Tips for useing the DDP to your advantage! About This Page:

[smilechaser]

I know of a few pointers....thought maybe some of you could add to the list to help us all stretch our DDP points.

* At the H20 parks (not sure if anywhere else) you can get a coin with the kids meal to use for dessert. We have held onto these coins and used them later in the day for Mickey Bars etc.

* Also since portions are soooo huge at most places my older children, who are counted as adults, split meals and that allowed us to save more TS meals.

* For the DDP they count you as an adult after 9 year of age. My daughter, who was 12 last year, and has the appetite of a bird, would order off the kids menu and we would just pay cash for hers, again freeing up an adult credit later. Most menus allow kids 12 and under to order off the kids menu, not 9 as dictated by the DDP.

* If you have the refillable cups at the resort and eat your meals there, use the cup for meals and get a bottled drink as the one included in your meal and save that one for later!

Question? I know the CS meals are divided into child and adult. Like we are on the DDP for 8 nights, for 4 adults and one child, so we get 32 adult CS credits and 8 CS child credits. I am thinking TS were only assigned by number and not seperated by child and adult credits, just that children 9 and under had to order from the kids menu. Am I correct? This in mind it might be benificial to pay for kids meals and use the credits towards adults meals. (don't give me all the credit for this one....my wonderful, eye rolling, analytical friend {-----here is my friend -----} helped out with this logic)

Any more tips/pointers? Not looking to cheat the system by any means just looking for ways to legally use the plan to our advantage!

Thanks!

[Beautiful Mother]

I think now that the TS for kids are separate credit, not interchangeable. An additional tip- since the snacks are worth up to $4.00 anything less than that we will pay OOP for. We used our snack credits for things like boxes of donuts etc for breakfast. Be careful of the boxes of donuts though, not all of them are "fresh".

[globalmom]

The TS credits are separated into child and adult but the CS credits are pooled with no separation. We dont use the DDP for TS breakfast as we get much more value when we use the credits for dinners. If we do a character breakfast, we pay OOP and use our DDE card for a 20% discount. That makes most breakfast buffets about $70 for us before tip. The average dinner for us would be about $180-$190 so we use the TS credits for that instead. We get more bang for the buck this way.

We also pay OOP for bottled water or soft drinks and use the snack credits for the other items that cost more than $2. If we have snacks left at the end we might get some sodas for the road but usually we get food items and take them back home.

[Tricia Davids]

Thanks for the advice!

[Dale_Loves_Mickey]

You can no longer get an item that serves more than one, so te box of doughnuts are now out. But, I was just informed by somone who used the Deluxe plan that kids are counted as adult credits on the deluxe plan (but only the deluxe plan, on the basic plan there is a seperation.). A Cm told her this while trying to decide waht order was going to be large enugh to share with her little sis wo isn't on the plan. They were told to order an adult meal that the kids would both like and split it between them. i can not attest to this myself, but she says they did this forhe last 3 days of their 5 day vacation. It worked for them, so I'm going to try it with my older "kid" (9). if she can choose from the adult menu at kids prices, I think that's great!

[mattnkatsmum]

Unless you have a big appetite, don't take for granted just how much food is on the DDP. We have always regretted buying stuff out of pocket, as by the end of the trip, we've generally been left with a surplus of credits, particularly for snacks and CS credits.

[chezp]

Thanks everyone for the tips.