In 2017, Walt Disney World started phasing out the old Mickey design on the MagicBand readers for merchandise, food and beverage, and front desk areas in favor of generic black RFID readers. Then in 2018, credit card chip readers were installed at resort front desks.
However, for being the premier place for spending money, they’re certainly behind on using chip readers, but it appears they’ve finally activated the feature at the Art of Disney store in Disney Springs.
The chip readers are currently testing at the location, with the hopes of being activated at World of Disney if testing proves successful. If you’ve used chip readers at other Disney Springs locations, it’s because they’re probably third-party or non-Disney locations.
Eventually, the goal is to activate these across property and transition all points of sale to chip readers for credit card transactions, with a swipe option remaining for Disney Gift Card, Disney Visa Rewards cards, and the like.
We’ll keep you updated on the status of the chip reader activation across merchandise, resort, and food locations across property.
I used the chip reader at the front desk at Boardwalk just this week!! I commented that it was nice to see WDW catch up!!
Hi. So do they not take credit card payments in say Galaxy’s Edge or Magic Kingdom? Or is it cash only? Going to all the Disney parks at Orlando in January and wondering where takes cash/credit card only. Don’t want to be able not to pay for merch & food!
They take cash or credit card. If you have the chip on your credit card now you would insert card instead of swiping card, that’s all.
They have always taken debit/credit it’s just they are finally using the chips on the cards for payment
I couldn’t believe Disney still hadn’t been using chip readers on our recent trip. When I worked at a rinky dink video store we had to change over right away or face fines and that was years ago! Then two or three years later the post offices finally started using chips… And now finally Disney? I wonder why my small town/small business store had to comply but not these others.
It’s expensive for a large company to switch everything over to chip readers compared to for example your video store where they might have had 2 at most.
I think this is part of a move to a new point-of-sale system across WDW. I noticed Art of Disney and the Christmas Shop are not using the standard point-of-sale software used everywhere else, it looks something like an Android based system that is better integrated with the new credit card terminals.