Buy groceries while on DDP?

[AIW]

I'm thinking of buying some milk, cereal, snacks and bottled water from the garden grocer for our 8 day trip next week. Plan is for a few days to eat a quick breakfast in the room. Do you think I really need to do that or will our combined snack credits and CS credits be more than enough?? There are 4 mornings in which we do not have a ADR until dinner and I need to figure this out!!

 

[OhMari]

You still need to use your Counter Service credits. I would get cereal bars, or pop tarts, and maybe eat counter service at 11:00 a.m. when they open.

 

[Aimeedyan]

We bought some breakfast stuff, bottled water, cokes and did use it. We also bought snack foods for the room and didn't touch it! We actually ended up with extra snack food from our day at the parks - even desserts like cookies that we had saved - so we didn't need anything extra snacky.

I am not a morning person and do not enjoy getting up and fighting a food court for breakfast so we appreciated grabbing something in the room while getting ready or on the way out the door.

 

[momto1disneyfan]

We actually only order 1 case of water for the 3 of us for our 11 day vacation. We were still full in the morning from supper the night before so we actually never at breakfast. We usually ate lunch around 11:30 and then supper around 6:30. We only use some of our snack credits. The day we checked out we still have 5 cs and 16 snack credits left.

 

[Good Ol Gal]

we did purchase some groceries our last trip...and it was too much!

We are usually a family that snacks in our room but we had no room for snacks at all!!

I was so bummed when we were checking out and I had to throw away that precious Blue Bell ice cream (we can't get it where we live) from the freezer

This trip we do plan to purchase milk and cheerios for the kiddos for breakfast, and soda for dh. Other than that, I don't think we'll be stocking up the fridge/freezer like before.

 

[mysparky]

We just got back from an 8 day trip and we were on the DDP as well. I did order some groceries from the garden grocer, but it was only the necessities (i.e. no snack food...I figured we'd be eating lots of that when in the parks).

There were 4 of us (me, DH, DS11, DD8) and the plan was to have breakfast in our room on 3 mornings (we stayed at BWV and had a fridge and utensils/plates, etc). Our order from garden grocer consisted of:

4 fresh bagels
Cream Cheese
Cereal (variety/snack box size)
Milk
OJ - individual containers
2 cases of 12oz Dasani water (perfect size for our waist packs!)
1 bag of sliced apples
4 bananas

We ended up tossing the leftover milk and cream cheese, but ate everything else. I was happy to have a little fruit on hand because when we're on vacation just about the only vegetable we eat is salad!

 

[christianweecare]

DH & I leave on Friday for six nights. We are bringing some breakfast items with us (cereal, oatmeal, muffins, donuts). The only thing I plan to purchase in addition once on site is some milk for the cereal---maybe some chocolate milk, too, for a special treat. We plan to eat breakfast at Artist's Palette (SSR) two mornings during our stay. The rest will be in the room. DH & I are breakfast eaters, though. Alot of people are not, however. You know your family's habits best!

 

[lady_hlh]

I ordered a case of water for the 3 of us to have on our 8 day trip with the DDP. I also brought breakfast items and some in room snacks. We used almost all of the water, all of the breakfast food and we did take home some of the snack items.

 

[Mad4Dizne]

and getting your milk from the resort store. You may also try getting water delivered from Staples, as I have heard many people doing this and I believe they stated delivery was free if you have their rewards card. You can also get water in the resort store and depending on how many you were going to get,may be easier.

We always take/buy more snacks than we need. Our last trip I planned almost exactly right and I did just buy a few things from the resort store. I thought their prices weren't bad for a resort.

 

[dbk1029]

When I was there (10/29/06-11/05/06) we purchased food items for breakfast (bacon, sausage, eggs, & pancake mix. I cooked breakfast all but one day and we used CS for lunch and did TS for dinners. We still had some breakfast items left at the end (pancake mix mostly). We also had a few leftovers from our TS meals on our final day. We also ended up with 10 CS & 18 snacks left our final morning. We used the 10 CS without issue our final day (breakfast & lunch). While waiting for our bus to the airport we stopped at the hotel general store (Conch Flats) and used up our remaining snacks (11 of them, got popcorns at DTD earlier) by picking up chips, soda, candy, etc.

