garden grocer vs. having items shipped from home

[Princess_Beatrice]

I've visited Walt Disney World many times, but this May will be my first trip as a parent. Four months out and I've got a long list of things to pack, to do and what to be prepared for.

The one thing that has got me stumped is should I use the garden grocer site or buy from Target and ship from home.

Right now I'm thinking I'll need to use garden grocer for things like nursery water, diapers and maybe formula. Since these would take up the most space in my luggage.

Most items are priced comparable to what I would pay at Target or the grocery store. Yet, some are not. Mostly baby food pouches and other food items.

Just wondering what other parents have done and what you find helpful.

 

[Pardon My Pixie]

I just traveled with a 9 month old this past December. This was our first trip trying Garden Grocer and it was also our first trip sending a package to the resort. I can not say enough about how wonderful the Garden Grocer experience was for us. It was well worth every penny including the delivery charge, tip to Garden Grocer, and tip to Bell Services for delivery to our room. It was so easy and every item arrived in perfect condition exactly as ordered. Zero hassle. I will use Garden Grocer on all trips to Disney World from now on. However, I absolutely regret trying to send a package to the resort. I used Amazon to order diapers and baby food pouches. Garden Grocer didn't have exactly what I use at home and being particular I wanted exactly what I wanted. Big mistake. In hindsight I should have made due with the offerings from Garden Grocer. I'm sure it would have worked out just fine. It took hours to track down the Amazon package, hours on foot being sent from one location to another. It was frustrating, a big waste of vacation time, and in the end we were charged a fee for the resort handling the package. I'll never send items this way again. Do yourself a favor and use Garden Grocer for the items you need, especially those that take up a lot of luggage space. If they don't have the brand you usually buy just pick something similar if at all possible. Garden Grocer also takes requests for items not listed on their order form. I didn't try using that feature but it may be worth looking into.
Best of Luck with your vacation planning!

 

[DisneyDreamer08]

We were Disney this past September and I ordered baby items online from Walmart & Target and had them shipped to our resort. It was a huge hassle. The resorts no longer have the space to store outside packages (basically from anywhere except Garden Grocer) so they are stored in an off site facility. When you check in, you give the front desk your tracking numbers. They have runners that go to the facility throughout the day & try to find your packages. I was told this process could take a few days. We needed our baby items (formula, diapers etc) that day so I asked them to please find them asap. They were able to locate about 75% of our stuff by midnight. Every time they found a box they would call our room or knock on our door. Needless to say, our girls slept terrible that first night.
Another thing to keep in mind is that there is now a $5 charge per box handled by Disney. This does not include Garden Grocer. Every where else is fair game. Even though I placed one target order & one Walmart order, things are shipped from different locations & at different times as they are available. I ended up with about 10 boxes. Thankfully this was about a month before the charge started.
I have personally never used Garden Grocer so I can't comment on them, but after our previous experience, I would definitely look into them next time.

 

[dreamfinder]

Check into all the grocery delivery services. Basically anything not delivered by hand may or may not be stored onsite. So Garden Grocer, WeGoShop, Amazon Prime Now!, etc are all delivered by hand, and bell services will hold them. Run the numbers. Shipping from home will almost always cost more than buying from Amazon/Target/whatever and having them shipped directly, as you pay the purchase plus + shipping, while they will often be shipped for free. WeGoShop is really the only service I'm aware of that will get you anything you want/need as they are just personal shoppers. Amazon Prime Now! offers 2 hour delivery for no cost with minimum purchase, so may be best for things you forget, as they have a smaller selection of food goods and is really meant to supplement Amazon Fresh and not replace it. Garden Grocer is fairly reliable, you know up front what it will cost you, but has a limited selection and it seems like everything has a markup, plus potential service fee.
Run the numbers, as you may do well to rent a car for a day or use Uber/Taxi to go to a store yourself. If you pay an extra buck per pouch through Garden Grocer and buy 30 pouches, that pays for the rental itself. Or if you need a certain brand of diapers/wipes, etc.

I've used them all, they all have pluses and minuses. For diapers and wipes, Amazon wins hands down, even at a $5 service fee a case of diapers may still be cheaper than buying through Garden Grocer. Depends on what you need and how much.

