Best Gift Cards for Disney Fans This Holiday Season
Let’s be blunt. You’re not finished with your holiday shopping yet, and you’re pretty freaked out about it. You can hear Santa’s sleigh up in the clouds. That’s a pretty strong sign that Christmas is here. Believe it or not, MickeyBlog can still help! Here are some digital gift ideas for the Disney fan in your life.
D-23 Gold Membership
I’m a D-23 member, and I absolutely love it. Each year, Disney sends me this spectacular membership gift box that includes lithographs and trinkets from my favorite Disney movies.
Plus, as a member, I receive lots of unique opportunities to attend exclusive events. And I get to buy D-23 Expo tickets before they go on sale to the general public. Since the North American event occurs every two years, a 2020 gold D-23 member can book tickets early, a marvelous benefit.
So, I heartily recommend a D-23 Gold membership for the Disney fan in your life. You can sign up here. The recipient will receive an introductory package later, but you can print out the information to show the gift at Christmas.
Disney+ Membership
All of the other gifts I’ll list here are terrific, and one will create memories that will last a lifetime. However, only the gift that I’m about to discuss will provide sustained enjoyment over the next year.
The Walt Disney Company introduced Disney+ in November, and it’s already become one of the most popular streaming services in North America. Since it’s still new, though, only a fraction of the population has signed up. For this reason, Disney’s added a gift subscription section to its site.
For a one-time fee of $69.99, you can give a loved one a year of Disney+. That’s a lot of Disney Princesses, Baby Yoda, and Imagineering Stories right there.
Amazon Gift Card
This suggestion is both the laziest and most valuable to many people. Everyone rants about Jeff Bezos and Amazon for package delivery screw-ups and some dicey employee treatment, but that doesn’t stop 100 million customers from signing up for Amazon Prime.
When you give a Disney fan an Amazon gift card, stress the fact that literally thousands of Disney products are available. Amazon sells everything from physical media to digital movies to clothing to merchandise to…well, you get the idea.
Amazon operates arguably the most extensive retail catalog of all-time. A gift card here will go far, even though you may feel a bit predictable for giving it.
Target Gift Card
Target is a lot like Amazon, only it has physical stores around the country. Even better, many of these stores either have added or will add a special Disney store within Target. Here, you’ll discover exclusive Disney merchandise.
Of course, your local Target already sells plenty of Disney products. After all, Team Mickey Mouse dominates the merchandise industry and is a power player in movies and television, too. So, a loved one will get plenty of value out of a Target gift card even if their Target doesn’t have a Disney section yet.
Wal-Mart Gift Card – But Not for What You Think
Okay, sure, when you gift someone a Wal-Mart gift card, they can walk into the store to purchase cereal or tires or a tent or whatever. Wal-Mart’s a pretty weird place in terms of stocked products. It’s like millennia of societal advances all crammed into one place.
However, that’s not what I’m suggesting here. Wal-Mart owns Vudu, a digital streaming service like Disney+. The critical difference is that you pay to own titles on Vudu, whereas Disney+ is like a rental service, only you’re renting almost everything.
You may wonder why anyone would need or want Vudu at this point. That’s a valid question, but a lot of people, myself included, have already built sizable Vudu libraries. We’re quite fond of them and love to add Disney classics to our collection.
A Wal-Mart gift card works on Vudu, which allows the recipient to pick up digital copies of Disney movies. Or, you know, your Disney-loving friend can use the gift card to buy a set of Mickey Mouse plates or whatever.
Photo: Lifewire.com
Steam Gift Card
Just in case, I’ll explain what Steam is. This digital platform sells videogames the same way that Vudu sells digital movies. Once you buy a game on Steam, you own it forever in your online digital library. I’m avoiding industry jargon like digital lockers and turnkey and whatnot for simplicity’s sake. Here’s what you need to know.
Giving away a Steam gift card today works the same as giving your nephew a copy of Halo: Reach or Wii Tennis a few years ago. Steam also happens to sell a lot of Disney-based games, including a lot of Star Wars titles.
I’m telling you this based on personal experience. You could give the gamer in your life a $1,000 Steam gift card. They’d spend it all within the day, probably the hour.
Of course, you wouldn’t see them again for a while. When you did, they’d be unshaven, unwashed, and bleary-eyed. But they’d be happy. That’s the spirit of the holiday season, right? A Steam gift card is an excellent gift.
And I’m saying that as someone whose lovely wife grabs one of these at the store from time to time as an adorable bit of flirting. It always works for gamers. In fact, I just gave someone a Steam gift card yesterday.
Disney Gift Card
Okay, this one isn’t rocket science. I’m going to give you credit for coming up with this idea on your own. Still, I’d be pretty ridiculous to write an article about digital gifts without mentioning the obvious one.
I’ll also do a bit of heavy lifting for you. ShopDisney sells Disney gift cards online. Select the option for emailing the gift, and your loved one will get to spend a lot of time guilt-free shopping at ShopDisney.
As a reminder, these gift cards work at the theme parks, too. You can use them to pay for a hotel room, a meal, or merchandise, all of which I’ve done. These things are so valuable that they even work for Disney Vacation Club membership dues or Tables in Wonderland.
Think of the Disney gift card as Disney’s own private form of currency. Who wouldn’t want an enormous amount of that for a present?
Adventures by Disney Trip
All of the suggestions that I’ve made thus far come with a core flaw. They require the recipient to choose what the actual gift will be. A lot of people hate that. They want to buy/receive something personalized.
Even at this late date, you still have an opportunity to win Christmas at your house. You can book a Disney vacation and then wrap up the details and put them under the Christmas tree. When your family opens the gift, they’ll explode with laughter and joy, knowing that they’ll have the time of their lives at a later date.
You’re effectively extending Christmas gift-giving into the New Year. Right now, you’re gifting the promise of an unforgettable vacation. Later, you’ll receive the trip itself.
I’ve previously mentioned Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and Disney cruises as potential ideas. However, you may prefer something a bit different. In that case, I’d suggest Adventures by Disney, a tourist’s dream. When you book this kind of vacation, you choose the destination, but then Disney does the rest.
Adventures by Disney will set the itinerary and guarantee the Disney stamp of excellence on the proceedings. A current favorite is a trip to Norway to experience a Frozen fantasy in the real world. But there are literally dozens of potential destinations available around the world. If you dreamt of going there, Disney probably sells a trip there.
Since you may feel overwhelmed by the process, your best bet is to speak with an expert at MickeyTravels. These gifted agents have forgotten more about Disney vacations than the rest of us will ever know. They dedicate their lives to making magic one vacation at a time.
One of them will guarantee that you schedule the best possible vacation for your family, allowing you to wrap the most wonderful gift and place it under the tree.
Your family will relish its Christmas miracle, and I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet. The MickeyTravels service is free to you! It’s just like MickeyBlog in that the experts only want to help you have the trip that you deserve.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays, dear friends.
