Newbie question about using up DDP meals?

[mrobsch]

Staying at Polynesian for 6 nights with family of four in December and have booked all our reservations. First time back in 30+ years so please bear with me

I am on the Disney Dining Plan with 6 TS meals, but we like to sit for meals, and so I have reserved around 10 TS meals total (two are signature, CRT and Hoop-Dee-Doo.)

So do we just pay our of pocket for any over the 6 we get? Would we pay for the first ones, or have to use up our allotment and then pay, or is it up to us when and where to pay cash? And is there any strategy to this (use DDP for pricier restaurants, but just pay for cheaper ones?)

Thanks!

 

[Cafeen]

Staying at Polynesian for 6 nights with family of four in December and have booked all our reservations. First time back in 30+ years so please bear with me

I am on the Disney Dining Plan with 6 TS meals, but we like to sit for meals, and so I have reserved around 10 TS meals total (two are signature, CRT and Hoop-Dee-Doo.)

So do we just pay our of pocket for any over the 6 we get? Would we pay for the first ones, or have to use up our allotment and then pay, or is it up to us when and where to pay cash? And is there any strategy to this (use DDP for pricier restaurants, but just pay for cheaper ones?)

Thanks!

You can pay for whichever ones you choose in whatever order you want. It's typically a better idea to keep the more expensive per credit meals paid for via DDP, while the lesser costly ones (again, per credit) get paid OOP.

This means that you'd divide the cost of HDDR, CRT, and the 2 signatures in half to estimate their per-credit cost.

Also remember that cost is controllable at a la carte restaurants. Meaning, you may be able to get out cheaper by skipping dessert or something similar, so take that into account as well.

Worse comes to worse, depending on what the meals actually are, I'd suggest looking at paying both signatures OOP first, and seeing how you're situated at that point.