Is it worth shipping food staples to a resort?

mdcpr

mdcpr

Well-Known Member
Hi - I’ve seen a few messages about people shipping food items to resorts so they are ready by the the time they arrive. Is this really worth it, cost-wise?

We’re staying st the WL for 5 days. Should I consider shipping bottles of water, cereal, snacks instead of relying on their local on-site market? Are the prices that different?

It’s our first time at WL so we don’t know what’s available.
 
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mdcpr

mdcpr

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
DreamalittleDisney said:
We use garden grocer for things like some cereal bars, packs of water and some beers for around the pool - its saves us some money and saves us wasting valuable park time going to a Walmart
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We’re not renting a car, so delivery it is. Plus my son is gluten-free and I need to be prepared.
 
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Richie248

Richie248

Well-Known Member
I use Amazon Prime Now. I usually order when 'm in flight and schedule my 1 hour delivery window (extra $4.99) based on when my room will be ready. Definitely saves money.
 
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JIMINYCR

JIMINYCR

Well-Known Member
Cost wise it depends on if you are going to eat/ drink everything you ship. By shipping things and saving on buying the expensive Disney things you can save a lot of money. The shipping costs arent that bad and still gives you a savings in the long run. However we always bring things down planning on saving money buuuut those Disney snacks always tempt me and I end up spending on them a lot and end up bringing home a lot of the things I brought down. We also bring Dr Pepper cause Disney doesnt sell it in the parks or resorts and always drink that all up. The resort shops that have groceries are handy but they are more expensive ( also bringing your own aspirin, cold meds, bandaids, etc will save $$ if you need them while at Disney) We have also used the Garden Grocer grocery delivery option before and that did work out well when we used them.
 
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mdcpr

mdcpr

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
JIMINYCR said:
Cost wise it depends on if you are going to eat/ drink everything you ship. By shipping things and saving on buying the expensive Disney things you can save a lot of money. The shipping costs arent that bad and still gives you a savings in the long run. However we always bring things down planning on saving money buuuut those Disney snacks always tempt me and I end up spending on them a lot and end up bringing home a lot of the things I brought down. We also bring Dr Pepper cause Disney doesnt sell it in the parks or resorts and always drink that all up. The resort shops that have groceries are handy but they are more expensive ( also bringing your own aspirin, cold meds, bandaids, etc will save $$ if you need them while at Disney) We have also used the Garden Grocer grocery delivery option before and that did work out well when we used them.
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How come you didn't like Garden Grocer? We're flying to Orlando from NYC and we're not renting a car, so I was thinking of ordering from them. While I always fly with first aid kits, I'm concerned there will not be early breakfast foods ready since we're planning to hit the parks early every morning. We're not into heavy breakfasts early in the morning, so I was looking into getting bagels, muffins, yogurt...that we can keep in the room. On top of that, my son is gluten-free so I need to be really prepared. In addition, water. My family does not drink soda, but drink water like camels.
 
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JIMINYCR

JIMINYCR

Well-Known Member
Oh we did like them. I said it worked well. We drive now instead of flying so we can haul in our things instead of ordering through the delivery services.
 
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correcaminos

correcaminos

Well-Known Member
Cost totally depends. We price everything we need out and go with the cheapest give or take. With our DVC discount, turns out the grocery delivery for resorts (fees included) was cheaper than Instacart. But sometimes it's more expensive. It really all depends on what you want. We like Prime Now and Instacart if not doing the marketplace deliveries because they have great prices and service. We never ship anything though, we just do grocery delivery :)
 
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Kingoglow

Kingoglow

Well-Known Member
I had a bottle of sunscreen that didn't make it past TSA (just a little to large). So while waiting for my flight I had Amazon Prime deliver a smaller one to my resort. It was there when I arrived and saved money vs. buying it at the hotel.

We don't order in groceries since we are full breakfast people and we just buy a bottle of water at the food court and refill it over and over during the length of stay. However, we travel with another couple that uses Garden Grocer every time. They buy granola bars or cereal, water and fruit. They pack a snack for themselves each day and eat breakfast in their room. Works great.

You will have no trouble using a deliver service as long as you know when the delivery is coming and you can be there. There is a fee now (I believe) if Disney has to take the delivery for you.
 
