OK people, forgive me for freaking out....we are down to 3 days and I am stressed and excited all at the same time! We are on the dining plan, haven't done that before....
Can we charge our tips or do we have to have cash on hand for all tips? I was planning on getting a pre-loaded credit card instead of carrying all cash.

Thanks!!

Hi Sara,

when you get you bill and you give the waiter/waitress your room card they will take the points for that eatery. If you want to pay cash write on the 2nd reciept they give after running your room card. If you want to use a CC wait after you run your room card, I just suggest to keep your recipts espeically if you pay cash. we had one location that tried to charge our room card for gratutity and since I could not locate our recipt they only refunded us $10.00, but cash or CC or even your room card KTTW can be used as long as you have a CC linked to it.

I wasn't going to link my KTTW card to anything since we are a cash only family. So even if I don't have any extra charges for drinks or anything I can still pay just my tips with my credit card?

Thanks!!

Hi Sarah,
We have used our credit cards for meals frequently at Disney and just added the tip onto the bill. There was only one place that brought the bill with the tip added in so we didn't add more. Just check the bill when they bring it to your table. Most of our servers asked at the time of taking our order if we were on the dining plan and we said that we would be paying for it with our credit card. There was never a problem.
Have fun.

Sarah,
Since you are on the dining plan that will be on your room key along with your park tickets (unless you brought tickets elsewhere) If you want to charge your tips instead of cash tell your waitress or waiter that what you want to do when you ask for the bill ( they will ask you when you order if you are on the dining). I think I read your post right you are using a pre loaded credit card? Some places might not take them just what I have heard. Might want to call Disney just in case but they should. Good luck & have fun !

Thanks everyone for your input!!

You also run the risk of incidentals with pre-paid cards. I don't know if the Disney dining places do that, but say you have 200.00 on a pre-paid card for tips throughout the weekend...If they swipe it and take incidentals, like they do at a gas station? Where you only buy like 22.00 in gas, but they hold 50.00 on your card for one or two business days.

The way they did it when we were there is that if you have a party of eight or more it is automatic that they add 18% gratuity to the bill. If you want to tip more than that you can. They will bill your room key (which goes to the credit card that you have on file at the hotel), or they will take cash, or they will hit a card that you give to them at that time. It is your choice. We just used our room key for everything. They set it up for park admission, room key and even at the shops, you can just give your room key and they will bill your room. You don't need anything else in the parks. Which is nice and can be dangerous at the same time. Keep your receipts from dinner because they are running 20% off on select stores before noon if you have that receipt.

I loved that, too, having everything on one card. I'm not sure about pre-paid, but I know with our credit card, they didn't even charge our card until we reached a certain amount on our room charges. And, yea, it's dangerous...a little too convenient!

I agree that having it all on one card is handy but also dangerous. Last trip we allowed the kids to have a charging on their cards. A little scary at first but it worked out well. Not needing to carry any cash was great.

We had everyone keep their receipts during the day and had a pre-set spending limit for the trip. At the end of the day, we added it all up and then knew what we had left for the trip. It actually worked pretty well that way because the kids didn't want to spend all of their money at the beginning of the week. They were afraid they would run out. As it turned out the last two days they had excess and ended up not spending everything. It was accidentally a great lesson in fiscal responsibility. Hmmm...I wonder if we could send some people from Washington down there for a week and teach them the same lesson.

Maybe they could all ride in a hybrid car the way they expected the GM, Ford and Chrysler execs to do.