You can have the 2 day tickets removed from your KTTW card at Guest Relations at any park. This is what we did as a precaution just in case somebody accidentally put their KTTW card into the ticket reader since everybody was used to using the KTTW cards for tickets. I then put the 2 day tickets into our room safe for the rest of our trip.
Yes, AP holders can purchase dining plans without purchasing tickets. This is called an AP ticketless package. Note that you can not use a general public discount when doing this. You must book at AP rate. The AP rates seem to get released very late which is extremely frustrating to most AP holders. Right now they only go through April 14. If you want to book beyond that and need a ticketless package (i.e. really want to pay for a dining plan) then you're booking at rack rate until close to your trip. Most AP holders find that it's much cheaper to not buy a dining plan but rather to buy the Tables in Wonderland card which gives a 20% discount on most TS meals and select CS meals (value resort and POR/POFQ CS locations, AK CS locations). TiW costs $75 and the break even point is $350 which is pretty easy to hit if you are planning a TS meal per day. Since the dining plans are advertised as up to 20% savings, a guaranteed 20% savings is generally better.
If you typically book using a package promotion such as
free dining and this really is the best promotion for your family then you're likely better off not getting the AP. When will you ever use those 2 day tickets? They're adding to the cost of your trips but you won't use them. This pretty much negates your savings. You really need to sit down and do the math.
Room discounts are usually better than free dining at deluxe resorts so my suggestion would be to go for a package deal of some kind at Pop, upgrade the tickets you get that trip to APs and buy TiW (it's good for things not covered by dining plans) and book a room only stay at CR for your second trip and pay oop for your food. Book the room only reservation using whatever discount you can find and then when AP rates finally come out, check to see if you can switch to the AP rate which is generally a couple percent better than the public rate. The only caviate is that AP rates are limitted and you may have to switch room categories. If it'll cost you more because of having to upgrade to a higher room category then you can stick with the rate you've already got.
