Pros & Cons Of Paying With Gift Cards At Walt Disney World

My most recent trip to Walt Disney World was filled with firsts and new experiences; one of which was using Disney gift cards as my primary form of payment. In the past, I’ve always leaned towards using cash when visiting Walt Disney World. For me, it’s always felt like the most convenient option. Then I learned about the discounts you could get on gift cards when purchasing them at Target with a Red Card. This gave me an idea! Why not give gift cards a go during my next trip? So that’s just what I did! After taking some time to calculate how much money I’d need for my trip, I made my way over to my local Target to grab some gift cards.

With a stack of Disney gift cards in hand, or. . . you know. . . safety stowed in my carry-on luggage, I boarded my plane and made my way to Walt Disney World. Once I arrived, it was time to start giving this new method of payment a try. For the next 13 days, I’d use Disney gift cards to make purchases around the Walt Disney World resort. In some cases, the Disney gift cards worked like a charm; other times, not so much. This is why today, we’re taking some time to talk about the pros and cons of paying primarily with gift cards at Walt Disney World.

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Now, I don’t know about you, but I like to end things on a positive note whenever possible. So we’re going to start off this discussion talking about the downsides of using Disney gift cards as a primary method of payment while at Walt Disney World and go from there. Plus, I was. . . quite frankly. . . a little taken aback by some of the downsides that presented themselves and I think you might be too.

As with anything in life, there are indeed downsides when it comes to primarily using Disney gift cards while at Walt Disney World. That said, most of these downsides aren’t what I’d consider to be deal-breakers. A good example of this would be that Disney gift cards can be more time consuming to use than credit cards or even cash. This was something I noticed while making purchases at both carts and shops around Walt Disney World. In some cases, if a Cast Member didn’t initiate the correct method of payment initially the entire order would have to be cleared out of the system and reentered. This happened to me about 4 times during the first few days of my trip. Having to pay with multiple Disney gift cards, such as you would if the balance on one card isn’t enough to cover your entire purchase, can also be time consuming. This is treated as 2 separate transactions and can take a bit longer than if you simply were using credit or cash. You’ll also find yourself receiving 2 separate receipts for these types of transactions, which I suppose you could consider a downside. . . . that’s all about your point of view though. When all is said and done, though both of these examples did take longer than other payment options would have, we’re not talking about huge amounts of time here. At best, I spent maybe an additional minute or two at the register.

👻 Attention Ghouls: After having 4 instances where Cast Members had to clear my order and reenter it so I could pay with a Disney gift card, I asked what I could do to make their life easier next time I made a purchase. The cast member, whose name I unfortunately don’t remember, told me that it can be helpful to let them know before placing the order that you’d like to pay with a gift card. I did this each time I made a purchase moving forward and didn’t run into the issue again.

Spending an extra minute or two at a register when buying some popcorn or a Mickey plush might be a minor inconvenience, but there are some other downsides that can really be a pain in the. . . . pixie dust. Right at the top of that list is something you’ll encounter when using the Mobile Order function on the My Disney Experience app. In a nutshell, for those who might not be familiar, Mobile Order is a feature you can use in the My Disney Experience app that allows you to order and pay for food around Walt Disney World using your smartphone. Simply place your order from anywhere, set a time you’d like to pick it up and you’re good to go. When your time arrives you just push a button on your phone, letting them know you’ve arrived, and pick up your order. Mobile Ordering is quick, easy and saves a lots of time. Rather than standing in line for food, you can order while standing in line for an attraction. . . . two birds one stone!

Easy as this process might be if you’re using the credit card that’s been saved to your My Disney Experience account, guest who want to pay with a Disney gift card will find things are a bit more complicated. Because you’re unable to store a Disney gift card in My Disney Experience as a primary method of payment, you’ll need to reenter your Disney gift card number with each mobile order you make. [NOTE: Though there seems to be an option for you to save the card for future purchases, the information never seemed to save.] This made it much more difficult to order on the fly. Now, rather than poking my phone a few times while walking through a queue, I’d need to also find a place to pull off so that I could dig my card out and enter the lengthy card number. . . hopefully correctly so I wouldn’t have to do it a second time. As a grown adult who was traveling solo with no kids to keep an eye on, this process was annoying and a pain. Doing this while having to manage anyone outside of myself and also sticking to some version of a schedule would have been meltdown inducing. . . especially if I wasn’t planning on having to jump through this particular hoop every time I’d be putting in a Mobile Order.

Finally, at least as far as downsides are concerned, Disney gift cards are not accepted everywhere on Walt Disney World property. While you’re good to go at the parks, you may want to keep this in mind if you’re planning to shop or dine at Disney Springs. According to various resources and Cast Members, a large majority of restaurants and retail locations at Disney Springs do in fact take Disney gift cards as a form of payment. Trouble is, there are very rarely specifics provided as to who does and who doesn’t. This can have you running into an issue, especially if you’re not planning on having a backup payment option with you.

