Dear Michael,
Thanks for reaching out to us here at the Disney Parks Moms Panel with your question about using Disney gift cards.
My family also uses
Disney gift cards for our entire trip, so I totally understand wanting to plan ahead with your budget and pre-purchasing them.
The great news is that if you are staying at a
Walt Disney World Resort hotel, you can charge everything to your
MagicBand, which is linked to your hotel account. There are a few exceptions of some locations at Disney Springs, but anywhere that accepts your MagicBand as payment will also charge back to your room if you choose. I never carry cash into the parks either.
What I typically do is charge everything to the MagicBand, and then every couple of nights I take a quick trip down to the hotel concierge and zero out my balance. This helps me to stay on budget and also to be sure that nothing is charged to my backup credit card.
Hope that helps with your planning!
- Jan K.