ATM's on site?

[dancin Disney style]

We will be at WDW for 10 days in July and staying onsite. We don't normally travel for this many days so we have been in the habit of just having cash with us, this time I don't want to be walking around with such a large sum. I have opened a US dollar account at my bank(TD Canada Trust) and have a debit card attached to the account. I am wondering if anyone has an account like this and used the debit card for cash withdrawls at WDW. I am also wondering about the fees associated with doing this, are the machines bank ATM's or are they the cash machines that charge you several dollars per transaction?
Hope someone can help?

 

[hockey mom]

We have done this a few times and were charged a few dollars in service charges(around $3). Are you sure you will be able to withdraw from your U.S. acoount because I could not from mine. I withdrew from my checking account and was charged that days exchange rate.

 

[CharlesTD]

Same thing here even working for them I can't access my US dollar account with my debit card they have no way of doing it. We have to use the cash from our chequing account then transfer the money from our US account to the other account after the fact.

 

[MommaBear]

Since you already have a US account why not do travellers cheques.

I found them to be the easiest and most convenient way to travel with $$$$.

Last trip we drove down. I had $2000.00 US in travellers cheques, half with my DH signature and half with mine. We also had $500.00 US in cash which we split equally to carry in our wallets.

I simply pulled off cheques I would need for day and left the rest in the safe in the hotel room.

The money we came back with was put back into our US account (no exchange rate change) for our next trip.

 

[PhotobearSam]

Travelers Cheques for WDW is great...CAA has no fees either.

 

[sandraB]

You say you are staying onsite?

We were just there, and with being onsite you get a "card" that you can use everywhere in WDW. It simply takes an amount off your credit card, and acts like your credit card. We found this to work the best. We rarely had any cash on us at all! We left all our ID and Cards in the room safe....

 

[MommaBear]

AND you know what else!

Taking travellers cheques stopped me from buying things I really didn't need!

I would take only so much $$$ into WDW each day. This would pay for our food and any trinkets my DH, DS#1, DS#2 and I wanted. If I was running low on $$$ I would think twice about buying. When we got back to hotel I would then give it some 'real' thought as to whether I needed that item or not. Usually done while relaxing at the pool with Pina Colada in hand. Anyway if I or the boys really couldn't do without it we would purchase the next day but more often than not it became clear that the item was not needed.

This really helped us not to buy those useless items everyone comes home with and then has to dust or discard. We ended up coming home with meaningful momentos and useful items from our trip.

The one that has the most meaning to me is the small Mickey and Minnie that sit on my window sill above the Kitchen sink. My darling little boy bought them for me with his hard earned allowance which took him months to save. As we dragged our tired bodies from the van and headed up to our hotel room Michael handed me the bag and told me he had bought me a surprise. While the others changed into their swimsuits I sat on the bed unwrapping white tissued to find two small china figurines. "Mom you can put them on the window sill in the Kitchen. That way whenever you are at the sink or looking out the window you can remember our trip to Disney."

Three years later they are still sitting there!

 

[dancin Disney style]

Thanks everyone!
I have, over the years, heard many people say they have had trouble cashing travellers cheques. It sounds like none of you have had a problem with your TC's. What about outside of WDW? We will be spending time off site especially for dinner and shopping(2 daughters must find Abercrombie - lol.). What about carrying cash, do you think it's safe? We are planning to not charge anything, so I may have about $2000 US.

Mommabear--your son sounds darling (congrats to you).

Photobearsam-- Shediac beach is one of my fav. spots in the martimes.

 

[MommaBear]

Yes my DS - 12 this year - is a real sweetheart! DS16 is going thru the teen years and only thinks of himself right now. I know that will change eventually but I don't think DS12 has a selfish bone in his body, he is always doing for others!

As for the Travellers Cheques I never had a problem cashing anywhere! We used them in stores, restuarants, gift shops, souvenir places. You may have trouble at a 7-11 but not anywhere else.

If you are concerned you can cash them at banks, just make sure they don't charge you a service fee. Most won't since the cheques are just like cash.

Also in regards to credit cards - if you have to use, it is somewhat helpful to have a credit balance. I put $500.00 on my card. It was clear (down to $0, no balance - believe me I worked hard to get it that way before WDW) before we left but I transferred $500.00 Cdn onto the card so that we had a credit with Visa. We used it for hotels and gas on the way down and back that way when we got home we didn't owe Visa a thing. I think we even had $75.00 left which we used the following week for dinner out.

 

[PhotobearSam]

Glad to know someone thinks Shediac is as great as I think so...

I have used TC's everywhere from the mall, grocery stores, Wal-mart, Disney outlets and restaurants...No problems at all...

Now if you were going to Europe, that would be a different story.