Does anyone still use cash on vacation?

I actually use less cash in my daily life, debit card for the most part at stores. I do still use some if I need to buy something small at a gas station or 7-11 with a drink or such. At Disney, it is still a benefit if you just want a quick drink or ice cream bar from one of the small stands. It's in the main dining places and shops you'd use cards more.

I was just reading an article about how Starbucks is working with NYSE's Bakkt and Microsoft to allow cryptocurrency payments. It'll probably take a while for the volatility to settle down, but I imagine it won't be long before people can pay with crypto at major parks.

I use a card for most daily transactions, but I mostly use cash in theme parks - mainly because it does make it easier to set and stay within a budget.

You have to factor in charges applied to credit cards for international visitors. I am from the UK, and whenever i use my credit card in America i am charged a flat fee for every use, and then a 5% charge. This soon builds up.

We put our cash on a gift card which makes it faster and still gives you more control on what you spend

We put the cash on a gift card which gives us more control on what we spend.

I carry cash on vacation to tip my valet attendants and bellmen.

It really depends on the holiday.

At Disneyworld we can manage pretty much without cash but I've just come back from Madeira and whilst cards are accepted in most shops and restaurants it's still very much a cash-hungry country. The same applied to southern Spain last year. The year before we did a Caribbean cruise and whilst I could survive onboard without cash virtually every one of the islands was cash-based. We actually ran out of cash and had to exchange more onboard!

I do use cash a lot less than I used to and I tend not to carry coins around with me anymore (to the detriment of charity collectors sadly) but I think we are still a long way off becoming totally cashless.

I work merchandise at WDW and eventhough people mostly use cards there is still a significant amount of guests that use cash, especially internationals, it's mostly them that choose cash instead of card.

Anybody who pays a foreign transaction fee on their credit cards, like me, should pay with cash. It’s not unusual to pay 3.5% above the exchange rate! That’s like paying the money to Disney for an extra dinner instead of to the bank.

During our recent WDW trip, we carried no cash, no credit cards and no wallets. All we needed was our MagicBands and a phone (for fastpasses). We loved it!

I use cash on holidays all the time.

Unless I am travelling in my home country, the main reason is budgeting, rather than try to keep track of how much I spent, offset against the expected exchange rate and possible international currency conversion cost, which becomes a bigger nightmare travelling through European countries not using Euro

I'll know we are a cashless society when the homeless population start asking me if I can spare any bitcoin, or ask me for an Apple Pay funds transfer.

I always carry a small amount of cash with me just in case I run into an issue where I can't pay with a card. When on vacation, I do the same, but I will also check where I'm planning to visit and will bring more if the trip includes any cash-only establishments. As far as using it, I'll typically pay in cash when the amount is small (less than $20), is an exact dollar value, or for miscellaneous tips, while I'll use a card for almost everything else.

We travel with some cash but rarely use it. The tipping industry seems to have figured this out too and I've seem some smart ways I can add a tip for a service when I pay. FWIW I tend to avoid most tipped services when I can because I dislike this aspect of the industry.

I use cash for everything now, vacation or not. We're on the envelope system now to help my wife understand budgeting.

We are like AngryDuck, we use the envelop system on vacation with cash only. We never go over budget and we don't have a credit card bill waiting when we get home. As a matter a fact, doing it this way we usually come home with a lot of money left in the envelops because of mindful spending.

I carry one card, very little case and an ID. It just makes the security checks at the entrance, at the rides much easier. I can mostly avoid lockers unless they have metal detectors. Car keys. Arghh. Not to call anyone out but you know who you are Universal !

I tend to use Apple Pay at Disney and Universal since its safer than using a CC and I dont have to worry about accidentally losing any paper cash

On our last trip I kept track of all expenditures (right down to every pressed penny) on a spreadsheet, and using that I estimate that we used cash (or change) for no more than 7% of our expenditures, and that is counting travel, lodging, tickets, food....everything.

