We love to eat. That is one of the things we love about Walt Disney World: they have some great restaurants. However, it’s expensive, so we combat the cost by eating one meal a day in our room. We are Disney Vacation Club members and stay in the studios, which have a little kitchenette in them. Larger DVC suites have a bigger and better kitchen. Breakfast is the meal that we choose to eat in our room because we usually are at the parks during lunch and want to enjoy the restaurants for dinner. Also, since the studios only have a microwave and toaster oven, it’s easier to make breakfast than a dinner. This last visit we ordered from Instacart. It was a great experience for us.
Instacart Order: English muffins, butter, cheese, eggs, veggie sausage, and grapefruit.
I set up the order about a week before our trip down, with a delivery date for the day we arrived. We added a box of wine, because who doesn’t enjoy looking into Epcot from your balcony drinking a nice glass of wine before dinner, or even after?
Box of Wine
If you do order wine or beer through Instacart, they will drop it off at bell services, but it will not be delivered to your room. An adult with a valid ID must be present for delivery (by bell services, not Instacart). Bell Services kept our items in cold storage, as we had perishables. When we got back from the parks that evening, we called down and they delivered our goodies.
Eating in can be a significant savings. The items cost about the same you would pay at home; but there is, of course, a delivery fee and a charge from Instacart or whichever service you want to use. I did the math, and it was cheeper than renting a car to go shopping and about equal to using Uber or Lyft if we wanted to do it ourselves. The time savings is what makes it worthwhile. Who wants to go shopping when they could be enjoying their vacation?
The next 6 mornings we got up and made our breakfast. We did eat out one breakfast, as I made a reservation at Tusker House.
Breakfast: Egg, Veggie Sausage, and Cheese English Muffin with Grapefruit.
We enjoyed the service so much that when we needed some stuff from the drug store, we made our second order. This delivery was given to the front desk rather than the bell hop. Sometimes you do have to search to see which place they delivered your package to. It all worked out great and we had our supplies for aches and pains.
Misse getting our second order from the from desk.
There are other methods to have home delivery: Amazon Prime, Garden Grocer, We Go Shop, and Disney has a DVC service with an order form where you order from them. We’ve done the DVC order form before and it was fine, but I have to say we enjoyed the ease of the online ordering and getting our box of wine.
All in all, I calculated that we saved about $250-300 for the week from what we would have paid for breakfasts out. It’s only the two of us, so if you have a larger family you probably could save even more.
If you are a DVC owner and have the kitchen, then why not use it with one of these services and either save the money, or use the savings for a show like Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Review.
Eric Ring is an attorney and tax professional who lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A long time Disney and Phillies fan, when he is not working he is enjoying making plans for his next trip to Disney World and moaning about how much the Phillies need to improve. He is an owner of two DVC contracts, one at the Beach Club and one at the Villas at Wilderness Lodge.
