Just back. I'm now a FP+ convert.

[dskib]

Great week. No crowds.

I have to say I was wary of the whole MB/FP+ before I went. I always loved the old system. But everything went so well!

MBs were flawless. The wifi was fantastic. And rather than DH exhausting himself by running around for FPs, we had them already. And when the lines were so short that we didn't use them, we changed them on the go to something else. It was fantastic!

And something I didn't realize until I logged into my photo pass account - any ride pic that was taken during a FP+ ride automatically showed up on my account! I did not know this! It was a nice surprise.

Caveat here - I scheduled my FPs before they were tiered. But either way the systems worked perfectly. I was pleasantly surprised.

 

[Raenstoirm]

And something I didn't realize until I logged into my photo pass account - any ride pic that was taken during a FP+ ride automatically showed up on my account! I did not know this! It was a nice surprise.

That's awesome!

 

[BadgerGirl84]

Glad you had a wonderful time! I would imagine FP+ would work great during a low crowd time with lots of time slots free to change around your FP+ day-of.

 

[MouseMomx2]

Glad you had a wonderful time! I would imagine FP+ would work great during a low crowd time with lots of time slots free to change around your FP+ day-of.

Personally, I think it is even better during the busier seasons. The last time we went over New Year's week we rode what we wanted at rope drop, relaxed at our resort and then went to a different park in the evenings. We didn't really ride much in the evenings because the lines were so long and FPs were gone for the day.

This year we will use the same plan, but we know that we have three rides/shows all set for the evening hours. That is a win in my book. Sure, we won't be able to change things around on the fly, but we will still get three rides, together, every evening. And we won't have to drag our older kids out of bed to get the FPs to do it. Win, win, win!

OP, I'm glad you had a great trip and enjoyed the new systems. We loved them when we visited earlier this month and can't wait to use them again in 4 weeks.

 

[CanadianPaco]

It's good to hear something positive on MBs.

 

[nkereina]

Great week. No crowds.

I have to say I was wary of the whole MB/FP+ before I went. I always loved the old system. But everything went so well!

MBs were flawless. The wifi was fantastic. And rather than DH exhausting himself by running around for FPs, we had them already. And when the lines were so short that we didn't use them, we changed them on the go to something else. It was fantastic!

And something I didn't realize until I logged into my photo pass account - any ride pic that was taken during a FP+ ride automatically showed up on my account! I did not know this! It was a nice surprise.

Caveat here - I scheduled my FPs before they were tiered. But either way the systems worked perfectly. I was pleasantly surprised.

We had the exact same experience this past week. Not to be a pessimist, but it will be interesting to see how this all plays out now with the tiers and also when everyone can use FP+. But I agree with everything you said with the exception of the wifi - that worked intermittently for me at both the parks and the resorts. I have an iPhone 5S. I also saw a lot of people having trouble paying for things with their MBs at AK. Worked fine for me though.

As far as the photo pass account, I found the same thing but I'm curious about it because some of the ride photos that are showing up are not ones we scanned our bands at or used FP+ for. How do they know it's us?! Theres also about 50 Splash photos on ours - half of them are not us and the other half are photos of empty cars going down the hill Its also missing all of our TOT and EE photos, and I know we used FP+ for TOT. Really confused about this!

 

[PolyAddict]

Personally, I think it is even better during the busier seasons. The last time we went over New Year's week we rode what we wanted at rope drop, relaxed at our resort and then went to a different park in the evenings. We didn't really ride much in the evenings because the lines were so long and FPs were gone for the day. This year we will use the same plan, but we know that we have three rides/shows all set for the evening hours. That is a win in my book. Sure, we won't be able to change things around on the fly, but we will still get three rides, together, every evening. And we won't have to drag our older kids out of bed to get the FPs to do it. Win, win, win! OP, I'm glad you had a great trip and enjoyed the new systems. We loved them when we visited earlier this month and can't wait to use them again in 4 weeks.

So i have read alot of people intend to do this and i like the idea BUT here is what i can't figure out...

So we hit the 9am RD and walk on TT twice then what? By that time the line for Soarin is too long to walk on. WS is not open till 11. That leaves SE, nemo and the boat ride by soarin (the name escapes me right now). Thats about all thats left in FW that interests us. Maybe by the time we do those other ones WS will be open? So then what is the plan? Say MK from 5pm on and have 3 FP+ there? This seems reasonable i guess.

