Walt Disney World Resorts Now Charging Handling Fees For Front Desk and In-Room Grocery Deliveries

Jessica Figueroa

Walt Disney World Resorts Now Charging Handling Fees For Front Desk and In-Room Grocery Deliveries

For those of you who enjoy the convenience of using Instacart or Amazon Prime to deliver groceries and other last-minute necessities (lookin’ at you, phone chargers) to your Disney resort hotel room, you will now have to budget in an additional expense to the service.

According to Walt Disney World resorts will now charge a $6.00 handling fee (per order) for all in-room deliveries, as well as for any package or grocery holds received through the front desk.

The Mail Services tab on the Walt Disney World Resort website states the following:

Screen Shot 2019 04 05 at 11.50.49 AM

For now, the only way to avoid incurring a fee is by meeting your delivery person or courier at the lobby or out front.

This change came into effect as of April 1st. Before then, packages received at the front desk would incur a $5 handling fee, but now, both packages and groceries will incur the $6 handling fee. Note that this is not per bag, but per order.

Will this affect your tendency to “order in” at your resort hotel, or do you feel that $6 is a fair fee, given the greater popularity of grocery and package delivery in recent years? Sound off in the comments below.

 

59 thoughts on “Walt Disney World Resorts Now Charging Handling Fees For Front Desk and In-Room Grocery Deliveries”

  1. Consider the fiasco we experienced at art of Animation in March with our amazon prime now order; I’d gladly pay this fee BUT only if it’s delievered to the room in a timely manner … not 12 hrs later like what happened to us. Otherwise, I’ll just meet the driver and get myself

  2. This is kinda BS most of the packages being delivered go to valet or bell services but mainly valet. Very few go to the front desk. Instacart, Garden Grocer, Amazon, Publix, and even the guy with the purple owner lockers, DO NOT GO TO THE FRONT DESK! Many vendors know the codes to access luggage rooms, makes yea think about safety? The grocery deliveries have to sign in at bell services they store their own stuff in the luggage rooms (incorrectly most of the time). This is another horrible BS money grab by Disney. What makes it worse is at the Deluxe resorts where valet is used, the CM’s are not CM’s they are third party participants as well as the RAC staff. So Disney is charging extra nonsense money off the hard work of 3rd party employees with no increased compensation on their end. How do I know this? I was a valet manager at both Poly and WL and know from experience.

    • So what does that mean for Garden Grocer and Owner’s Locker? I have both already setup for my May trip at Ft Wilderness Cabins. They get charged now, or are you saying they don’t because they go through a different way?

  3. Here is another way to avoid the fee: Amazon has a program (I believe caked Key) which works with some cars and allows Amazon to deliver packages to the trunk of your car in certain areas. I can’t speak for all of WDW, but when we were at AKL last year, that was within the service area. Obviously this wouldn’t work so well for perishable food given how hot a parked car can get in the Florida sun.

  4. Does include packages bought at the parks if you want to have them delivered instead of carrying them around all day. We are staying at the Contreatmary Hotel. Please replay for my husband and I will be arriving on April 26, 2019 through May 3, 2019. Thank you Mrs Deborah Koss

    • No. The package delivery for park merchandise hasn’t changed. This is package delivery from outside sources that resorts are handling at an increasing rate.

    • No, merchandise sent to your resort does not incur a fee. You pick up your items at the merchandise location within your resort. Remember you must have your green receipt, which is given to you by the merchandise location where you made your purchase, to pick up your items.

    • No, delivery of packages from parks to Disney resorts has always been a free service provided when you stay in a Disney hotel

    • My family stayed at the Polynesian last year and when we had gifts purchased at the parks they delivered to the gift shop,no charge,not unless this has changed.

  5. Does the few apply to items you have sent to your resort from the parks? Like, say for example I bought a large amount of stuff at the Emporium in Magic Kingdom, and had it sent to the resort. Would I have to pay that fee, or is that still an included amenity for staying at a Disney Resort?

  6. Another reason to consider alternatives. Love Disney and own DVC membership. Am considering selling as the upcharges, ticket fees etc. are simply getting out of hand.

  7. All this is going to mean is that the CMs delivering the items won’t get tipped.

    But the question is: Does this fee get waived for DVC members staying on points like the package fee does?

  8. It will mean that I will use amazon locker if I need stuff delivered and go pick it all up early AM like I did last time at Whole Foods- not challenging but no fees

    • How is having groceries delivered WHILE ON VACATION lazy? Most people that stay at Disney use their transportation. You can’t just go to the store and get whats needed?

  9. I remember an old man in the concrete business telling me one day when things are good frack the people as much as you can they’ll keep coming back for more.

  10. Really I have no issue with this fee being added. As a guest you are ordering in from a service and asking the Disney cast members to receive and hold the items for you. This is an additional labor that should be compensated. The convenence is well worth $6 to me to not have to leave my vacation and still get what I need in a timely manner.

  11. I just wonder if it’s going to the people that bring it to the rooms. I always tip and $6 seems small in the budget of a Disney vacation but I would want it to go to the employees.

  12. It would be nice to know where the $6 fee is going. if it’s going straight to the corporate bottom line, then I’m not very happy with it. However, if it is going to the cast members who always provide such great service, then I’m okay with it.

    • Delivery of packages from Disney parks to Disney resorts has always been a free service provided by Disney when you are staying at a Disney resort property. I believe this charge is due to the loss of money they have occurred because you are not buying food from them and the extra workload of delivering so many packages.

