Interesting change to Phineus and Ferb at Epcot

[MinnieMSue]

not sure if anyone posted yet but starting in the last few days you can use your own smart phone to play the game. You still have to get your phone set up by a cast member at one of the stations. We had much fewer glitches this time with my iPhone. Also as long as you don't close your browser you can keep playing or take breaks and continue as desired.

 

[minnie mum]

Why would I want to run down the battery on my phone when I can run down the battery on theirs at no cost?

 

[wilkeliza]

Why would I want to run down the battery on my phone when I can run down the battery on theirs at no cost?

It is probably more about the lack of phones. I worked that attraction and during the summer and Food and Wine it is not unheard of for there to be no phones. Also Disney pays for each phone since the attraction lost its sponser. So when phones break if the phone tech assigned to F&P can't fix it then the phone gets tossed and rarely replaced. They try not to replace the phones until they are no longer functioning. Allowing guests to use their own phones would prevent the need to pay to replace phones. If it works well.

 

[minnie mum]

It is probably more about the lack of phones. I worked that attraction and during the summer and Food and Wine it is not unheard of for there to be no phones. Also Disney pays for each phone since the attraction lost its sponser. So when phones break if the phone tech assigned to F&P can't fix it then the phone gets tossed and rarely replaced. They try not to replace the phones until they are no longer functioning. Allowing guests to use their own phones would prevent the need to pay to replace phones. If it works well.

So what you're saying is that this is another case of Disney cheaping out again. That's what I figured.

 

[wilkeliza]

So what you're saying is that this is another case of Disney cheaping out again. That's what I figured.

If they were really cheapening out they wouldn't have developed the abilty to use it on your own device at all, maintain the tricks, or employ CMs to run the attraction and set up phones. If you don't want to use your phone you don't have to this will just give then a way to keep the attraction going longer and not fire an entire set of CMs which would really be cost cutting.

 

[summerw]

not sure if anyone posted yet but starting in the last few days you can use your own smart phone to play the game. You still have to get your phone set up by a cast member at one of the stations. We had much fewer glitches this time with my iPhone. Also as long as you don't close your browser you can keep playing or take breaks and continue as desired.

So could you play after 6 pm? And by not closing your browser, do you mean just not closing the window/program or not letting your phone go to sleep?

 

[wilkeliza]

So could you play after 6 pm? And by not closing your browser, do you mean just not closing the window/program or not letting your phone go to sleep?

You can get phones and support until 45 minutes prior to Illumnations. If you have a working phone in hand all gags work all night and even into EMH. The issue becomes if your phone times out or gets stuck there won't be CMs to help unless Agent P people are walking the prominade during EMH and are willing to reset the phone. Sometimes even with the special code the system dumps the register phones so it may not be salvagable and their kiosks are turned off so can't even set up a new game if they were willing to pixie dust it.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

This is great! Those little phones were terrible. We always had glitches and it really frustrated my DS8.

 

[MinnieMSue]

It is so much better. Our phone got stuck one time and we were headed to a kiosk but it suddenly resumed working. We played 5 countries - taking our time - eating lunch, riding Mexico boat ride, etc. i stopped to take photos then went back to my browser and it worked fine. At the end of 5th country the phone popped up the code a cast member has to enter into the system to activate the phone but we decided to stop playing. It was really a lot better.