Magic Bands 101

[SoarinSC]

Sorry, I'm a bit confused...that's most days...I just made reservations for POP in May and wasn't asked about Magic Band, etc. Is this a glitch or was I just not selected? Thanks!

 

[MouseMomx2]

Sorry, I'm a bit confused...that's most days...I just made reservations for POP in May and wasn't asked about Magic Band, etc. Is this a glitch or was I just not selected? Thanks!

You are too far out. I have seen a couple of March guests say they could customize MBs, but nobody later than that. Nobody needs to be selected. Everyone staying at a Disney resort will get MBs, unless they choose to opt out. Just give it a little time and you'll get access to the system.

FYI...FP+ selections can be made 60 days in advance. At that mark the system should open for your entire trip.

Have fun planning!

 

[SoarinSC]

You are too far out. I have seen a couple of March guests say they could customize MBs, but nobody later than that. Nobody needs to be selected. Everyone staying at a Disney resort will get MBs, unless they choose to opt out. Just give it a little time and you'll get access to the system.

FYI...FP+ selections can be made 60 days in advance. At that mark the system should open for your entire trip.

Have fun planning!

Thanks, MouseMomx2! Just eager to get in on the Magic Band fun and worried I did something wrong! I realize some would put fun in quotes at the moment, but I'm looking forward to it.

 

[MouseMomx2]

Thanks, MouseMomx2! Just eager to get in on the Magic Band fun and worried I did something wrong! I realize some would put fun in quotes at the moment, but I'm looking forward to it.

We just went for a quick trip last week and we absolutely loved Magic Bands and FP+. It seems that most of the complainers are people who haven't actually tried the system out yet. They are just anticipating problems and complaining about changes they don't like. Our experience was wonderful and we are looking forward to using the system again over New Year's week.

Keep your eye on your MDE account. You should have access to MB customization in a month or two.

 

[Zim]

We'll be there in two weeks. We had tickets from a previous visit so I got a room only reservation. THEN I cancelled the reservation to save a little money through Cheaptickets. I just assumed we wouldn't qualify for the MB testing because of this but I linked our room reservation and tickets anyway.

By some stroke of luck I checked on the MDE page a week ago and lo and behold we had Magicbands to customize - with a warning they would be shipping soon! The bizarre thing was the address they defaulted to ship to was somewhere in Chicago!? A little research and I realized they were shipping them to Cheaptickets / Orbitz headquarters!

SO relieved I hopped online when I did, we now have our bands in hand and the FP+ selections made for our park days. I'm one of those researchers a PP mentioned, so it drives me crazy when things slip through the cracks!

 

[MouseMomx2]

We'll be there in two weeks. We had tickets from a previous visit so I got a room only reservation. THEN I cancelled the reservation to save a little money through Cheaptickets. I just assumed we wouldn't qualify for the MB testing because of this but I linked our room reservation and tickets anyway.

By some stroke of luck I checked on the MDE page a week ago and lo and behold we had Magicbands to customize - with a warning they would be shipping soon! The bizarre thing was the address they defaulted to ship to was somewhere in Chicago!? A little research and I realized they were shipping them to Cheaptickets / Orbitz headquarters!

SO relieved I hopped online when I did, we now have our bands in hand and the FP+ selections made for our park days. I'm one of those researchers a PP mentioned, so it drives me crazy when things slip through the cracks!

Have a great time! I hope you enjoy the MBs and FP+ as much as we did!

 

[dwardlaw]

May be some one can help me.
We are going in June and will be staying on property.
I have non expiring tickets from previous years I want to use on this trip can I link these to the MB so I can make my ride reservations.

 

[elielioh]

Can someone help me out here? I'm getting married at Disney on 12/30. We'll be there from 12/26-12/28 off property and 12/29-1/5 on property. We've been 'invited' to use the bands. I have a few questions though.

