Prepaying Charges with Cash at Disney Resort

[cisco911]

Hello All,
We will be heading down to POP in the summer for a week and we are driving as we spend a week at disney and they head down to family home for 2 weeks. I know disney now charges $13 per night for parking. We have the dining plan and plan on charging the tips on our magic band. My question is, can I give the cash at checkin to add to my account and they can draw down from that as I use it? We are canadian so I can get cash from my US account at a better rate than the credit card company charges so I wanted to just give them like $400 or $500 in cash to add to my account and then they can draw down from that for parking fees and for any magic band charges for tips/food.

 

[Searc]

Hello All,
We will be heading down to POP in the summer for a week and we are driving as we spend a week at disney and they head down to family home for 2 weeks. I know disney now charges $13 per night for parking. We have the dining plan and plan on charging the tips on our magic band. My question is, can I give the cash at checkin to add to my account and they can draw down from that as I use it? We are canadian so I can get cash from my US account at a better rate than the credit card company charges so I wanted to just give them like $400 or $500 in cash to add to my account and then they can draw down from that for parking fees and for any magic band charges for tips/food.

No. You'll have to charge to your magicbands and then go to the front desk to pay off room charges.

 

[cisco911]

Boo. That is annoying. The whole point would be to not have the cash laying around with chance of theft or loss.

 

[Minnie1222]

You should call Disney to find out about the cash deposit. Typically you would link a credit card to your MDE account or present a card to the front desk at check-in. The card will be linked to your magic band which serves as a room key, charging card, fastpass,...I've never seen anyone giving a stack of cash to the concierge.

 

[siren0119]

Boo. That is annoying. The whole point would be to not have the cash laying around with chance of theft or loss.

You can keep the cash in the hotel safe, and go down to the front desk each night to pay off any charges applied to the account. They are going to be taking a credit card number to allow for MB charges anyway, but they only apply the charges every couple of days and at check-out so as long as you pay the front desk before they process charges to the card, they will never hit your card.

 

[sponica]

You should call Disney to find out about the cash deposit. Typically you would link a credit card to your MDE account or present a card to the front desk at check-in. The card will be linked to your magic band which serves as a room key, charging card, fastpass,...I've never seen anyone giving a stack of cash to the concierge.

When AKL went cash-less, they were allowing this. But I'm not sure if AKL is still cash-less.

 

[cisco911]

I really don't want to take time out of my vacation to go wait in line at the front desk every night to pay stuff off. Might just carry abit of cash on me and pay some tips cash and just let everything else hit the card. I'm assuming the safe in the rooms is like any other resort down south? How safe are the safes? Pun intended

 

[siren0119]

I really don't want to take time out of my vacation to go wait in line at the front desk every night to pay stuff off. Might just carry abit of cash on me and pay some tips cash and just let everything else hit the card. I'm assuming the safe in the rooms is like any other resort down south? How safe are the safes? Pun intended

Honestly we did this on our last trip, usually after we got back from the parks (after park close). It took about 5 minutes out of our vacation, usually when my husband was hosing the kids down for the night. YMMV, but it's not a huge time eater and using the MB was much easier for us.

 

[Tigger's ally]

Honestly we did this on our last trip, usually after we got back from the parks (after park close). It took about 5 minutes out of our vacation, usually when my husband was hosing the kids down for the night. YMMV, but it's not a huge time eater and using the MB was much easier for us.

And the OP says they have the dining plan....might be heading to the market to fill cups at night anyway.... Since we started staying at OKW, I usually pay my bill each night then hit the Gurgling suitcase until closing, then meander on "home" for the night.

 

[siren0119]

And the OP says they have the dining plan....might be heading to the market to fill cups at night anyway.... Since we started staying at OKW, I usually pay my bill each night then hit the Gurgling suitcase until closing, then meander on "home" for the night.

Good point! If you're near the desk already, it's super easy to just stop in before heading back to the room.

 

[StarSeven7]

The safes are safe! Another option as a Canadian is to buy Disney gift cards in CAD instead of US cash. This will avoid the foreign transaction fees on your credit card. You buy the gift cards in CAD and it converts to the current day's rate in USD when you pay for something. We have paid off our room charges in gift cards and brought extra for spending money, all to avoid the foreign transaction fees!

 

[SharonZ]

Do you have a debit card? You can put the cash on the debit card and link it to your magic band.

 

[SL6827]

There has only been one instance where I was able to have money already on my room account. I can't remember the exact details but I booked say a pool view at a resort, paid it entirely off and then later decided I wanted to downgrade to a standard view. The difference in the amount was on my room and charges I made came from that pot first.