Here Come The Magic Bands!

[Rokwynd]

I'm heading to the parks in October, and I love the concept of the Magicbands. I almost wish they weren't bracelets but that is what belt loops are for. I hope they are ready to go when I head down, and I look forward to any info that comes out about the tests.

 

[dadddio]

They are still guests at a Disney resort, renting points or not.

correct

 

[mvazul]

This is pretty cool I think. Like a PP said, we get a souviner before we leave? Take my money!

I'm thinking that this could go a step further for those of us staying on-site. We have the bands, which is now your KTTW in our possession before we leave the house so we could, in theory, get an email or a text the day of our trip that says "Room 123 in building X is ready for you" and bypass the check-in counter altogether. You get off the bus or out of your car and head straight to your room, drop off your stuff and start your trip!

I haven't read other responses, but this is exactly what they will be doing.

 

[Disney_Princess83]

Absolutely no way will anyone in our family wear these bands. Can't wait to see what other options they bring out since we are AP holders.

 

[fbb]

imagine if your sat waiting for the parade and on the castle flashed up the words "Tom from Ohio is here celerbrating his 40th birthday" things like that

I think you're on the right path, but this, in particular, would suck.

 

[squirrel4569]

I thought about something else that will be nice about MagicBands for those of us with small children.

At the end of the day we get back to the resort and my kids are worn out. They don't want to walk or are asleep. We may also have bags of stuff with us. It might be raining. So we're potentially carrying two small children and bags of stuff through the rain and we get to the door and now we have to dig out a KTTW from our pocket, lanyard, etc to be able to open the door.

No longer an issue. Simply put our wrist near the door, grab the handle and boom! We're in the room.

Definitely lots of potential for cool stuff here.

 

[honkytonkmama]

eta: I'd love to see something that say, sets of an alarm at security if a child band walks out of the park with another band not in their party. And I have to wonder if this could help locate a missing child - just some thoughts from a nervous mom

Yes please!!!

As the only female in our group, I was always the "keeper" of everything - so happy I won't have to do that anymore!

Yeah I end up being the pack mule as well.

I am hopeful we will get these for our aug trip. I dont love the idea of having these in all our photos, but the upsides sound amazing.

 

[tobikaye]

Absolutely no way will anyone in our family wear these bands. Can't wait to see what other options they bring out since we are AP holders.

From what I understand, you still have the option of using the RFID cards. I have issues wearing things on my wrist and this is what I plan to do.

 

[squirrel4569]

I am hopeful we will get these for our aug trip. I dont love the idea of having these in all our photos, but the upsides sound amazing.

I would much rather a wristband than a lanyard. When we did our family Christmas pictures last year each time we had to stop and have everyone take off their lanyards for the pictures. My wife didn't want them in the pictures at all. She's excited about the wristbands so I don't think she'll mind those.

 

[Albytaps]

For those planning on not wearing them on your wrists, please don't hold up the line by searching for them right before entering the park. Move to the side, find your wristbands, then head for the line. Hopefully if most people wear them, there won't be a line to begin with.

 

[MacClemsons]

The technology exists to do all sorts of interesting things like these. Whether Disney's IT folks are up to the task is what more than a few of us are skeptical about.

After our trip in Feb, I am very skeptical. First off DH's card didnt charge so they had to "rebook" the entire package. After that, everyone could charge but only his key worked on the resort rooms. After spending nearly an hour to get that worked out, we didnt want to waste any more vacation time.

With the rebooking, They accidentally gave us an extra days worth of DDP which we didn't use but it made things confusing. Furthermore, Disney couldn't load our entire party DDP on the same KTTW cards. We had two rooms because we are a family of 5 plus baby. Told that it COULDN'T be done so every time we went to eat, we had to pull out two different KTTW cards and tell them, 1 adult 3 kids on this one and 1 adult on this card. It got completely messed up. Of course, a CM at Flametree BbQ overcharged one QS credit. Took several minutes to get manager to correct problem. Then we realized the $ amount was credited instead of actual QS credit. About a day left in our trip, Disney must have realized that they gave us an extra day of DDP entitlements and took hem away. It was a complete fiasco.

Won't be getting DDP gain and not looking forward to magic bands.

 

[doconeill]

Absolutely no way will anyone in our family wear these bands. Can't wait to see what other options they bring out since we are AP holders.

Your option is to opt for the cards they are rolling out right now. It might mean you will have a somewhat more limited experience, however, since the cards will lack the transmitter.

 

[LovinPooh]

Can some of your party have bands n others cards? Can you switch to a card if u hate the band?

 

[OKW Lover]

For those planning on not wearing them on your wrists, please don't hold up the line by searching for them right before entering the park. Move to the side, find your wristbands, then head for the line. Hopefully if most people wear them, there won't be a line to begin with.

Yes please. The same goes for those who have paper tickets, RFID or not.

 

[doconeill]

Can some of your party have bands n others cards? Can you switch to a card if u hate the band?