I use cash to some extent on trips to theme parks, especially to tip an Uber driver or driver of a hotel courtesy van. On the Saturday before last I used cash to buy food at Six Flags Over Texas, partly because I withdrew cash from an ATM before the trip and decided that I might as well spend it. We are still pretty far from being a cashless society. On a recent trip to a theme park there was a diner next door to my hotel that did not even accept credit/debit cards! (For that matter, the medical library where I go to do research doesn't take credit either.) And there are still plenty of places which require a $5 or $10 minimum expenditure to use plastic - although not, in my experience, at theme parks.

We use a mix of cash and credit card for vacations. We never use a debit card because fraudulent purchases are not covered by the bank, so the card owner ends up eating it on the fraud. The card is used for reservations, car rentals, plane tickets, after that we use cash in the theme park to help us stay on budget. If we use a card for table-service we always tip with cash.
Also, I had the experience of dealing with a customer who, upon checking her card bill, found out one of my former employees had added an extra zero to the tip on her payment. We refunded her the "extra" tip money and started a policy that all payment coupons are checked daily by the shift supervisor to prevent that from happening again.

I'm perfectly happy to use anything other than cash. Sometimes it's impossible to go without, so I always keep a $20 in my wallet, but I only use it if there is no other option. I remember how much I loved it when Epcot started offering the ability to purchase gift cards that came on wristbands for the Wine and Food Festival. Prior to that, the kiosks only took cash. The cash transactions were a big reason for the length of the lines and trying to give and receive cash was difficult when carrying several small plates. It also made it much easier to stay within budget during a visit to the festival. You could decide how much you wanted to spend, put it on the card and when it was all spent, you were all done.
I've often wondered if that system was the spark of the idea for Magic Bands, or if it was a practicality test after the idea had been hatched.

Ok, so why do you guys hate cash so much? You realize people have a tendency to actually spend less when they have to take cash out of their wallet, right? I mean, lets be honest, that's the real reason for Magic Bands.

I find myself carrying cash less and less (I haven't had more than a few dollars in my wallet since the end of the summer). It's not only inconvenient, especially in situations where you end up with coinage that slows passage through metal detectors, but for me can be even more tempting to spend because it's there ready to "burn a hole in my wallet". In fact, not having cash on hand can be liberating when faced with tip jars for staff that don't work off tips and others who attempt to extract cash from you (window washers, panhandlers, "young entrepreneurs", etc...).

Since purchasing an AppleWatch, I use ApplePay whenever possible, which eliminates the need to even pull my wallet out. Above all, I think it's easier for me to budget through a credit card, because I can better track purchases and scroll through the transaction history, which is not possible with cash unless you hold onto all those foot-long receipts. I also find myself spending less when I don't have cash on hand (I might buy a <$5 snack or drink if there's a bill in my wallet, but I rarely bother making such a small purchase with a credit card). Also, with cash, you know how much you take out of the ATM to start a trip, but it can become more difficult to track/remember exactly where you spent each dollar of your bankroll. For those that have trouble controlling their spending, and resort to the "envelope method", you can always set spending limits on your credit card that caps how much you're allowed to charge each day unless you manually release the lock.

Charging with a MagicBand to me is a non-starter, and I never really understood the advantage unless you're on the DDP and applying a tip at a TS restaurant to avoid having to make a second transaction. I could see perhaps if you're at a water park or somewhere else where you might not have your wallet or electronic device. However, the end result is the same (charge going to your credit card), but it can be harder to track, especially if you have charge alerts setup on your electronic device (charging to a MagicBand delays the application of your charge to you credit card so all charges for the day hit at the same time instead of as you make the purchases, so it's easier to forget those incremental purchases until it's too late).

I think we're pretty close to a cashless society, and I'm enjoying not having to carry cash in my wallet anymore. Now if I could just get rid of all these annoying membership/loyalty/rewards/bank/credit/etc..., my posterior would be liberated!

Last time I checked, you couldn't fit a card in the penny press souvenir machines at Disneyland.

"Last time I checked, you couldn't fit a card in the penny press souvenir machines at Disneyland."

Nope, but theme parks are slowly switching to newer machines that now dispense medallions or larger denomination coins pressed with a design that can be paid for with a credit card or other electronic payment (they cost more than $0.51 though). In fact, I seem to recall seeing machines in WDW at Space Mountain and Mission Space last year that dispensed medallions with payment via MagicBand.