Garden Grocer Never Again

[Disney Doll]

We have used Garden Grocer twice before without issues and I have even recommended them here on Intercot, but after our experience last week I will never use them again.

We stayed a week at AKL. This was our first stay in a villa so we ordered more groceries than usual since we had the full kitchen. We considered Disney's DVC grocery service, but found their selection to be limited so we went with Garden Grocer instead. We checked into the room and headed out to the parks leaving bell services to claim our delivery when it arrived.

Bell services brought up the delivery when we returned and we realized that about half of our order was missing. We had 4 bags out of a 7 bag order. We called Garden Grocer who assured us that everything was delivered and blames bell services for misplacing the lost items. At first I'm thinking that sounds plausible and I'm guessing that the bell services probably did make the error. I checked back with them and they say they will look and call us back. They call back and confirm that only 4 bags were received. Now I don't know who to believe, but the convenience of grocery delivery has been lost by the time we are spending trying to rectify this problem.

Garden Grocer stands by their claim that the entire order was delivered and that they bear no responsibility for the items I have paid for, but have not received. Bell Services gets a resort manager involved and she offers to reorder the missing items at no cost to us, but Garden Grocer says they can't make another delivery until the next afternoon. I'm irritated, but figure if that's the best that can be done it will have to work. Garden Grocer later calls back to say that they found one of the missing bags they supposedly delivered and won't be charging for the reorder of those items. My, they are generous.

The next day Garden Grocer delivers the order and low and behold it's only 1 bag. Again, I have only half of my order as there were 3 bags missing. We call the resort manager who had been handling our situation and she is obviously just as irritated with Garden Grocer as we are at this point. She apologizes mentioning 3rd parties and how they don't always live up to the Disney standard. Instead of ordering through Garden Grocer a 3rd time she sends a CM to Target to purchase the missing items.

I have certainly learned a lesson. We would have wasted far less time by doing our own grocery stop instead of paying to deal with the ridiculous hassle that Garden Grocer caused. By the way, no one at Garden Grocer ever even apologized. It was perhaps the worst service I have ever received anywhere.

[Pally]

In August we used Garden Grocer also. For the most the part they did what they promised. We did notice though that the expiry dates on some items were only one week away or slightly more. This did bother me somewhat. The food was fine though. I guess I just always buy the furthest date out which is usually much longer than one week.

To continue the story though, we also had one item missing from our order. A six pack of Mountain Dew. The bag had one six pack and it looked like another one was sitting next to it but disappeared. We checked backed with Pop recieving several times to see if it showed up.

We called Garden Grocer and at no time did they call back for the week we were there. Somebody enjoyed a six pack of Mountain Dew and it was not us!

[KylesMom]

We've been on the fence each trip regarding the use of an outside grocery delivery service. Due to the incredibly different service levels that INTERCOT guests have experienced (and posted about), we've opted to make the run ourselves each time - usually the Sunday after our arrival in the late afternoon. The last thing I want to worry about when we're off to the parks is what we paid for versus what is going to be delivered. I'm sorry it turned into such a fiasco for you!

[BluewaterBrad]

That is the first bad thing that I have heard about GG. I would be !!

[prprincess]

Kudos to your resort manager for helping you out!

As for GG, I've used them twice with no problem. But the last time was over a year ago, and since then I've been reading nothing but bad reviews. I'm not so sure we want to use them next month!

[VWL Mom]

Sorry to hear you had such a tough time with them. We have used them 4 times with the last time being in August and have not had a problem. I have already place my order for our upcoming trip and now am a bit worried.

[bkfree]

Sorry to hear about your issues with GG. We have used them several times and always had great service, but I will say that we have always set up delivery for right after we check in so we can be present to check our order while they are there.

Also we have not made big orders and this may also be another reason why we have had great service. Usually just sodas, water, snacks , wine and liquor.
We always fly to WDW and stay onsite so we never have a car to do our own shopping.
This last trip we decided to "Go Commando" meaning we did not order anything at all from GG and just picked up what we needed at the shop at AKl and actually this worked out stellar, we spent less than placing an order and this will be our plan from now on.

