places to get money without paying??

[MinniMama]

Ok what I mean is we hate to carry a lot of cash to WDW and I don't care for Amex travelers checks but I also don't like paying heafty fees for ATM machines which is what I end up doing. Are there any places where you can use a debit card and get cash back in the parks or on property. What do you do??

 

[addicted_to_WDW]

We bank at Suntrust, and before a year or so ago WDW ATM's were also Suntrust so we just got out cash as needed. That changed, and I don't recall who the bank is now.

Anyway, we get free Traveler's checks through AAA and use them. I'm also not comfortable with having much cash on me. I find that about $30 per cash is all that is necessary per day. We just use the room charge for everything else and then pay it off with Traveler's checks.

 

[skiwee1]

Originally posted by MinniMama
Ok what I mean is we hate to carry a lot of cash to WDW and I don't care for Amex travelers checks but I also don't like paying heafty fees for ATM machines which is what I end up doing. Are there any places where you can use a debit card and get cash back in the parks or on property. What do you do??

I always bring as much as I think I'll need and then store it in the room safe. I take out what I need for the day and leave the rest in there. That way I don't have to carry it around all the time. The hefty fees to use the ATMS are only like $1.50-2.00 anyway so that isn't that big a deal if you do that a couple of times over your trip and stash some in the room safe. Did you think the fees were higher then that?

 

[Ratpack]

I agree with skiwee1, bring the cash, just don't carry all of it at a time. Another option is what I am doing and that is putting the cash in a seperate account at my bank (no charge to open or close) and use my Disney Visa to pay for things. Then when I return, I pay it off using the cash I already had put away. Didn't have to carry a lot of cash and got reward dollars to boot.

 

[Grumpy92]

Another option is regular checks. You can always write a check at the Front Desk or Guest Services and they will cash it for you. No charge.

 

[MinniMama]

regular checks is a great idea. It was 2.00 or 2.50 but my bank also charges me 1.30 also so if I went every day or so it added up to over 20.00 not really wworth it for my own money. So no ATM cash back options in the world??

 

[mcnuss]

I never found anyplace that gave me the cash back option on property. We always stay off property now, and have a rental car, so I'll make small purchases at Walgreens or Winn Dixie and get "free" cash back as needed.

But, having said this, last year, we did Disney for 3 days with a grand total of about $100 cash for tips, etc... and put every other thing on our debit card. We did this so we could get a better sense of what we spent (oy vey, I did not really want to know, LOL), but it worked quite well.

 

[renessa]

The new ATM's at Disney are Bank One. The official banking of WDW-LOL!!!! Just open a bank one saving or checking account back home (there are many no fee accounts available) and then have access to your $$$ on vacation. I hate traveling with a lot of cash!! Ren

 

[CarolA]

I would NOT recommend that you leave cash in those safes. Those things are not as secure as you might believe and Disney will assume NO responsiblity if your safe is broken into. Keep in mind that there has to be some way to trigger the safe if you forget your combination and/or lose your key.

 

[BrianD]

If you are staying on property, why not use your room key for all your charges? That works the best for us.

 

[MinniMama]

I have used debit cards and room cards I don't use credit cards so the problem there is you have to remember to write them all down. Also some vendors don't take cards cash only.

 

[skiwee1]

Originally posted by CarolA
I would NOT recommend that you leave cash in those safes. Those things are not as secure as you might believe and Disney will assume NO responsiblity if your safe is broken into. Keep in mind that there has to be some way to trigger the safe if you forget your combination and/or lose your key.

I understand that but to me it is safer to take my chances on the safe then to carry $1000 or more in cash in my fannypack all week. I have never had a problem with stealing from safes in any of the hundreds of hotes I've stayed at. OTOH, I have had bills blow out of my wallet when I'm fishing out some cash or something or another. Having to chase down bills blowing around is not fun. I'll stick with the safe.

 

[MinniMama]

We want to drive in on our first night and go to WL and do the campfire at FWany ideas where we park or how we get to both?

 

[disneyjunkie]

Originally posted by skiwee1
I always bring as much as I think I'll need and then store it in the room safe. I take out what I need for the day and leave the rest in there. That way I don't have to carry it around all the time.

I did this on our last trip. It worked great.

 

[tonyk]

Originally posted by MinniMama
We want to drive in on our first night and go to WL and do the campfire at FWany ideas where we park or how we get to both?

minnimama,

You should really post this question under a separate topic. You'll get a better response.

 

[Dallas_Lady]

If you are staying at a Disney resort, then just charge everything to you room card and pay when you check out. We LOVED being able to do this. If by chance you lose the card, it can be replaced immediately (unlike travelers cheques, who wants to wait 24 hours and keep track of the numbers??) and you don't have to worry about large sums of money, losing your own credit cards, etc.

The only places that won't take your room card would be snack carts. For that we just kept $20 in our pocket each morning (and never spent the whole $20.) If you lose $20, your vacation is not ruined.

 

[diznee25]

MinniMama,

I don't think there are places that have cash back options. The best suggestion I can give is what we did, and what others have already posted: Bring cash, and put it in the safe in your hotel room. Take out just enough cash for the day and leave the rest in the safe.

I did read other posts about the safety issue with the room safes, but from our experience, I'd say it's a good way to go. We stayed at POFQ last July, and when we checked in, the CM explained how the safe works. Our safe lock opened with a key, not a lock combination. That was the Master Key, and the CM explained Disney didn't have any spare keys, so if we lost our key, they would charge us something like $50 to drill the lock to open our safe. Included in that charge was also enough money that they could replace the lock and get a new key for it. I can't remember where in the room, maybe over by the safe, but Disney has this posted somewhere in your hotel room. (I believe it's posted on the inside of the safe. Not totally positive.) I felt very safe knowing I had the only key to that safe.

Also think about using your room key to charge purchases and dinning. We used our room key for charging and used very little cash. Travelers Checks might be a pain to sign for all the time, but this is definitley safer then carring around a ton of cash on you.

Diznee25

 

[MinniMama]

I made a mistake thought it was a different post then called instead thanks!

 

[MinniMama]

when you charge to the room don't they take it off your debit card right away that is all we have not credit cards that is what happened last time not one bill at the end so I had to keep track of all the little amounts how do others do it??

 

[Dallas_Lady]

I don't remember, but I think they did it all at the end in one big charge. But I am not 100% on that. I am certain we didn't get a seperate charge for each purchase. It was either one big charge at the end or one charge every few days.