Tag Archive for: summer

A great precursor to Walt Disney World

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Garden Grocer, send up our stuff!

Garden Grocer, send up our stuff!

After this weekend, the four of us are headed to Walt Disney World (the one in Florida) to try out the new Magic Bands service and investigate some of the recent preschooler-oriented upgrades at some of the parks. We’re staying at Disney Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa, in a 1-bedroom villa with a full kitchen. Our goal: To save a bit of money on food, instead of paying top-dollar for every meal at restaurants or inside the park.

At the suggestion of a friend, our strategy to achieve this goal is using Garden Grocer, a grocery ordering-and-delivery service that promises to have your supplies waiting in your room for you when you check in.

The interface itself is similar to the online grocery services we used when we lived in London—you shop virtually, put stuff in a cart, and select a specific date and time range when you check out. Item-by-item prices were comparable to what you’d find in a high-end supermarket. The company also charges a one-time delivery fee of $14.

To me, this fee is worth the 60 to 90 minutes it saves me from having to dash out to the Publix as soon as we (fly across the country with two children and) check in.

(It’s also roughly the cost of two pretzels and a soda inside the parks.)

I placed my inaugural order about an hour before I published this post. Will this service work? Will Garden Grocer deliver the convenience it promises? How much money will we actually save? I won’t have any of these answers for you until Monday at the earliest, but you better believe I’ll report them here. Stay tuned.

To what extent have you used grocery-stocking services when you travel with kids?

My new family travel obsession: SafetyTat

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SafetyTat. In action.

SafetyTat. In action.

I might as well just come out and say it: I’m a sucker for a good temporary tattoo.

This means I’ve become a huge fan of Tattly for everyday designs. It also means that one of my new family travel must-haves is the flagship (and eponymous) product from a company called SafetyTat.

The product is exactly what it sounds like it would be—a temporary tattoo that helps keep kids safe. The concept is perfect in its simplicity, blending the fun of a temporary tattoo with important identifying information that can help authorities reunite you with your child in the event that he or she gets lost.

SafetyTat tattoos either come customized with your mobile phone number or blank so you can write in your cell phone number on them. When applied to the arm of your child or loved one, the SafetyTat provides an immediate, highly visible form of child identification that stays in place—even after it gets wet.

The product was invented by Michele Welsh, a Baltimore mom of three kids who felt overwhelmed when she took her youngsters to a crowded amusement park.

As the story goes, Welsh wrote her mobile phone number on each of the kids’ arms with a ballpoint pen. Throughout the day, she had to rewrite the numbers several times. That’s when it occurred to her there had to be an easier way.

I’m not going to lie—the SafetyTat tattoos are spendy. Original SafetyTats (the ones that you can customize to come printed with your number) are $20.99 for a pack of 24. This price doesn’t include shipping, which starts at about $3.30 per order (and goes up to $22.50 for overnight delivery, if you’re really in a hurry.)

Still, especially for summer trips to theme parks, this tool can prove to be invaluable. Check it out.