Disadvantages of digital park tickets?

[Elfinbaby]

We arrive a week from Monday. I purchased tickets online and they quickly showed up in my account. I just decided today to go ahead and purchase Maxpass but after reading an article, I'm beginning to wish I had hard tickets, too. Battery life and spotty wifi - this is my first DL trip and I'm just not sure how this works. If I understand correctly, a hard park ticket is linked to my account so if something got weird, the hard ticket would serve the purpose.

Off topic a little - how does it work that all the tickets are on my phone for my family? Can I send them screen shots of their ticket? Can more than one person at a time log into my account if they download the app?

Another side note - when I began the purchase of maxpass on the app it had all my tickets checked plus our Halloween tickets. I have a park ticket and Halloween ticket for the same day. Do I have to buy a separate Maxpass for the party??

Thanks for any help. Planning DL has been entirely different than WDW so I appreciate you sharing your experience!

 

[Geemo]

Another side note - when I began the purchase of maxpass on the app it had all my tickets checked plus our Halloween tickets. I have a park ticket and Halloween ticket for the same day. Do I have to buy a separate Maxpass for the party??

Since there are no FP's during the party, I don't think MP is available.

 

[longtimedisneylurker]

The first time you go through the turnstiles, they will print out and hand you a hard ticket too that you can use for park entry and in the fastpass machines if you wish. They will also take your photo and attach it electronically to your ticket and have you sign your ticket.

You should also be able to enter the tickets into multiple users apps, so other members of your family can also use the app and have the tickets stored in there. I don't know how the assigning of names to tickets works within the app to keep things straight. That might just have to be something you have to figure out assuming it's possible.

I don't believe fastpass is in use during the Halloween party, so maxpass wouldn't be applicable.

 

[ashley0139]

You'll still get a hard ticket when you enter the turnstiles for the first time.

 

[Elima2015]

I think that if you didn't purchase MaxPass with your initial purchase, you'll need to buy it on a daily basis after you enter the park. Though I'm not very sure that is the case with online tickets. Ours were sent as paper tickets and I know we couldn't add MaxPass until we got there.

If your phone doesn't hold a charge for long, then I would invest in a portable recharger. Disneyland sells/has Fuel Rods on site, but you can actually get a more powerful charger for less money on Amazon.

That said, my battery held just fine with all day use in the parks - including MaxPass, checking wait times, looking at menus, etc. I turned off WiFi so my phone wouldn't waste battery searching for a signal. Verizon service was very reliable in the parks. The only time it didn't work was on indoor rides like Pirates. The app incl MaxPass used very little data.

Tickets can be added to multiple accounts. Logistically, it would probably be easiest for one person to manage FastPass reservations, though you certainly don't have to do it that way.

 

[DizHanna456]

I visited in August and had 4 1-day park hoppers loaded to my account for myself and 3 friends. I was able to assign a name to each. I went first and got my hard ticket, and then stood aside while the cast member at the turnstile scanned the other three one at a time and assigned my friends hard tickets as well. It worked for us since we didn't do MP+, so it didn't matter that mine was the only app linked to the digital tickets. I think if you plan on sticking together and booking your entire party's FPs via MP+, keeping them all digitally on just your phone is probably fine.

Like Geemo said no FP during the party, but I'm assuming if you've already bought MP+ for the rest of the day you could still use it in DL up to the start time of the party... since you are technically still a regular guest and a party guest for the 3 hours leading up to the official start time.

 

[StormyCA]

So, just to be sure I have this right: If I buy an E-ticket via the DL App I will still be given a hard ticket a the turnstile. If I buy Max Pass, I will be able to schedule FP on my phone but will be able to use the hard ticket to 'scan in' at the check points in the FP line, rather than having to pull my phone out. Do I have this correct?

 

[Wahlee]

So, just to be sure I have this right: If I buy an E-ticket via the DL App I will still be given a hard ticket a the turnstile. If I buy Max Pass, I will be able to schedule FP on my phone but will be able to use the hard ticket to 'scan in' at the check points in the FP line, rather than having to pull my phone out. Do I have this correct?

Correct.

 

[Elfinbaby]

Great info. I figured the Maxpass wasn't available during the party (my dd's GAC was not able to be used at the Christmas party in WDW either) but it does have all the tickets selected (park tickets and party tickets are all checked off until you uncheck them). Maybe if you only had the party ticket and were planning to go to DCA as well you could buy Maxpass to use there?

Thanks so much! I am really trying to wrap my brain around as much as possible before we go.

 

[Elfinbaby]

So as far as everyone having their own tickets... We are a family of six with 2 maybe 3 older children who could conceivably go out on their own or - I can totally see myself staying at the park while everyone takes breaks. One option is to give everybody their paper tix, which can be replaced if lost since I have them on my phone, right? Also, does everyone need their own account with their ticket linked (I'd like everyone to have a digital copy on their phones of their own ticket) or can everybody just use my account? I think the Disney app assigned all the tickets already. Everyone's name was in my acct from our last trip to WDW and it just labeled each ticket with a family members name. Is it possible for the older children to schedule their own FPs if they were out on their own?

 

[BriannaRuth]

Everyone can share your account. That's what we did a couple of weeks ago. The older ones can also book their FPs using MP from your account on their phones.

The only thing you have to watch for is to be sure that the CM at the gate assigns the correct ticket to the correct guest if you (or the app) has "named" the tickets on the app. Our first morning the CM just scanned them all at once and assigned the tickets herself. When I pointed out that she had assigned them differently than they were on the app, she assured us it didn't matter. But it does, especially if you have MP and people are going their separate ways getting their own FPs. We had a situation come up where I got FPs for all four of us for Space on my phone, then we split up. The Space FPs turned into "any attraction" FPs. Two of us used the "any attraction" FPs for Indy by using their paper tickets, then when they did the same with Matterhorn FPs I'd gotten ONLY for two of us digitally, it "stole" our digital anytime FPs for Space because the tickets didn't match up. When I went to redeem my digital "anytime" FP for Indy, it came up as no "anytime" available. CM told me I had an unused Matterhorn FP!