It's really too early to tell, but I would think so. However, the cards won't be able to do absolutely everything the bands do. Most things, yes, but anything that requires the transmitter won't be available. We don't know what those would be yet.

 

[Karlzmom]

I would think you could put them on a strap of your bag, or on a belt loop or something similar. That way you wouldn't have to wear it on the wrist. Wearing it though would make it convienent and faster than fishing for a ticket. Technology can be a good thing folks. Before long, we will wonder what we did without them.

I'm visualizing a sea of fanny-packs with bands flapping from the waist strap each step the wearer takes....

 

[jiminyfan]

For those who don't want to wear a MagicBand all day, they will be offering a card-style RFID option that can go into a purse or pocket. From what I've been hearing over on the rumors and news section and various press releases on the matter, you can have both a card and a magic band and use them interchangeably. The only difference is the cards will only have a short-range passive transmitter (what is triggered for the "tap" sensors such as your resort room, park turnstyles, and FP redemption) while the magic bands will have an additional battery-powered long-range active transmitter (to be read by sensors throughout the park which Disney may use to determine crowd control measures or determine to whom to send special deals such as coupons or bonus FPs) in addition to the passive transmitter. Of course with the bands being watch band style, if you want to take advantage of the benefits of the long-range transmitter without wearing it, you could always loop it around a belt loop or purse strap.

This makes my decision easy, cards for us. Also, am I the only one who thinks they will be extremely hot and uncomfortable to wear especially in Summer. I cannot wear a watch and these seem to be even hotter and ugly. Cheap plastic isnt my style.

 

[jiminyfan]

After I had my "Wow that's cool!" thought one of my next thoughts was "What will the cost be to ship that box to each family?" It kind of circles around to my other thought though. If it costs $10 to ship the box (which I am guessing is high) but allows a guest to skip the check-in process then it could, in theory, save money/time for the resort by having fewer guests checking in regularly and recouping the cost that way.

Keep in mind that Disney is in the money making business. They wouldn't roll out something like this without a way to make a profit in the long run. If it makes things more efficient and thereby gets more people into the parks then that is more people spending money. Time is money, especially at Disney so any way they can streamline things and get you into the parks, restaurants and stores and less time waiting for things is to their benefit as much as it is yours.

Again, thinking about DME and arriving/departing. You have your MagicBand and you approach the bus, wave your band and boom, the driver knows which resort you are at or which airline you are going to, how many people are with you, etc. With that information in a computer a driver could, in theory, have his route adjusted for him to be the most efficient based on who his passengers are. Faster trip to your resort or the airport, fewer stops, etc.

There is a lot of good that could come out of it with the right amount of imagination.

I think I read the cost for research and development was between $800 million or more. This to me means the ROI on this investment is going to be to recoop add in the shipping box and costs I am at a loss why a corporation would invest so much into this. Reading that the wrist bands can be read at a longer distance makes me wonder where and how they are going to use the collected data.

I guess time will tell how all of this plays out. Just seems like a lot of cost for such little benefit for customer, si I guess the Mouse is going to benefit in a big way.

 

[Micca]

I think it's all very cool. By wearing one I'll be part of the Mickey Militia

 

[doconeill]

For those who don't want to wear a MagicBand all day, they will be offering a card-style RFID option that can go into a purse or pocket. From what I've been hearing over on the rumors and news section and various press releases on the matter, you can have both a card and a magic band and use them interchangeably. The only difference is the cards will only have a short-range passive transmitter (what is triggered for the "tap" sensors such as your resort room, park turnstyles, and FP redemption) while the magic bands will have an additional battery-powered long-range active transmitter (to be read by sensors throughout the park which Disney may use to determine crowd control measures or determine to whom to send special deals such as coupons or bonus FPs) in addition to the passive transmitter. Of course with the bands being watch band style, if you want to take advantage of the benefits of the long-range transmitter without wearing it, you could always loop it around a belt loop or purse strap.

This makes my decision easy, cards for us. Also, am I the only one who thinks they will be extremely hot and uncomfortable to wear especially in Summer. I cannot wear a watch and these seem to be even hotter and ugly. Cheap plastic isnt my style.

I didn't see the first post before...but let me point out a few things.

Bolded part #1: This is actually the first I've ever heard of that, and I actually don't believe it will be true. Allowing it would allow for two or more active devices attached to the same profile, and could allow for a person to be in "two places at once".

Bolded part #2: Those are only possibilities - I don't believe Disney has stated what they will or won't use the transmitters for, other than to enable "experiences" that can be triggered when guests pass certain points, or let a princess call a child by name (by being displayed discreetly somewhere before the child approaches). So not having a magicband would limit some experiences.

I personally don't think they'd be useful at all for crowd control in practice. And to send special offers would require a device to send to - the MagicBands themselves have no receiver, display, or indicators (although I thought a nice feature would be a "restaurant pager" function built-in...)