We just got back from the world for the Princess Half Marathon weekend. After reading Magic Band and Fast Pass horror stories, I thought I would post our experience.
We loved it all! Out of 3 adults using MB to charge, we had one failure at a food court. We never had problems getting in our rooms, into a park or through a FP line. We used My Disney Experience to make our FP reservations. We weren't heavy FP users in the old system so we didn't feel particularly restricted by only 3 FP a day.
A hint I had not read here before: if you fly into MCO and have your MB already, wear it. I felt like a nerd putting it on in the airport, but when we headed to the Magical Express area, the CMs saw our bands and waved us right along without a stop.
The only recommendation I have to Disney is to redesign them with a little digital clock. We all felt awkward with them on our right wrists and ended up leaving watches behind and putting them on our left wrists. It would have kept us from pulling out our phones to check the time as much. It's particularly important with the limit on FP that you keep up with the time.
We saw lots of CM standing waiting to assist with reserving FP and lots of lines. We also saw long lines for FP returns, but I really didn't get a read on why FP lines were backed up. I did occasionally see inconsistency in CM telling people all members of a party had to scan their MB in FP lines versus CM telling people only one member of a party had to scan. I don't know if the reason to let only one member scan was to get the line down faster or what. It was at the Safari in AK, and the FP check in line wound down a path to walking trail. That wasn't the only long FP line, but the only one where I noticed everyone not scanning their bands.
An off-topic item: even the disposable cups in the food courts are RFID chipped for a certain amount of refills in a period. I think it was 3 refills (4 total) in about 4 hours. Sorry if that's old news, but I didn't know it before hand.
We loved it all! Out of 3 adults using MB to charge, we had one failure at a food court. We never had problems getting in our rooms, into a park or through a FP line. We used My Disney Experience to make our FP reservations. We weren't heavy FP users in the old system so we didn't feel particularly restricted by only 3 FP a day.
A hint I had not read here before: if you fly into MCO and have your MB already, wear it. I felt like a nerd putting it on in the airport, but when we headed to the Magical Express area, the CMs saw our bands and waved us right along without a stop.
The only recommendation I have to Disney is to redesign them with a little digital clock. We all felt awkward with them on our right wrists and ended up leaving watches behind and putting them on our left wrists. It would have kept us from pulling out our phones to check the time as much. It's particularly important with the limit on FP that you keep up with the time.
We saw lots of CM standing waiting to assist with reserving FP and lots of lines. We also saw long lines for FP returns, but I really didn't get a read on why FP lines were backed up. I did occasionally see inconsistency in CM telling people all members of a party had to scan their MB in FP lines versus CM telling people only one member of a party had to scan. I don't know if the reason to let only one member scan was to get the line down faster or what. It was at the Safari in AK, and the FP check in line wound down a path to walking trail. That wasn't the only long FP line, but the only one where I noticed everyone not scanning their bands.
An off-topic item: even the disposable cups in the food courts are RFID chipped for a certain amount of refills in a period. I think it was 3 refills (4 total) in about 4 hours. Sorry if that's old news, but I didn't know it before hand.
