Currently testing My Magic Plus/Fastpasses at BLT

[Belle's Castle]

We were invited to do to the test at BLT for magic bands and fastpasses. We checked in on July 23 and checkout on August 7. Some brief background. There are 7 people involved in this trip. Me, my DH, DD (5 years old), DS (15 months), my aunt, and mother and father. We have a linked reservation between my points and my parents. This is our first time at BLT and have a dedicated 2 bedroom lake view. Our home resort is Kidani. Everyone in the room are an annual pass holders.

Between 7 and 10 days prior to arrival my DH and I received a letter, phone call, and email inviting us to participate in the test. After many many many phone calls and conversations we were able to link our reservations to my Disney experience and customize our magic bands. Here are some likes where my husband or I posted a bit about these experiences:

(To be added)

Side bar: So I can get a little silly. As a result when customizing the magic bands I gave everyone a silly name. Well after everything was finalized and shipped to the resort I started thinking "oh no, what if they are testing the talking characters. Is everyone going to be called by these silly names ????" --- answer: no. The customizable names are only so they don't get mixed up if multiple people in room/family have same color. But I did panic a few days.

I will do a big update tommorrow (hopefully). We will be relaxing by the pool for a bit and hopefully kids will nap so I will have some free time. But very quickly...customer services has been helpful. There are some really cool benefits such as....not having to dig out tickets and when redeeming fastpasses you are greeted by name.

I am disappointed in a number of things. In my opinion I am spending WAY too much time on my phone getting/changing fastpasses because the system is soooooo slow and the app is not consistently working. I would rather be hanging out with my kids and looking at my surroundings then walking phone in hand.

Room: We have an AMAZING lake view at BLT and can see the fireworks from our room. The view alone is the only reason I like this room. I was prepared for the room to look "lived in" but I like it is beyond that. There are chips in the drawers and sharp pieces that have drawn blood if you open the drawer wrong. There was mold on the ceiling in one of the bedrooms, light bulbs out in every room, and water glass stains in the coffee table. customer service was great and mold was gone and new sheets on the bed when we returned from Animal Kingdom!

Either my DH or I will try to update tomorrow about our experience with the test. Please excuse my typos and spelling...I only have my phone with me and I am exhausted so to be honest at this moment I don't want to proofread! I have never reported much but read the boards a lot so feel free to ask questions.

 

[lilpooh108]

Looking forward to your summary. Yuck about the BLT room....can't believe it's that worn.

 

[bcrook]

Thanks for update. Good information about the names! Have a good time at the pool.

 

[taaren]

Wow that's a lot to type on your phone! Thanks for sharing!

Enjoy your trip and tell us all about it when you get back.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Can't wait to hear more about the test. From the test reviews I've read so far, I don't think I'm going to like fastpass plus at all.

 

[Belle's Castle]

Sorry the update is so late! Never got to the pool due to so-so weather and all of the kids naptime was spent getting help from customer service.

When we arrived on the July 23rd everything went smoothly. We were given our keys to the world and my parents put charging privileges on their cards. Then out came these magical boxes! The boxes opened and I got all excited. There were our magic bands with our silly names!!! The bands were activated and we were ready to go. While waiting for our room we went to the Contemporary for a quick bite to eat. At about 2:30 our room was ready.

Side note: best lake view ever! We have an amazing view of Bay Lake and magic kingdom! Thank you diser's!

Upon getting to the room we touched the Mickey head to the door and just like magic we get a green light. We were told at check-in that when we entered the room the first time each person would need to touch the door for the green light and that would get us access to pool and other BLT doors. After naps for kids we headed to MK to get out PAP voucher re-deemed, dinner at BOG, and to use our 3 fastpasses for the day.

At MK we first were given plastic PAP and then they connected the magic bands to the PAP. This was a pretty quick process. We then enter the park. Entering the park with magic bands was super super easy! I am now a believer in the use of magic bands for room keys and park tickets. There is no more scrambling for room keys while carrying a sleeping kid. No more "oh no I forgot my park ticket" or do I have it. No more what do I do with my room key that has charging privileges while I am in the pool. Why...because I am wearing it! IMHO I found the bands light weight and comfrontable . DH forgets he is wearing it and sleeps with it on.

Okay back to entering MK. With a quick tap and finger scan we are in! While heading to BOG I try to input our PAP pass numbers into MDE but they would not connect. My WiFi signal was going in and out. This process took a very long time - by the time dinner at BOG was over everyone was showing to have valid park admission. This process was frustrating and I spent way way to much time on my phone. In my opinion I don't want to be on my phone doing this on vacation. I missed so much excited form DD while doing this (yes my fault because I could have waited). Upon leaving BOG I booked fastpasses to Enchanted Tales with Belle, Little Mermaid, and Splash Mountain.

We went to Enchanted Tales with Belle and told them we had fastpasses. The Cast Members chuckled and said we don't offer fastpasses for this attraction. I held up my band and they got all excited. We went to the fastpass reader, touched the Mickey head with my band and the cast member says "Thank you Elizabeth!" I was like, holy smokes you know my name (and saying thank go it is not my silly name)!!!