You can use snacks for anything $4 an under (at least at Conch Flats). They have those boxes of doughnuts for under $4 so you could use 1 snack to get those for breakfast (that is probably what I will do next year), use a CS for lunch, and then a TS for dinner. The DDP does give you a lot of food.

 

[Tinkerbell_Girl]

When we where there in Sept, we brought water and snacks. We used the water but didn't even touch the snacks! We shared a breakfast platter each morning.

 

[sandymandr]

Also remember that gardengrocer requires a $40 minimum purchase. That plus the $10 delivery fee. I figure I can bring some snacks for the mornings, buy milk (just wish they had lactaid too!!) and spend <$50 on food at the resort shop or restaurant if we need it and save the hassle of going through gardengrocer!

 

[saschab]

We used gardengrocer for water, pop, adult beverages,popcorn, ground coffee and breakfast foods, and a few misc. items.

That way we saved our Snack Credits for F&W festival snacking, and have a small breakfast in our room, and still have CS lunch, and TS Dinner.

Our kids are older and we work up an appetite at Disney.

 

[sejejoemmiev]

What is the Garden grocer and how do you go about placing an order? We will be staying at POR for 5 nights in Feb and then going on a seven Day Disney Cruise. We will be on the ddp. Can you order Diapers and Wipes too? That would be so helpful, we wont have a rental car. TIA!

 

[saschab]

Just check out gardengrocer.com.

They list all kinds of things, and I'm betting diapers are there, although I haven't looked...kids are alot older.

Brian was also great about accomodating a request or two not listed on his site. The prices weren't any different from our local grocery store. YMMV.

It was well worth the $10 delivery fee and the tip we included for the great service. Our package (non-perishables) was waiting for us when we arrived and the bell staff delivered it to our room with our luggage. I've been told that Disney staff is will refrigerate any order of perishables that arrives before you do!

 

[dsneygirl]

We did the dining plan in Oct and are again next month and I am getting cereal, milk and juice. On mornings we didn't eat in the room I usually just wanted a danish or croissant from the bakery but the line ups were always atrocious. Even though you get loads of food with the DDP I liked having a light breakfast available while getting ready.

 

[seajoker]

Nov 4th -11th we were on our 1st trip to DW. We were on DDP and ordered a few things from gardengrocer: Milk, Cereal,Bagels, Pretzels, Yogurt, and water. We are not much of breakfast eaters. By our last day we had run out of milk and cereal and had a few snack and CS credits left, whicj we then used for breakfast items at The Mara before we left. Lots of food total, but we would do it again.

 

[DCDisney]

We didn't do a food order or stop for our trip using the DDP and we found that we really didn't even need all that we brought. I brought small breakfasty things like granola and pop tarts in the suitcase. We go in Jan and found we really didn't need extra water which may be the case now as well. We usually all ordered bottled water with our CS and had those to carry for the afternoon. We did do the refillable mugs as well as bought some milk at the resort shop for the kids breakfast. In terms of snacks we had plenty of leftover desserts, bags of chips, applesauce, etc on the rare occasion we were in our room hungry.

Yvonne

 

[Adi12982]

We always bring something light for breakfast to eat before we go to the parks. Then use the snack either before or after lunch depending on how long we will be at the parks/time between meals. For example - light breakfast at 7, snack credit at 11, lunch CS at 2-ish, dinner TS at 7/8pm. Then we are full til the next day. We usually do something like that. I think it is a good idea to have milk, cereal and poptarts. Easy and quick. Especially when you are going to be up for long hours. AND that way you do not have to pay the high park prices OOP for milk and such at breakfast.