 

[GoofyGroupie]

This is our first trip to WDW. DW and I are taking our four adult children and our two grandchildren. I hope you would answer a few questions for us... 1) Are you allowed to take water and/or juice boxes into the parks? 2) How does delivery from Garden Grocer work, i.e. do you have to be in your room at a set delivery time or will they leave your order in your room? 3) Read a post that an individual using the GG tipped the bell hop and the delivery man is that normal practice and if you don't have to meet the delivery can you leave a tip in your room? Thank you so much... have a great day!

 

[Tuvalu]

This is our first trip to WDW. DW and I are taking our four adult children and our two grandchildren. I hope you would answer a few questions for us... 1) Are you allowed to take water and/or juice boxes into the parks? 2) How does delivery from Garden Grocer work, i.e. do you have to be in your room at a set delivery time or will they leave your order in your room? 3) Read a post that an individual using the GG tipped the bell hop and the delivery man is that normal practice and if you don't have to meet the delivery can you leave a tip in your room? Thank you so much... have a great day!

Yes you can bring water and juice boxes into the parks.

Anything that is held at Bell Services (your carry-on luggage or items from Garden Grocer) either needs to be picked up by you (and you haul the items to your room) or once you are present in your room, you must call Bell Services and your items will be delivered. Tips are appreciated. No items left with Bell Services are delivered directly to your room. (Magical Express yellow-tagged bags are the only items delivered directly to your room.)

 

[GoofyGroupie]

Tuvalu - Thank you ver much for the help... it's truly appreciated!

 

[HRHPrincessAriel]

Amazon prime pantry.

If you are already a prime member you can often get $5 pantry credit if you choose no rush shipping on other purchases. I think they have all those things you listed. I couldn't stand paying for the overpriced items from other delivery companies.

I've used it 3 times and my parents used once.
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/amazon-prime-pantry.884244/#post-6099129

 

[GoofGoof]

This is our first trip to WDW. DW and I are taking our four adult children and our two grandchildren. I hope you would answer a few questions for us... 1) Are you allowed to take water and/or juice boxes into the parks? 2) How does delivery from Garden Grocer work, i.e. do you have to be in your room at a set delivery time or will they leave your order in your room? 3) Read a post that an individual using the GG tipped the bell hop and the delivery man is that normal practice and if you don't have to meet the delivery can you leave a tip in your room? Thank you so much... have a great day!

I've used Garden Grocer twice now and it's very easy and hassle free. With Garden Grocer they will ask you for a time window you want the groceries delivered which is going to be a ballpark number not an exact time, but you don't need to be in your room at that time anyway. The delivery will go directly to Bell Services and they will hold the items for you until you call down to have them brought up to your room. If you have perishable items they keep those cold in a walk in refrigerator. For us we usually head for the parks as soon as we get there and head back to the room after dinner so we would have the delivery scheduled around an hour after our dinner reservation so when we return to our room after dinner the order would be waiting for us at Bell Services. We usually also have carry on bags checked at Bell Services from earlier in the day as well so when you call down you can ask them to bring everything up together. Your Magic express bags should already be in the room.

IMHO Garden Grocer or a similar service is about as stress free as you can make things and when you're already dropping a huge sum of money on a vacation the last thing you want to do is waste valuable "relaxation time" searching for packages delivered from home just to save a few bucks. That's a matter of personal preference.

As far as tipping goes you can add a tip when you check out and pay at Garden Grocer since you will never actually see the Garden Grocer delivery guy. You can and should tip the bell services CMs directly when they deliver your food packages. IMHO even if you pick your order up directly at the bell desk instead of having them deliver it to your room you should still tip a little something for the effort of holding and retrieving your items. Tipping is a matter of personal preference but the Bell services people generally work very hard and get paid kinda poorly so they rely on tips.

 

[buseegal]

This is our first trip to WDW. DW and I are taking our four adult children and our two grandchildren. I hope you would answer a few questions for us... 1) Are you allowed to take water and/or juice boxes into the parks? 2) How does delivery from Garden Grocer work, i.e. do you have to be in your room at a set delivery time or will they leave your order in your room? 3) Read a post that an individual using the GG tipped the bell hop and the delivery man is that normal practice and if you don't have to meet the delivery can you leave a tip in your room? Thank you so much... have a great day!

only park that could be a problem is Animal Kingdom as plastic straws are not allowed and that includes sippy cups that straws can be removed. you can take juice boxes in but they will have you remove the straw which makes them very hard to drink

 

[rachelkathryn]

We used garden grocer on our last trip in September and they were great. Got snacks, water, juices, diapers, wipes, etc. and everything was brought right to our room. If you are planning on renting a stroller Orlando stroller will give you a "free" case of water when renting from then.
Also, I am not sure what hotel you are staying at, but some hotels have limited times you can select for delivery. I selected and early drop off (9-12) and was told I had to move it to a later time frame.