We had success the rest of the night and next day at Animal Kingdom using all of our fastpasses. On Wednesday morning we made trip one to the customer service room because the app would not let me change one persons everest fastpass to a different attraction. We were there about 44 minutes to an hour! The real fun started on Wednesday night when trying to get fastpasses for the remainder of our trip. And when I say real fun, I mean frustration.

The app inconsistently worked and would not let us book for certain people. After playing around for two hours I got fead up and went to bed.

First thing this morning we went to the Top of the World for an informational session. It was wonderful. There were DVC reps there and all they wanted was to know about our experience from the moment we got the invite to now. They wanted good, bad, and ugly. They were great and offered to deal with everything so I did not have to take more time. But I was determined to make this work so I said thank you but I will keep at it.

We went to to the lobby because we learned that we could put gift cards or reward cards onto the bands and use them across property! My parents put some on their account and DH put some on ours. Worked great at downtown Disney later in the day.

A storm came in so we went back to customer service (about 45 minutes) due my father's MDE allowing him to book anything, then hung out in the room, went to the Poly for lunch, and put kids down or naps. I attempted I make fastpasses or the rest of the trip. After an hour, back down to customer service my DH and I went. We could not book fastpasses for all members of our party because they had "used there allotted fastpasses." The app wanted us to cancel fastpasses on a different day to be able to book for Monday. At customer service they wer shocked and had not seen this problem yet. They had no idea what to do. This was our third time to customer service getting help (twice today). By this point I wanted to opt out because this test was taking too much time away from my vacation. My DH and I were actually joking around with the Cast Members. We knew there were be issues and am thankful they are doing all these tests first.

They have even very very supportive and wonderful. Because of the inconvenience we were given two additional fastpasses for each day of our trip. This is not something we asked for and we were bit rude to the cast members but it was/is very appreciated. They also took the time to schedule our fastpasses from now till August 2nd so we did not have to spend anymore time dealing with the app. They asked us which rides, on what days, an what times and for who. When we arrive back in our room this evening there was a nice letter and a print out of all our fastpasses on the table.

Off to bed for the night as my DD is being turned into a princess in the morning! My thumbs are now stuck in the typing position from using the iPhone. Again sorry for grammar mistakes and typos.

 

[chonte]

gotta loooove new technology. it sounds like when it was working properly the bands were great. hopefully they will get all the kinks out. anyone have any idea when the full roll out will be? my family (Me, DH and DD3) is going in May and im really excited to use the bands! Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

[zavandor]

I really hope I'll be asked to test it for my stay in September. It's not much for the FP+ (I can use normal FS very well) but for the magic band. Being able to leave key, credit card, money and wallet in the room would be great.
Thank you for your report, glad you now have everything sorted out.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I'm just hoping the WHOLE system will be up and running by December when we arrive.

 

[boiseflyfisher]

Thank you! Loved reading your update. It sounds like once all of the kinks are worked out, it could be really nice. It may take a year or two to work the kinks out, though!

 

[Belle's Castle]

Everything went great with the fastpasses we scheduled today. It was so nice to get bottles of water and just touch our magic band to the kiosk and enter a PIN number versus digging for wallet!

My DD thinks she is hot stuff using her magic band for fast passes!

Something I forgot to mention is that we are not able to use our PAP cards to get additional fastpasses. So we are only using the 3 a day and it is a bit of a bummer. Today was a little better because we had 2 additional fastpasses due to the problems we have encountered.

 

[mrsR123]

Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experiences with us. It sounds like you're fighting the good fight.

 

[ffcheff]

Thanks again for sharing your experience with the new system. I wish I was a test subject in june.

 

[DisneyHeather]

I'm just hoping the WHOLE system will be up and running by December when we arrive.

Same here!

 

[TIGGERmetoo]

Thanks for the info!

 

[nolanboys]

Thanks for the update. Hopefully, they'll get out the kinks. I'm still not crazy about not having flexibility, but I'll reserve judgement until I try it out.

 

[Hitched2BellesCastle]

I'd just like to add that any problems we have, are being met with phenomenal customer service. I can't emphasize that enough. They truly want everything to work flawlessly. We actually had an opportunity to chat with what I thought was just another person on vacation in Magic Kingdom today. Turned out she was a Disney Cast member doing a test with her family. She was very anxious to hear what we thought about MM+. We told her the good and bad and she was grateful we took time to talk to her. We've been trying to double dip on the fast passes and have not had any luck doing it. I have met people who are doing the test currently who have been able to grab extra passes. At the moment I'm thinking it has something to do with us having PAP. Oh and for anyone out there considering a BBB experience for their little girl....I'd say do it. We walked out of there with a $237 bill and IMO, it was money well spent. My DD was on cloud nine all day. They really treated her like she was the only person in there. I usually leave the posting to my DW, but just wanted to chime in with my opinion. We are doing EPCOT tomorrow....more to come from one of us.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoard

 

[avander]

Thanks for the great information.

 

[Firepath]

Thank you for sharing your experience. It sounds like there are many kinks to iron out and you are being WAY more patient than I would be! I'm glad to hear the bands are comfortable. I was afraid they might be too hot to wear in the warm weather. Sounds great for water park use too. My main concern is how they will work for those (few) of us who don't have a smart phone.
Enjoy your stay and thanks again!

 

[elmonshea]

Did your little one (15 months) get a band?
If yes, was it comfortable?