cash, cheques or cards

[Gtyler]

Hi.
We are going to Disney this October for the first time (me, wife, daughter aged 6, son aged 3)& wanted to know the most conveinient, safest way to use/take currency. How does it work over the pond? What's the general rule for taking money. Is it a case of taking a few hundered in dollars cash & the rest in Travellers cheques or are TC's accepted in the parks & local restaurants? Someone at work mentioned a pre-paid card. How does that work, how do I get one & are they a good idea & accepted in all parks? Sorry for all the questions, but i am a newby.
Any feedback most welcome, much appreciated.
Gtyler

[Jill]

Personally we tend to have only a small amount of cash and mainly use one of the credit cards which does not have an overseas loading eg Santander ZERO or the Post Office card.

[Lyn]

We tend to get some cash, travellers cheques, when the exchange rate is good (not very good at present) plus credit cards. Travellers cheques are accepted in most places like cash.

[Katys Grandad]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by Jill
Personally we tend to have only a small amount of cash and mainly use one of the credit cards which does not have an overseas loading eg Santander ZERO or the Post Office card.
[/quote]

I heard Martin Lewis on Radio 5 today say that the new 'must have' card for using overseas is the Halifax Clarity card. I wasn't listening that closely what his reasons were but he strongly recommended it.

[colinf]

cash or card. You can use your bank card in most atm but you get charged for each withdrawal hbos was £2.70 last year.
I take cash and a pre paid credit card.

[Jill]

The following is an extract from This is Money on the new Halifax Clarity Card. Santander customer service is dreadful so we might well switch and get one of these instead of the Zero card.

The card carries no foreign exchange 'loading fee' or transaction fee anywhere in the world and charges nothing for cash withdrawals.
Although withdrawing cash on a credit card is never advisable, it might occasionally be necessary abroad and the Clarity card's rate of 12.9% across all transactions means it's not too punitive.

Interest on cash withdrawals will as usual accrue immediately, however.

The 12.9% rate - which for domestic use is not so competitive compared to 0% and low-rate cards elsewhere - applies across all transactions including purchases and cash withdrawals, home or abroad, as well as balance transfers. There are no balance transfer or annual fees

[Albert the Frog]

I'm with Jill=we take a bit of cash and use our Post Office card which has no loading-more than happy!

[Robert5988]

A lot of us use plastic - for both shopping and an ATM - in the USA and UK.

We don't use TC's for shopping in UK, so why in Florida?