pricey treat in the MK area, Chef Mickey, 'Ohana, & Whispering Canyon were calling my name!
Sure, Sci Fi for lunch was one of our cheaper meals, but it was the only new experience we were interested in at DHS. Do I regret going there, knowing full well I could have gotten a better value elsewhere? Not at all! I figure one Cosmic Ray combo and a snack would have easily put us close to even with the cost of the dining plan for that particular day! I don't care if hubby ordered just a burger that one time... he was happy with it, and that was what I cared about!
Did I make mistakes this first time trying the DDP? Well... nothing major. Here's just a couple things in retrospect:
1) Since I was separated from hubby and our boys so much while I was attending my conference, I think we just could have used better communication regarding how many CS & snack credits he and the boys would be using while I wasn't around. (I'm the planner in the family, and he didn't want to mess up my plans! How sweet!
)
2) We also ended up with a
slight overload of snack credits on our last day. By
slight overload, I mean just 7 or 8 for our family of four... not an insane amount. We did learn that day, however, that splitting some funnel cakes and root beer floats made a totally delicious and filling lunch!
I also took advantage of our last credit to try the cream cheese pretzel I'd read about and never tried before. I liked it! The rest of my family didn't care for it, but I did!