 

[jennyjinx3]

Great week. No crowds.

I have to say I was wary of the whole MB/FP+ before I went. I always loved the old system. But everything went so well!

MBs were flawless. The wifi was fantastic. And rather than DH exhausting himself by running around for FPs, we had them already. And when the lines were so short that we didn't use them, we changed them on the go to something else. It was fantastic!

And something I didn't realize until I logged into my photo pass account - any ride pic that was taken during a FP+ ride automatically showed up on my account! I did not know this! It was a nice surprise.

Caveat here - I scheduled my FPs before they were tiered. But either way the systems worked perfectly. I was pleasantly surprised.

We are just back too and had an identical experience with the crowds, magicbands and FP+ too. It was great!

 

[GAN]

Always good to hear positive news....

 

[WILDERNESS FAN 55]

Personally, I think it is even better during the busier seasons. The last time we went over New Year's week we rode what we wanted at rope drop, relaxed at our resort and then went to a different park in the evenings. We didn't really ride much in the evenings because the lines were so long and FPs were gone for the day.

This year we will use the same plan, but we know that we have three rides/shows all set for the evening hours. That is a win in my book. Sure, we won't be able to change things around on the fly, but we will still get three rides, together, every evening. And we won't have to drag our older kids out of bed to get the FPs to do it. Win, win, win!

OP, I'm glad you had a great trip and enjoyed the new systems. We loved them when we visited earlier this month and can't wait to use them again in 4 weeks.

Hey ! That's my new strategy ! At least with the DD's in tow. When it's just DW and myself (10 more days) it'll be FP+ in the afternoons mainly with us still going for RD and hitting a couple of the big rides. Then we can puruse those "other" things that we don't get to do with the girls along. Like sit and have a coffee and roll -go thru the shops- watch some of the street entertainers. Yep FP+ has my vote !

 

[ArwenMarie]

Just back too. Lost about two hours trying to check in. Not magical.

FP plus was ok, but I realized we are a relatively low ride per day family.

There was no same day availability for switching the FPs around day-of IME. For the big rides anyway. And this was a low crowd week.

We booked pre-tiers, but tiers are going to reduce the value of the service for us.

Glad I brought a regular CC with me because the Mickey readers were unreliable in the parks for purchases.

I did like sleeping in.

I dunno, I'm on the fence about it all. I was for the concept, in general, until the tiers.

 

[crazycatlady]

Just back also and agree that the magic bands and FP+s worked great for us, BUT....we also booked most of our FP+s before the tiers started. We added a day to our tickets while we were there, and had to choose between Soarin and TT because of the tiers, which was fairly painless for us because my dad didn't care for Soarin (afraid of heights) and didn't want to ride it again. Another day, I changed which park we were going to (DHS instead of Epcot) and had to choose between TSM and RNRC. We chose TSM and showed up right after RD to make sure we got on RNRC with little wait.

The FP+s worked GREAT for touring with my dad, because he was really tired out after our first day at the parks and I changed our schedule around for most of the rest of the days to sleep in and show up at the parks around 10:30 or 11:00. I loved knowing that we could ride the headliners even though we were showing up at peak crowd time. I don't think I will love it quite so much if all of the parks become tiered and they get rid of the regular FPs, though.

Our MBs worked perfectly the entire trip and were very convenient.

 

[scrappinstevie]

I just got back from WDW today....Magic Bands and Fast Pass all went smoothly for us all 10 days of our vacation. We never had an issue paying or anything. It was easy to add a dining reservation or Fast Pass time using my iphone app.

It is wonderful to have the band for everything rather than a key card for the room and one for photo pass and one for MVMCP and so on.

I was very worried after reading all the complaints on this message board but our vacation was a breeze. Super easy and knowing Disney, they will make the Magic Bands even better as they go along.

 

[kmarie99]

How dare you speak positively about FP+... Hahahahaha
Don't worry, the pessimists will be here soon to ruin your happiness!

 

[nkereina]

Just back too. Lost about two hours trying to check in. Not magical.

FP plus was ok, but I realized we are a relatively low ride per day family.

There was no same day availability for switching the FPs around day-of IME. For the big rides anyway. And this was a low crowd week.

We booked pre-tiers, but tiers are going to reduce the value of the service for us.

Glad I brought a regular CC with me because the Mickey readers were unreliable in the parks for purchases.

I did like sleeping in.

I dunno, I'm on the fence about it all. I was for the concept, in general, until the tiers.

