Cash, credit or debit?

[NvrBnToWDW]

I was going to put each day's food budget (cash) in an envelope labeled with the day, but that's $600 in cash. Is this safe to carry through the airport and store the envelopes in the hotel's safe? I was also going to put my kids' spending money in envelopes with their name and use my debit card for souvenirs for me and my husband. Is this too much cash to deal with? What do you suggest? I'm worried if we use only cards, we'll spend over our budget for souvenirs and food.

 

[wdwgoofeeee]

If you are staying at a Disney resort you can use the room key card as a charge card. They will give you this option when you check in. They will then attach your room key to a major credit card in their computer system. By doing this you will need to carry only a small amount of cash. You can use your room key charge in about 99% of the places in WDW. The only exceptions are some of the stand alone carts that do not have telephone connections. You can ask for a print out from the front desk anytime so you can keep track of your spending. You will also receive a complete print out at check out. The limit on your room charge depends on what level of resort you are in. For the value resorts it's $500.00, moderates are $1,000.00 and deluxes are $1,500.00. Once you reach the limit they will pass the charge to your credit card and you start over. Very easy and convenient to use.

 

[weregoingtodw]

I went through this entire scenario a few weeks ago. Finally decided to go with a mix of traveler's cheques & my debit card. I'll only use my credit card for the rental car (since it provides me with additional insurance coverage). I logged all of my traveler's cheques numbers, then divided them daily into envelopes, with each envelope labeled with that day's numbers. Once I use a check, I'll just mark it off the front of the envelope.

Since we're staying at SoG, we don't have room charging privileges. No big deal - this will allow me an easy & convenient way to track my spending!

 

[Grand2me]

weregoingtowdw has the right idea. I used to work at a bank and having that extra insurance while on vacation is priceless. I use a mix also: ROUGHLY $200-$300 in Traveler's cheques, $300-$350 in cash that we usually split among the days in the park and tips, shopping the rest on the debit card. We usually do not use the Traveler's Cheques unless we are going to a sitdown dinner at night or until the very end of our trip. It puts a cap on the amount of money that we actually spend. Traveler's Cheques are guaranted money.

 

[disneyfan61]

I bring a few hundred in cash then I use by debit card as needed. There is
a per day limit on my card but I increase my limit at my bank before I go.
This way I only have so much cash on me. The safe in the room is fine. I have
never had a problem keeping cash in the safe.

 

[patrenoe]

We bring cash and use our room card to charge. We bring alot of cash and keep it in our room safe and never had a problem.

 

[themudd4]

We usually take roughly $500 in cash and have our credit and depit cards. I figure if we need more cash, there are ATM's everywhere, and I can pay the $2-$3 service fee if I have too. I also feel like when I spend with cash...I spend more. When I use my cards I keep the reciepts and then I keep a running tally of my spending.

 

[welovewdw]

I was also going to put my kids' spending money in envelopes with their name

We do this with our 3 kids - it's a super easy way to keep track of their money. Also - this last trip, our 16 yo daughter wanted to carry her money w/ her (it was approx. $250.00) I gave her $30 to carry over her protests. (anyone w/ teenage girls knows how dramatic they can be) Later that same day, she lost her wallet in Toontown. Lesson learned. Mom keeps money in fannypack. (btw - great news is, someone turned it in and she got the wallet back!)

 

[goofy4tink]

WE handle it in a variety of ways...Dd has her daily spending money in Disney Dollars. I also get a few hundred dollars for myself in DD. Then, for my room charge, I use my least used credit card. Then when I get home, I send in the amount I used on the credit card at WDW as a payment. I hate having to carry around a lot of cash and I hate those finance charges, so this works for us.

 

[tomerin]

we used to bring travelers checks but i found them actually annoying to use. too time consuming. so we mainly allot about 100 dollars a day cash for tips and small purchases at food carts and any larger purchases we charge to our room key. the room key purchase makes the need for carrying around large amounts of cash unecessary and also unecessary to have a large amount of money in your room safe.

 

[jlowejd5]

When we got married last year, our wedding was about two hours away from the airport we flew out of. Our flight left at oh-dark-thirty in the morning, so we left town right after the reception and crashed for about four hours in some motel at the airport. But on the way out of the reception, DW grabbed the money box and spent the drive opening cards and tracking the amounts for thank-you note purposes.

Anyway, we get to the hotel and realize we've got 30 or 40 checks and a hugebig pile of cash. Uh-oh. Well, there are no banks open at 5 am, and I'm not about to deposit this much at an ATM. So we stuff it into the lining of my carry-on bag, and away we go. We kept all the checks and cash (rolled up in some other documents) in our safe the whole vacation, and never had an issue.

 

[Keggy]

We do the envelope thing on vacation. We travel on tight budgets and it is easier for us to keep track of how much we have soent out of what budget when we have cash/traveler's checks rather than our debit card or credit cards.

I have found that a small coupon holder works better than the envelopes though. OUr last trip to disneyland - I had TOO many evelopes - I got annoyed and felt dumb. The coupon holder works much better!

Kelly

 

[lab_girl]

...I have found that a small coupon holder works better than the envelopes though...

Thankyou! I was wondering how to keep funds separate, but easy to use!

On trips we use cash and our credit card - which we pay of the day we get home with money we have set aside - Therefore no charges!

 

[jugglinfish]

I am a huge huge fan of charging things to your room. No need to carry cash. I bet you can pay it off when you get back to the hotel each day if you really wanted. You can get the fantastic printouts of all of your spending, even snacks at the park.

A big perk to this is for future planning. We have our printout saved from our trip last year, and can use it to plan how much we **really** need to have for meals and snacks and assorted other stuff. It was so much easier and felt so much safer to have my room key be my charge card as well. Only had to carry that and a few bucks to save time if I just wanted a water. It is a major perk to staying in a Disney hotel, I think.

I hear the budget thing, but I liked not having to stress about cash.