Continuing my Multi-Family Disney World trip planning – Bringing your own food

In continuing my series of posts with ideas for our upcoming multiple family Disney trip (and really, these are all based on emails I am sending to my family members to plan our trip), I thought I’d provide some more background to the post I did yesterday about Garden Grocer (the online grocery shopping site).

When my handsome husband (he reads this blog from time to time) and I take our kids to Disney World, we bring snacks for the kids (goldfish crackers, cheerios, granola bars, things our son with food allergies can eat) to supplement the food we can buy in the parks or the restaurants in the disney hotels. Thankfully, Disney places no restrictions (aside from alcohol) on the food you can bring in with you when you go to the parks.

There are multiple ways to get food once you’re down in Florida. Here are some of the options we’ve used.

1. Bring it with you in your suitcase.
This is my Mom’s favorite when she flies down to Florida to join us at our DVC. She fills her suitcase with as much food at it will hold, then ends up with an empty suitcase to fill with things she buys at the parks for the flight home.

2. Stop at a grocery store
If we drive down we have plenty of room to fit the non-perishables (cereal, granola, chips, etc) and we can stop at the local Winn Dixie with a list to buy some of the perishables (milk, orange juice, soy yogurt).

3. Order from a grocery shopping service (Gardengrocer.com)
As mentioned in f we fly, and don’t have access to a car, rather than renting one for a day or taking a taxi to go to the grocery store, we use this service to preorder food to be picked up and delivered to our resort.

4. Send some nonperishables to yourself via the mail
This last one I am going to touch upon here. You can mail a package to yourself to be delivered to the hotel you will be staying at. They will keep it behind the desk, and retrieve it when you request it when you check in. Give it about a week to get there, so mail it at least a week before you arrive.

Address it to your name, Care of the hotel, write the word GUEST on the front of the package and mark down your arrival date as follows:

Name of Resort
ATTN:c/o Guest Name (GUEST)
Arrival Date: D/M/YR
Resort Confirmation Number
Address of Walt Disney World Resort

You can get the mailing address for any of the Disney resorts by calling the main reservations number at 407-W-DISNEY.

When you arrive at the resort, you can ask about the package at check in. If they have it where the check in folks can get to it, they will bring it out to you. If not, then you can ask Bell Services to bring it to your room once you’re all settled.

Then you can keep the box to mail stuff back home if you end up buying more than will fit in your suitcases.
Best of luck if you’re traveling to Disney World.

RSM