 

[Minthorne]

Uber to the localstore and back is my preferred method now.

 

[GrimGrinningGhost15]

Does anyone know how they handle booze? We basically just want to use garden grocer for beer/wine/popcorn aka post park grown up snacks If they deliver and drop off- will the CMs just I.D. us when they deliver or when we go and pick it up?

 

[dreamfinder]

Does anyone know how they handle booze? We basically just want to use garden grocer for beer/wine/popcorn aka post park grown up snacks If they deliver and drop off- will the CMs just I.D. us when they deliver or when we go and pick it up?

I believe that Garden Grocer may require a copy of your license before they will make the purchase. The CMs on the other end typically just hand you the shopping bags with the food in them.

 

[GoofGoof]

Does anyone know how they handle booze? We basically just want to use garden grocer for beer/wine/popcorn aka post park grown up snacks If they deliver and drop off- will the CMs just I.D. us when they deliver or when we go and pick it up?

As @dreamfinder said, they will have you fax or e-mail them a copy of your drivers license to buy alcohol. Nobody on the Disney end carded us. I guess they rely on Garden Grocer to handle that.

 

[ajmellu7]

Can anyone use Garden Grocer then? I only ask as I live in England and am coming over in August and staying at Old Key West. Something like this may help for the first week when I have no car and would mean I could get some stuff in for the family. Is it reasonably priced or more expensive due to being available for delivery?

 

[GoofGoof]

Can anyone use Garden Grocer then? I only ask as I live in England and am coming over in August and staying at Old Key West. Something like this may help for the first week when I have no car and would mean I could get some stuff in for the family. Is it reasonably priced or more expensive due to being available for delivery?

I would imagine it would be fine that you are from England since you just pay online with a CC. I think the CC should handle the currency conversion for you. You may want to check with them first to confirm. As far as price, it's probably a little higher than just going to the grocery store yourself, but not unreasonably high. If you spend more than $200 there is a $2 delivery charge but less than $200 it's $14 for delivery. You can see the prices on their website to compare.

https://www.gardengrocer.com/

 

[dreamfinder]

Can anyone use Garden Grocer then? I only ask as I live in England and am coming over in August and staying at Old Key West. Something like this may help for the first week when I have no car and would mean I could get some stuff in for the family. Is it reasonably priced or more expensive due to being available for delivery?

Anyone can indeed use Garden Grocer. It is more expensive per items, plus possibly a delivery charge. When we have used them they have shopped at Publix, you should be able to see their sale ads online to compare prices to what Garden Grocer chargers. As there are now several companies offering similar services, you may want to poke around and compare. Some I'm aware of are Garden Grocer, WeGoShop, Orlando Grocery Express, Goodings Delivers, Instacart and Amazon Prime Now!. They all have their own pluses/minuses/limitations. For instance, WeGoShop will go to whatever store you want, and charges you exactly what is on the receipt, plus a handling cost. So it may very well be cheaper than GG, but you won't know the total until they deliver. Amazon Prime Now! will deliver in 2 hours, but requires you to be an Amazon Prime member, and has a limited selection.

 

[Weather_Lady]

I assume you are flying to WDW.

Depending on the upcharge to purchase products and have them delivered, you might want to compare it with the cost of packing and checking an extra bag -- and/or the cost of hiring a shuttle to take you from the airport to your resort, with a stop at Walmart or a similar store so you can purchase supplies en route.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I assume you are flying to WDW.

Depending on the upcharge to purchase products and have them delivered, you might want to compare it with the cost of packing and checking an extra bag -- and/or the cost of hiring a shuttle to take you from the airport to your resort, with a stop at Walmart or a similar store so you can purchase supplies en route.

Garden grocer is about $14 bucks. WAY less than what you'd pay for a taxi or checked bag.