  13. Every time we stay at a resort hotel we spend several thousand dollars there. Six bucks is not going to break anyone but clearly, some people must be abusing the concierge and being a douche by not tipping for services.

  14. What about grocery deliveries (Garden Grocer) typically, left at the bell desk, not the front desk? When they first implemented the $5 fee, those deliveries were exempt.

  15. I dont go to WDW to sweat dollars. I get many do and it’s totally understandable. But I also get they’re running a business which answers to shareholders first. This sounds like an individual decision and not a moral dilemma.

  16. At Pop last month they brought our groceries to the room and placed the cool items in the fridge. All while we were at the park. That level of service is worth the extra $6.

  17. It’s unfortunate that Disney is no longer about imagination, making people happy and entertaining guests. Like many companies Disney keeps adding absurd fee’s, increasing ticket prices, over pricing merchandise and as of late your food or mail being delivered to the front desk. I really don’t think price gouging people and making there parks unaffordable for the average family is what Mr. Disney had in mind.

    • It’s easy enough to avoid paying $6 to have a Disney cast member deliver goods from a non-Disney company. Buy your things from Disney. Yes, that’s more expensive (Disney is not a charity).

      If a person buys an item from outside a certain business, then asks that business to deliver it for them, this is the resource of human time being spent on something from which that business derives no profit. If you don’t want to pay the $6, have it delivered to bell services and go get it yourself. That’s what I did. Last weekend I carried 12 bottles of water from bell services at Art of Animation all the way to our room in the Little Mermaid section. If you’re not familiar with that resort, it’s not close. I gained 1000 steps every time I went to or from that building. Carrying 12 large bottles of water that distance was not fun, and probably would have been well worth the $6 to have someone deliver it for me.

  18. Honestly that seems very fair. It’s a significant amount of work to refrigerate a grocery order and then bring it to a room.

    I was actually more irritated by the package fees — in our last trip, my things from Amazon were split into four separate packages, meaning I had to pay $20 in fees, even collecting it from the front desk. That fee is way more exorbitant. It amounted to a 30% mark up on the value of the order.

  19. Wow raising ticket prices now incurring more fees on a service the parks maybe losing too much money now or later. Why nickel & dime visitors? Sounds like greed,looks like greed that’s how greed is “give me more & more for I am never filled”

  20. DIZZYEY WORLD in Florida a few years back fired a multitude of American workers there. Semi skilled, the ones I know, and …get this…made them TRAIN THEIR REPLACEMENTS from India. Imported, chrap cheap labor visa people and maybe from elsewhere. The Americans were told to train them, or lose any lay off pay or their pensions. (Some were near retirement, as was one of my friends.) This handed down order from their job robbing Disney World corporate hogs. Any that quit, or refused to train their lesser paid replacements, were fired. No unemployment. Nothing.

    I’d never go to that sick place again. EVER.
    I’m not sure if nearby Universal did anything like that, but unless I find out they did it too,
    I and others highly recommend to skip Disney, and go there. Much much much more fun for every age, anyway. And better every year.

  21. Omg, this is crazy excessive and once again all about the dollar. This takes away from the great vacation feeling know WDW is becoming petty and this will cause augments within families.

  22. I’m not sure this reading is correct. The policy says per package, yet your article says per shipment.

    • The article is correct. There is a $6/package fee on packages from Amazon, FedEx, UPS, etc. Groceries [GardwnGrocer,Instacart, etc.] Is $6/order

  23. Fees, fees, fees, soon only limos will be pulling up to the hotels. It seems there is a concious effort to price out middle and lower class.

  24. Does this include delivery from shopping within the resort? You typically can send your purchases free of charge to your hotel.

  25. This is sad news. My husband is a type 1 diabetic and so are many others and the need for food and snacks is a necessity not a luxury. Food is medicine that helps keep his blood sugar stable while in the parks and in the hotel. We pay a high price for tickets, transportation, hotels, and insulin costs. I guess they feel families with this disease haven’t been gouged enough. It’s not optional for me to not have something on me at all times for him to eat and recover. Shame on Disney this fee is just sad.

  26. It’s just another way for Disney to put their hands in your pocket and remove monies we had set aside for our kids! I think it’s time to cancel my Annual pass and move on over to Universal Orlando and Sea World? I can get Annual passes for Both of them for 1/2 the price I’m paying now for our Disney passes….very sad, but my kids will understand!

  27. Interesting. We checked into Kidani yesterday with Instacart arriving later in the day. We received our Instacart order and went to Bell Services to arrange to have them taken to our room. They did not mention the new charges. They also needed us to meet them in the room (which completely defeats the purpose). We would have gladly paid the $6.00 to not have to carry everything back to the room.

  28. I completely agree with this. We were at Art of Animation last weekend and I saw an employee delivering a instacart delivery and he had to use a luggage cart. There were a ton of groceries and a large styrofoam cooler being delivered to the room.

  29. They must need the money or go into bankruptcy. So much for Walt’s “plussing campaign” to give guests a little more than they expected.

  30. The amount of deliveries is skyrocketing. I don’t mind paying them to manage it. It’s cheaper than ubering to a grocery store.

  31. They have to pay for the salary increase for cast members and all the construction. If people continue to go and they find a way, they will keep increasing prices and charging for whatever they can

  32. Walt Disney wanted a place for family’s to get together and not spend a fortune doing it for his greedy family shame on you

  33. We had to pick up our orders from Bell services. Nothing ever was delivered to our room. Will they still charge $6? If so, I’d want it delivered to my room.

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