Disney Dollars

[ADKSPiette]

DD (5 yrs old) got $50 Disney Dollars for her birthday. I will give her these to use as for her purchases in the park. As a way of controling the money that we spend on stuff she 'wants', rather than needs (ie. food).

If you've ever used Disney dollars in or outside the park, are they relatively easy to use and well accepted? I'd hate to get there and find out that they're hardly used or no longer accepted (for whatever reason)

 

[Feelin' Goofy]

Yes they are fairly easy to use. We use them every time we go I think all gift shops accept them so far we have not found any that would not even DD's big toy store takes them.

 

[Twingle]

We've been able to use our Disney Dollars just like regular money - I've never had a problem using them anywhere at all in the Parks, our resort, or Downtown Disney.

 

[hildarumpole]

We used them at snack carts, in shops, and at CS restaurants without any problems. My daughter bought herself a Minnie Safari hat at AK and the CM laughed and said she hadn't seen a Disney dollar in a long time. They worked out very well for my kids to budget their spending money. We thought about getting the gift cards, but having actual money they could count out made it easier for them to understand their spending limits.

 

[DisneyMomx7]

We've used them everywhere at Disney. Our kids get Disney dollars for birthday gifts, tooth fairy, Christmas gifts, end of the school year etc.

We found it works really well - whatever Disney dollars they have they are free to spend as they please. When they are gone, they're gone. Works so much better then us saying yes or no a thousand times a day!

 

[kimgof]

Can you only buy Disney Dollars at the Disney store?

 

[luvmy3]

yes you can get them at the disney store. I think you can order them through disney but its like $10 to ship them to you.

 

[kxmeeh]

I love disney dollars! my girls earn them, and it really teaches them about what's important. when their birthdays are coming up, they now ask for disney dollars instead of just money or some toy that they will use one time. last time, they saved for bibbity boppity boutique. now, my dd7 wants an ariel dress. If there is anything left over at the end of the trip, yeah right, it can be exchanged for regular money (at least they did that for me in disneyland) or you can bring it home and spend it at the disneystore if there is one local.

 

[Grendalynn]

Another fan of Disney Dollars here!! Or gift cards I guess you would say. We loved having them on our most recent trip. It was a great little bonus that we had going into our vacations - extra spending/fun money. We booked our trip last August and told anyone who asked what we wanted for birthdays, Christmas, Easter... We said Disney Dollars!! As a PP said, they were the kids spending money. They could spend it as they liked and once it was gone t was gone.

We found it useful to call the 1-800 number on the cards every so many days to get the balances and the wrote them on the backs with a Sharpie to help keep track, as well as marking each with the first letter of each of their names to know who was whos; our boys are 1, 5 and 9. They could have easily lost them so we hung onto them...We had so many of the cards- 3 kids, 3 birthdys/holidays each got a card and our gift cards as well. We even paid for our Pirate and Princes Party with them! What a bonus!! In hindsight, the only thing that i think we woud have done was added all the balances (which was about $300) to our room/tab. Then we would have just used our Keys To The World to access the $$ rather than lugging 6+ cards around every day at the parks... I tried consolodaing all the cards onto one in the Merantile, but we wer not able to do so.

Hope this is helpful info!!??

 

[sahm1000]

We are gifting a trip this Christmas to my DH's family for April 2010. For his nieces and nephews for Christmas and birthdays I was hoping to give them Disney Dollars that their parents could use to purchase their tickets for the parks since expense will be an issue for them (we are just picking up the hotel stay for 7 nights, not tickets and food unfortunately). Can the Disney Dollars be used for tickets? If not, could they be used for food? And I can buy them at the Disney store, correct? TIA for all the help.

 

[Grendalynn]

We are gifting a trip this Christmas to my DH's family for April 2010. For his nieces and nephews for Christmas and birthdays I was hoping to give them Disney Dollars that their parents could use to purchase their tickets for the parks since expense will be an issue for them (we are just picking up the hotel stay for 7 nights, not tickets and food unfortunately). Can the Disney Dollars be used for tickets? If not, could they be used for food? And I can buy them at the Disney store, correct? TIA for all the help.

we used ours for P&PP tickets, so i **ASSUME** you can use them for park tickets as well. cal 407-wdw-info before hand I am sure they can give you the guidelines of what they can and cannot be used for. I do know they cannot buy alcohol or other Disny Gift Cards. We also used some of our Disney Dollars for the tip part of one of our meals. You can get them in any denomonation at the Disney Stores or online. Have fun!

 

[mommyof2princesses]

You can use disney dollars for everything! I gave them to my older dd for two different years for her chore money. That way when we went she had some money that was totally for Disney. This year she is babysitting so no DDfor her, but dd who is 4 will start earning shore DD money!

 

[pixiefairy]

I had just asked our local Disney store about this! I was considering getting each child a Disney gift card, but the CM that was talking to me said that the Disney $$ are a way to keep the kids accountable of how much money they have left, and if they are physically looking at it, they have a better sense of what they have and if they really want that toy or want to save for something else. My dh doesn't want to worry about the money being mixed up and would rather do the cards, but I may just do a card for my eldest, unless he wants the $$ too. I think they are a really cool idea. I know that they come in $1, $5 and $10 increments.

 

[ADKSPiette]

Thanks for all the input everyone!
Since DD is starting Kindergarten, it's about time to start teaching the value of a dollar and these will definitely teach her what she can and cannot afford.

 

[grumpalina]

none of my disney stores sell disney dollars!!! argh!!! we even asked at the world of disney store in NYC and they don't have them either. it's really frustrating.

 

[mommyof2princesses]

I can't believe they don't sell them! What a bummer! Both disney stores by me sell them. In fact we just got new ones with cinderella on it.

Did ya know that they do not reuse Disney Dollars? Yep. Once you use them they are not recirculated! Pretty cool!