[Disney Doll]

Sorry to hear about your issues with GG. We have used them several times and always had great service, but I will say that we have always set up delivery for right after we check in so we can be present to check our order while they are there.

Yeah, I realized after the fact that accepting the delivery yourself is probably the better way to go, but if I'm going to have to hang around the room for 2 hours waiting on a delivery I might as well just run to the store myself and be done with it.

[hubbyofadisneyholic]

Reading these posts makes me glad have always used WeGoShop.
They have never messed up an order and have always arrived within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.

[DreamFinder2]

Instead of ordering through Garden Grocer a 3rd time she sends a CM to Target to purchase the missing items.

This is what good service (Disney or otherwise) is all about...although it should have happened after the first round of mis-haps.

[brian2000boston]

wow, thats huge for Disney to step up like that, especially since they have no responsibilty to GG. It seems obvious GG made the error if one of the missing bags just happens to appear. Next time i would try something new. Sorry you had a tough time, but glad someone stepped up to make it right for you.

[GreenBeetle]

I have already place my order for our upcoming trip and now am a bit worried.

Me too! Now I'm nervous. I guess I'll just make sure one of us is there to check the order before they get away.

[princessgirls]

I had no problems with Garden Grocer in March. Everything went as planned. Got cereal, milk, breakfast items, snacks and drinks.

We are going back in December, and I've decided to go "commando". It's a quick trip, so I will pack a breakfast items, and hopefully it won't be so hot that we will need all of the drinks that I would have normally ordered.

Julie

[epceddie]

We always rent a car when we go to WDW and we usually arrive well before the check-in time so our first stop is a grocery store.
If we forget something, we only have ourselves to blame.
Doing our own shopping is one less thing we have to worry about and it only takes about an hour.

[DizneyRox]

We used them recently with no problems. Some of the concerns are pretty valid however, especially the expiration dates, etc.

While we were pretty satisfied overall, I'm not really sure the "savings" justify the costs.

Disney does a pretty good job of pricing themselves into the competition and when you consider convenience along with price, usually just sticking with Disney is the way to go. It doesn't hurt to keep them on their toes though...

[MickeyMousse]

We used GG once -never again!

They were over 4 hrs late in delivering our order (we were also in a 1 bedroom villa w/full kitchen, so alot of food was coming). The delay caused us to replan our meals for the entire day -3 meals, out of pocket that we didn't plan on having to spend-and when we finally received delivery, at least 1/3 of our order was missing-mostly all of our drinks. However our experience with calling GG was not like yours-they owned up to the mistake and we had it delivered first thing in the morning....but the beverage flavors were wrong. Another call to GG and they decided to just credit our account for the error and told us to keep the drinks. Great, but still had to go out and purchase what we needed....

[bkfree]

Yeah, I realized after the fact that accepting the delivery yourself is probably the better way to go, but if I'm going to have to hang around the room for 2 hours waiting on a delivery I might as well just run to the store myself and be done with it.

Actually,we did not have to wait at all.
We flew in, our flight arrived at 10am, so we figured with ME that we would be checked in to our hotel by Noon at the latest,which would be lunch time. We were staying at YC, so we had given GG our cell phone. They called at 11:30 to see where we were and while we were having lunch at Hurricane Hannah's poolside at noon, GG arrived. So we did not have to wait at all for them.

[thumperbug]

We almost always stay at a 1 bedroom villa. What I usually do is pack some dry goods in our suitcase such as cereal, pasta, cereal bars, cookies and snacks and purchase milk, eggs, water etc at the resort. I find this more cost effective since there is a minimum purchase amount with GG and I also end up with additional space in my suitcase coming home since all the food items are eaten. We generally only eat breakfast in our villa so for us, the selection of groceries at the resorts is fine for us.