We were able to move around times day-of for headliners. Not sure if we got lucky or what. We also saw a lot of MB issues at AK with people trying to charge stuff to their room or use dining credits. Readers were down or malfunctioning. CMs were able to use KTTW cards instead, but not sure what they would have done if the guest was staying at a resort that's no longer receiving KTTW cards.

Where did you stay? My check in at CSR took rather long as well. Part of the problem was the people ahead of me had no idea about MBs or MDE. The CMs had to explain every aspect and give them the bands at the desk. Took forever, and this was in the online check-in line.

 

[Chime]

We just got back yesterday and were wary of using the Magic Bands. We ended up loving them.

We had 0 issues and did a lot of shopping and dining using our bands.

We did our best choosing our FastPass+ ride times in the weeks leading up to our vacation, but there was not 1 day we stuck to our original plans. We were changing Fastpasses around all the time and enjoyed the flexibility. We have cheap Straight Talk phones and accessing MDE was never a problem.

 

[skriegerjr]

How dare you speak positively about FP+... Hahahahaha
Don't worry, the pessimists will be here soon to ruin your happiness!

Yes, I've posted a few times about our Nov 2-10 trip, but have avoided gushing about how we enjoyed using the MB and the MDE website/app as it seems anyone with something positive to say is discounted as ignoring the eventual inconvenience once it rolls out to every park guest.

To me, all that speculation is irrelevant because I know the experience my family had, how it improved our trip over past trips, and how we will use it to enjoy future visits. Everyone is welcome to form whatever opinion they choose to based on that. Perhaps we should all put disclaimers on our posts. "This review was based on my own personal experience and isn't necessarily indicative of similar experiences in the future, for myself or for other guests. Please use this review at your own risk, and know that it is worth exactly what you paid for it..."

Sent from my Toshiba Thrive 32GB using the DISBoards App

 

[Sammie]

Personally, I think it is even better during the busier seasons. The last time we went over New Year's week we rode what we wanted at rope drop, relaxed at our resort and then went to a different park in the evenings. We didn't really ride much in the evenings because the lines were so long and FPs were gone for the day.

This year we will use the same plan, but we know that we have three rides/shows all set for the evening hours. That is a win in my book. Sure, we won't be able to change things around on the fly, but we will still get three rides, together, every evening. And we won't have to drag our older kids out of bed to get the FPs to do it. Win, win, win!

OP, I'm glad you had a great trip and enjoyed the new systems. We loved them when we visited earlier this month and can't wait to use them again in 4 weeks.

 

[MomofKatie]

We had a few minor glitches with Magic Bands- nothing that would ruin the vacation, though:

1- DH didn't have his park tickets loaded onto his band. Found this out when we tried to enter MK our first afternoon. A CM at the entrance pointed us to Guest Services, where another CM fixed the problem in about 10 seconds.

2- DH couldn't make purchases or swipe his band for the dining plan because he didn't have a PIN associated with his band. We never bothered to fix the issue- we were always together, and whenever we headed over to the Concierge desk at Pop, there was always a line.

3- On our last day at the parks, my band showed that I didn't have any park admissions left even though I did. The Guest Services CM, who fixed it for us in about 5 minutes, told us a lot of people had the same issue- the day before, many bands had 2 park days deducted when entering only one park.

FP+ was good- we didn't need half of the ones we pre-booked because of low standby times. We didn't change them to other attractions simply because we didn't need them at all. WiFi was spotty in the parks, and we couldn't get it in our room at Pop at all (room 0216 in the 70's section).

 

[ArwenMarie]

We were able to move around times day-of for headliners. Not sure if we got lucky or what. We also saw a lot of MB issues at AK with people trying to charge stuff to their room or use dining credits. Readers were down or malfunctioning. CMs were able to use KTTW cards instead, but not sure what they would have done if the guest was staying at a resort that's no longer receiving KTTW cards.

Where did you stay? My check in at CSR took rather long as well. Part of the problem was the people ahead of me had no idea about MBs or MDE. The CMs had to explain every aspect and give them the bands at the desk. Took forever, and this was in the online check-in line.

Contemporary. Nothing to do with a line but the CMs could not get the MBs or even the cards to work for us, it was just total craziness with a group of CMs trying to figure it out. So we went and got something to eat and came back and it still wasn't fixed fully and we had to go back the next morning and they never got it all working right in terms of room keys and MBs.