Question about shipping to hotel...

[momroma]

HI everyone! I am curious if anyone has ever done this....we are heading down to WDW for a week in 17 days in counting! We are taking our 4 kids one of whom is only 7 months old, someone I spoke to at WDTCompany suggested when we were talking about all of the baby food and formula that I need to bring that I ship a box of baby stuff down to the resort ahead of time. I called POR and they said no problem! I am curious if anyone here as ever done that, and if so how did it work out for you?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[mom22gls]

If you go through UPS, be sure to check the rates and timeline to see how far ahead you must send it to get ground shipment. If you don't allow enough days, they ship by air, and it is really expensive. I suggest that you consider ordering your baby food and supplies through a local grocery delivery service (gardengrocer or wegoshop). The delivery charge for gardengrocer, was only $12, and you could also order snacks, breakfast food, and some other toiletries for the same charge. Much less expensive than shipping costs, and you can also save a lot of weight in your luggage, by having them deliver liquid items (sunscreen, skin lotion, etc). Clothes don't weigh much, but liquids do.

[GusMan]

^^^ What she said...
Shipping things can get rather expensive, especially compared to getting the items locally through a grocery service and you can get a bigger bang for your buck.
Another idea is to pack the consumables in your luggage and and they are used up, use the freed-up space for all the things that you bought while on your trip. :) Keep in mind, you might now think "I wont be buying that much stuff while I am down there" but believe me, you might surprize yourself. We seem to do so every single time.

[Kwahati]

Just wanted to add: if you do decide to ship a package to your hotel, it's probably a good idea to call the front desk of your hotel the day you expect the shipment to arrive (or the day before) just to give them a friendly reminder that you're expecting something. This is for two reasons: (a) If the package arrives before you do, the clerk may not see your name in the computer and may refuse the package. (b) Depending on what name is on the room and what name is on the package (or how many rooms you have reserved or whose names you forgot to give to the desk when making the res. or if the name is misspelled somewhere etc.) the desk may have trouble searching for whose package it is and may refuse it for that reason... You know, you can just never give too much info to the people you're relying on to give you a good time!

(Disclaimer: I don't know Disney's desk procedures, but I was a manager of a hotel desk as recently as a year ago, and our policy was that if we didn't know for sure that the package for one of our guests, we'd refuse it to limit our liability...)

[katiesue]

I ship a lot of packages to various hotels for work. I always mark on the package the name of the hotel, then the persons name followed buy GUEST arriving on whatever the date is. That way if it does show up before they've checked in they know the person will be there the next day or whatever.

[TinaMouse]

It is especially convenient if you're taking DME or don't have access to transportation to the grocery store.

I send a box down 7-9 days before we go. I'd pack paper towels (to stuff into wet sneakers), diapers (back in the day), advil/tylenol, etc. Basically, anything that is CONSUMABLE. Pringles, fruit snacks, granola bars. That sort of thing.

I agree to not send anything heavy, such as liquids. The gift store has larger size milk, juice, etc. We find that we use the refillable resort mugs for most beverages, but have a qt of milk/juice to have for an in-room breakfast.

Funny story--I thought I'd pack a container of glitter to take with us to spread pixie dust on the kids' head every morning, telling them that Tinkerbelle visited them. I packed it. When I arrived at POFQ, the CM gave me my box (had our date of arrival, last name on the ressie, and our ressie # in the corner). Got to the room, opened the box, and yep, you guessed it, there was glitter EVERYWHERE! My youngest must've had glittery diapers for the whole week. Catch is--I have 2 boys!

I called Mousekeeping and asked to borrow a vacuum. It was in the carpet all week, even after I tried to clean it up. So, make sure all your lids are on tight!

My kids are older now, so I don't know if I will need to send a big box. If it is just the snacks and paper towels, etc, then I may just go Gus Man's way and pack an extra small suitcase.

[momroma]

Thank you all for the great advice, I think I will give it a try and ship the babyfood, powdered formula and diapers sometime this week so it will be there when we get there. We'll see how it works out!
Great story about the pixie dust....too funny!
14 days in counting!!!!!!!!!!!