Gift cards for Christmas but trip is paid already

Here’s the boring, no fun practical idea: you could call Disney to see if they’ll ‘trade out’ some of your payment (credit some of the payment you made on your credit card, and charge to those gift cards instead). If you booked through a travel agent, you’d have to handle that through them.
You could still treat the kids to something special (see good ideas above by other posters), but you’d do so out of pocket, and therefore you would be more inclined to make good value decisions (instead of making impulsive gotta use this up choices).

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Your room should not be charged to your CC until checkout. Spend some on the kids and use the balances on your room. Note: You have to discuss this with the front desk the day before as they will charge your card in the early morning before checkout.

Your room is always paid for by check in? For a package it is 30 days before and room only the charge has always gone through the morning of check in for me?

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You very well could be right, but the last two trips we did use our remaining balances (after paying for all those coffees and Mickey bars) on our room. Maybe the balances were refunded to our credit card, which would make sense that you needed to let them know the day before, otherwise the refund wouId not show up until after you left the property. I do remember it was very easy and the CM happily took care of it for us with no hassles. It was a nice way to kill off those gift cards.

Which Dining plan do you have? Unless you have deluxe, you will still have some expenses for meals.

I think it is 8 nights and 8 credits?

Is there any Early Morning Magic during your trip?

We have 8 nights and 8 TS credits booked

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I think things changed earlier this year.

I believe they now charge every 4 days or when your balance hits a certain limit ( just as before), whichever comes sooner.

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Definitely use the GCs for Memory Maker

Use them for a bounce back.

I like the way you think :wink:

Based on your reservations, I would think you will need around $200 for tips, so that’s a good way to put some of it to use. I also agree with getting Memory Maker if you haven’t already! Lots of other good ideas here. I think you will be surprised how easy it is to find a way to spend $600… lol! :wink:

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They charged my card every single day. We weren’t on the DDP, that probably had something to do with it.

It was alright, though, because it made me check our account & I caught an error that was easily fixed (was charged for several days of parking when DH just dropped us off, then turned the car in). The sooner one catches that kind of thing, the easier it is to fix. Dealing with it on the day of departure would have been unnecessarily annoying & stressful.

So, if you want to do something "extra’ how about one of the hard ticket extra morning hours. We did this with Hollywood Studios and Toy Story Land and it was worth every penny. We rode Slinky Dog 5 times and the other rides a few times. It was a blast since usually if you ride a headliner twice in a day it’s a big deal at WDW.

Perhaps a caricature? We had one done of our two girls and it’s a lovely souvenir…but it may not be practical for the littlest one due to how long they have to sit still. We also did the Perfectly Princess Tea Party at the Grand Floridian. We did this many years ago (my girls are in college and they still mention how much they enjoyed it). The resort still offers it and it’s definitely a special treat because of the expense. You certainly have a lot of choices to spend money at WDW!

You could save some of the gift cards for later. I think they work on the Disney store…am I right, other liners?

Yes, they do.

First I’d see if they could swap hotel payments. That’s the practical boring answer. But if I were to splurge, I’d go for some art. There are some amazing pieces on property and it might be worth checking if any of the actual artists will be there during your stay. Another neat souvenir is the silhouettes. Those aren’t overly expensive though.

You can always use ur gift cards at the Disneystore after ur trip when you feel nostalgic.