In the interest of absolute fairness, it’s important that I mention here that you can call ahead or even simply ask someone whether or not Disney gift cards are accepted before making your purchase. You absolutely can! However, you’ll have to decide whether or not that’s a feasible option for you and your family. Personally, aside from table service restaurants, the idea of calling ahead is a bridge too far in the planning department. . . . at least for me. I’d personally prefer having that backup form of payment so that I didn’t have to worry about any purchases I couldn’t use a gift card for.

Now that we’ve got all of the downsides out of the way, let’s focus on some of the reasons you might want to use Disney gift cards are your primary payment method while at Walt Disney World.

Right off the bat, we’ve got to talk about the ability to get the gift cards at a discounted rate if you’re purchasing them from Target with a Red Card. This is something that we’ve talked about before here on 2 Foolish Mortals as have others; you can get 5% off when you purchase Disney gift cards when you purchase them using your Red Card. This is one of the reasons I considered using Disney gift cards in the first place and I’m sure it’s one of the reasons you’ve materialized here today too. Without going too into the whole discussion again, this is the best and easiest way to cut costs when visiting Walt Disney World and if you can you should take a look at going this route.

Another great reason to use Disney gift cards as your primary form of payment at Walt Disney World is all about budgeting. Look, it probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone that Disney is a good place to spend money. [Goodness knows, this is something I’m well aware of.] This is why it becomes important to have a way to track your spending or cut yourself off when you’ve reached your limit; especially if you’re trying to keep to a budget. The way I like to do this is by having multiple Disney gift cards to be used throughout the duration of my trip. [For example, if my budget is $100.00 per day, I’ll set aside a $100 Disney gift card for each day of my trip.] In many ways, with a few exceptions, this is the same way I usually budget with cash. The major difference with using Disney gift cards is that you don’t get any of the bulk that you’d have to deal with carrying around notes and coins. . . . which is really nice.

Finally, we need to talk about keeping track of your purchases. A lot of times, when we talk about gift cards, we compare them to cash. I’m sure you’ve heard it before. . . . “keep track of your gift cards, because losing them is like losing cash” . . . and so on. However, very much unlike cash, you won’t need to keep a pile of receipts to figure out where your money went over the course of your vacation. All you have to do is check the card’s transaction history.

Checking the transaction history on your Disney gift card is something that you can do with as little as a smartphone and an internet connection. However, to make things as easy as possible, you’ll want to do a little bit of set-up prior to your vacation. Don’t worry. . . it will only take a few minutes.

The place you want to be in order to do everything we’re about to talk about is the Disney Gift Card website. This is a website, which is operated by Disney, that can help you do just about anything you might want to in order to manage your Disney gift card. . . aside from making purchases, that is. You can consolidate the balance on multiple gift cards, track the balance of your card and even see a list of transactions made like you would if you were checking a credit card statement. The website is very easy to use and can be very useful if you’re trying to keep track of your Disney gift cards and the funds you have available while on vacation at Walt Disney World. Personally, I checked the site at the end of every day. This gave me an idea of how much money I had available and allowed me to keep my spending on track.

Now, I’m sure that by this point some of you are wondering whether or not I think that paying primarily with Disney gift cards during your Walt Disney World vacation is the way to go. Ultimately, much like everything else we talk about, I think it depends. For those of you who have the funds for your vacation saved up, going the route of purchasing discounted Disney gift cards for your vacation can be a great idea. Don’t forget, you can use those gift cards to pay for everything from hotel rooms to park tickets, so the 5% savings can really add up! For example, we just purchased a 2 day park hopper ticket using Disney gift cards and ended up with $20 in savings. Just imagine the savings if your entire trip was paid for with those gift cards you purchased at a 5% discount! Of course, this is only worth it if you have the money set aside and aren’t going to have it sit on a credit card gaining interest. Like I said. . . . it’s not right for everyone.

There’s also the matter of how you’re going to spend the money. We went into great detail earlier, so I’ll do my best not to repeat myself, but if you’re planning to do a lot of spending at Disney Springs or use Mobile Order a lot, going the route of the Disney gift card might not be for you. Again, you’ll have to decide whether the inconvenience is worth the savings for you and your family. For me personally, using only Disney gift cards isn’t really the way to go. . . . at least not for every purchase. In fact, I’m not going to be using Disney gift cards for purchases during my next trip; opting instead to use a credit card with rewards.

Whatever payment method you choose for your next trip to Walt Disney World. I think that the most important thing to keep in mind is that you should definitely have a backup ready. Whether it’s a bit of cash, extra funds in your bank account that you can grab from an ATM or a credit card, a secondary form of payment if very vital.

Have you ever used Disney gift cards as your primary form of payment when visiting Walt Disney World? What did you think about it and would you do it again? Let us know all about it by joining the jamboree. See you over there!