Hiya, Eleneki!
Thank you for sending this Disneyland Resort planning question to us hEAR at planDisney!
Oh boy! You're a magical friend indeed, Eleneki! I love
Disney Gift Cards because they can be spent on everything a Mouseketeer will need on a Disney day, from yummy treats and eats to souvenEARs. I'm very familiar with purchasing this form of Mickey money both in stores back home as well as online at
ShopDisney.com, where you can find many
super cute physical card designs or receive your funds electronically. I'm hEAR to say "Hakuna Matata" Eleneki, because yes, your friends will absolutely be able to use this without you present, although I can assure you that shopping with you at Disneyland would be much more fun. Your friends will actually have a few different options:
~Physical
Disney Gift Cards can be used like a traditional gift card. (ie: Handed to a Cast Member, swiped at a payment system.)
~
Disney E-Gift Cards can be scanned directly from a phone or smartwatch by Cast Members at payment registers from the email in which they were sent.
~Both physical and electronic Disney Gift Cards
can be saved to and scanned from a phone or smartwatch digital e-wallet. (With this step, a Guest will have to either input the gift card info into their phone or make the selection to save the info from an email to the device.)
~At this time, Disney Gift Cards cannot be saved to a
Disneyland Mobile App. However, a hashtag Disney Hack many Guests like to use is to save the gift card code + its PIN number in a note in a smartphone or smartwatch, which you can then copy and paste into the payment portion of a
Disneyland Mobile Food & Beverage Order or
Disneyland Merchandise Mobile Checkout purchase.
I hope this was helpful info, Eleneki, and be sure to send this answer to your friends in case they have any questions. You should all follow the
official planDisney Panel Instagram account where we share all kinds of tips and tricks. And if any of you have any more Disneyland Resort planning questions, We're All Ears!
~Kristen N.