holiday without credit card

sparkeydyog

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My family and I are going to Eurodisney in July and hope to travel into Paris for one or two days. What is the safest way to bring money, we have a laser/switch/maestro card. We do not have a credit card and do not wish to get one.
 
sparkeydyog said:
My family and I are going to Eurodisney in July and hope to travel into Paris for one or two days. What is the safest way to bring money, we have a laser/switch/maestro card. We do not have a credit card and do not wish to get one.

See if your current atm card has "cirrus" on the back, if not get one because the cirrus card works in a lot of european bank atm's. If not, maybe you should consider buting travellers cheques.
 
What we are doing to avoid taking a CC is we opened a current account with a lazer card that is also Cirrus and we will just withdraw as we need, we put away a bit every month. We took cash a few years back and even though we had it in a safe in our apt it was robbed so we now just take out as we need and don't have to worry about CC bills when we get home.
 
It could be useful to have a credit card in the event of an emergency. For instance if your laser card is lost/stolen. Think of it as a form of insurance.
 
If I have travelled for an extended period of time I have used my cirrus card and travellers cheques (just in case something happened to the Circuss card), If I have gone away for a week or two I have just used my Cirrus card. I had my the ATM card I normally use updated toa cirrus card just before heading off.
 
I use a pre-loaded PTSB VISA credit card when travelling outside the € zone to make cash withdrawals (not advances!) - 1.75% forex charge only and cheaper than most of the alternatives (changing cash, travellers cheques, cash advances). PTSB only added Cirrus to their Laser/ATM cards relatively recently so I am only getting my first chance on a € zone trip to use it next week.
 
I read somewhere that in Disneyland you need to use special "Disney" money and cards once you are in the grounds. This may be just in the US but it may be worth checking out.

Other than that, I have always used by banklink card abroad (including Paris) and have never had a problem using it in any ATMs.
 
Just don't change your €s or US$s for Mickey Mouse notes unless you are sure that the deal is legitimate!