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awoogala

awoogala

Well-Known Member
We use instacart. They will easily pick up from several stores (including the abc for alcohol). I just order about a week before arriving, and have them deliver while I am there, bring it to the room myself. (this avoids the storage/delivery fees from the resort). Amazon prime now is also a great way to do it, but they don't deliver alcohol.
 
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righttrack

righttrack

Well-Known Member
We use Garden Grocer to get breakfast bars, a big bottle of sunscreen, a few cases of water, some nuts, chips, fresh fruit for snacking. It saves quite a bit. I would say the water more than anything makes for a good vacation because we are drinking the proper amounts to ensure good energy and not become dehydrated in the heat. Were I to price what we get, I'd say we are saving at least 70% off of what we would pay at the resort.
 
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Weather_Lady

Weather_Lady

Well-Known Member
My two cents: if you just want light breakfast foods and snacks, shipping food is an unnecessary hassle, and buying everything on-site is a waste of money.

We travel with 4 21" rolling suitcases (one for each of us), and I can still find room to pack a week's worth of breakfast foods and snacks (pre-measured portion-sized sandwich bags of breakfast cereal for the kids, Pop Tarts for DH, granola bars or Emerald "Breakfast on the Go" packs for me, C'raisins and/or fruit gummies for snacking). It costs no more than $10-$15 for a week's worth of breakfast food, and it all gets packed neatly in a large shoe box (to keep it organized, simplify unpacking, and help keep the cereal from getting crushed inside the suitcase), along with napkins and disposable plastic picnicware bowls and spoons for the cereal. All we have to buy on property is milk. We don't bring or buy any bottled water: we drink free iced water in the parks, and if we want water in the room, we bring our own refillable hard plastic water bottles (with built-in filter caps) from home. (These are also good for on the plane: we fill them up after we've passed through security.) Sunscreen? We just decant it from our big bottle at home into two 3-oz. travel bottles that fit into our 3-1-1 bags (and are also small enough that they're easy to toss into the swim bag when we know we'll need to reapply at the pool or a water park). YMMV.

This also means that by the time we're headed home, the luggage space that had been occupied by that large shoe box of foodstuffs is now freed up for souvenirs!
 
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dreamfinder

dreamfinder

Well-Known Member
mdcpr said:
Hi - I’ve seen a few messages about people shipping food items to resorts so they are ready by the the time they arrive. Is this really worth it, cost-wise?

We’re staying st the WL for 5 days. Should I consider shipping bottles of water, cereal, snacks instead of relying on their local on-site market? Are the prices that different?

It’s our first time at WL so we don’t know what’s available.
Click to expand...

Really depends on what you are shipping/would want. Shipping fluids (IE water) can get very expensive, unless you find free shipping on that somewhere. But if you don't need perishable food, you may be able to get away with just packing some cereal/bagels/etc in your luggage.
Since Wilderness Lodge is a DVC resort, you can get an idea of the prices by looking at the DVC member grocery order forms here -> https://disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com/faq/pre-arrival-checklist/grocery-order/ That's about all they carry on property, and some of the items may not be available if you aren't a DVC member. Compare to prices you could get from GardenGrocer, Instacart, etc and see if it's worth it for what you need.
 
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mdcpr

mdcpr

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
dreamfinder said:
Really depends on what you are shipping/would want. Shipping fluids (IE water) can get very expensive, unless you find free shipping on that somewhere. But if you don't need perishable food, you may be able to get away with just packing some cereal/bagels/etc in your luggage.
Since Wilderness Lodge is a DVC resort, you can get an idea of the prices by looking at the DVC member grocery order forms here -> https://disneyvacationclub.disney.go.com/faq/pre-arrival-checklist/grocery-order/ That's about all they carry on property, and some of the items may not be available if you aren't a DVC member. Compare to prices you could get from GardenGrocer, Instacart, etc and see if it's worth it for what you need.
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This is totally helpful. It looks like I'll be packing snacks. :)
 
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C

ctcdisneymama

Active Member
Used Instacart for our last trip and it was well worth it. We got a case of water and some small snack items as well. Helped us save money and the convenience was great. Will do this again for our next trip.
 
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ElleJay1119

ElleJay1119

Member
We used amazon prime now last year to deliver to WL and it was great. We got applesauce, bananas, breakfast bars, La Croix, and bottled water. We didn’t realize the Disney kids’ meals all came with applesauce, so we ended up bringing most of that back with us. We plan on doing that again, especially since you can bring the bottled water into the parks.
 
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