iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users will finally be able to make payments at Disney World with their phones.
When Apple rolled out its newest iPhones and unveiled Apple Pay, Disney was listed as one of the initial partners for the mobile-payment system and Disney has announced that visitors to its Orlando theme park and resort will be able to use Apple Pay beginning Wednesday, December 24. Visitors to Disney’s other property in Anaheim, California will have to wait until sometime next year while no announcements were made regarding its theme parks in Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, or the soon to open Shanghai park.
In addition to its Orlando property, Disney retail locations around the country will also begin accepting Apple Pay and by proxy Google Wallet, as the latter works on the same NFC readers.
Walt Disney World first
Walt Disney World in Orlando is the most popular tourist destination in the world with over 50 million people visiting the park each year. Disney Land in Anaheim draws 20 million people each year. With numbers like that it shouldn’t take too long for Disney to become a leading merchant for Apple Pay.
Disney visitors have already enjoyed cardless and cashless payment options with its MyMagic+ program. Those in the program receive touch-sensitive MagicBands that allow for easy entrance to its parks as well as opening hotel room doors. The Magicbands also allow wearers to charge food, drink and merchandise to their rooms.
In addition to accepting Apple Pay and Google Wallet, Disney is also providing support for RFID credit cards as more and more users make the switch and the growth of these cards continues to pick up steam in the wake of numerous data breaches and attacks on swipe-able credit card readers.
Disney statement
Disney announced the program with the following statement:
Initially, most stores, quick service restaurants, bars and ticket sales booths will be included. Any locations that use portable payment terminals, such as table service restaurants, will be added later.
Apple Pay has enjoyed initial successes and is signing up partners nearly each day. Presently about 90% of U.S. issued credit cards are supported by Apple Pay. Apple is fighting for partners with Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, which offers a rival payment system called CurrentC.
For visitors to Disney World interested in using Apple Pay, they will have to keep their eyes peeled for the EMVCo symbol.