First of all, CAN we? We only have vouchers for annual passes, not actual tickets so would we even be able to link everything up and make use of FP+? Would that only cover our on property stay? If so, can we use normal FP the first few days?

Next, SHOULD we? I know it's the busiest time of year so I'm thinking pre selected FP would be nice but I'm also not sure we want to do that much pre planning. 10 days is more than enough to see what we want to see even with the crazy crowds. So is the band worth it?

Anyone with ideas for me?

 

[MouseMomx2]

May be some one can help me.
We are going in June and will be staying on property.
I have non expiring tickets from previous years I want to use on this trip can I link these to the MB so I can make my ride reservations.

You sure can.

You will need to link them with the numbers on the back of each ticket. Once linked you will need to assign them to a member of your party so make sure you have everyone's profile created before you go to link the tickets.

 

[MouseMomx2]

Can someone help me out here? I'm getting married at Disney on 12/30. We'll be there from 12/26-12/28 off property and 12/29-1/5 on property. We've been 'invited' to use the bands. I have a few questions though.

First of all, CAN we? We only have vouchers for annual passes, not actual tickets so would we even be able to link everything up and make use of FP+? Would that only cover our on property stay? If so, can we use normal FP the first few days?

Sure you can! The Bands have nothing to do with park tickets. You get the bands with a WDW resort stay. Think of them as wearable Key to the World cards. They each have a chip in them that simply reads your My Disney Experience profile in Disney's database. Anything linked to that profile (rooms, tickets, FP+ selections, etc.) is accessible by the bands.

Tickets are needed for FP+ selections. You can link your AP vouchers to your MDE account and make FP+ selections for your WDW resort days. Once you redeem the vouchers for the actual APs you will be able to use your MBs for park admission...even before your resort stay begins. You will not be able to make advance FP+ selections for those pre-WDW resort days, but you will be able to make same-day FP+ selections in the parks.

Next, SHOULD we? I know it's the busiest time of year so I'm thinking pre selected FP would be nice but I'm also not sure we want to do that much pre planning. 10 days is more than enough to see what we want to see even with the crazy crowds. So is the band worth it?

IMO, yes! You will get MBs automatically as part of your WDW resort stay. If you don't customize them in advance you will get gray bands at check in. The bands make everything so convenient. No more digging around for park passes, FPs, credit cards, room keys. Everything is right on your wrist.

We are also going over New Year's week and I am loving the ability to schedule FP+s in advance. We have been before during that week and the lines were loooong. I have scheduled our FP+s for later in the day when the crowds will be largest.

Anyone with ideas for me?

We just returned from a trip where we used MBs and FP+ for the first time. We absolutely loved both.

 

[Twin Dad]

We just went for a quick trip last week and we absolutely loved Magic Bands and FP+. It seems that most of the complainers are people who haven't actually tried the system out yet. They are just anticipating problems and complaining about changes they don't like. Our experience was wonderful and we are looking forward to using the system again over New Year's week.

Keep your eye on your MDE account. You should have access to MB customization in a month or two.

I'm going to respectfully disagree. I have used the magic bands and am not a fan. The system should have never been rolled out to the public yet. It is still in the Alpha phase. Anyone I've talked to who has used the magic bands creatively has had massive issues. We had linked two reservations and a split stay together. Our tickets would appear and disappear. Some times we could get into our room and other times one would not work. We were able to fix these issues but each one took over an hour. The FP+ could not be linked between the reservations. Each party had to do their FP+ selections separate and get them to match up. To do that took about a half an hour for each park day and changing any plans the night before took even longer. At least we were able to double dip with our fast passes and were able to get back some of that time. If I were staying at POP this coming week I'd be beyond livid and changing resorts. I like the idea of the magic bands and think they will be great but right now there's a ton of bugs that need to be ironed out.

 

[MouseMomx2]

I'm going to respectfully disagree. I have used the magic bands and am not a fan. The system should have never been rolled out to the public yet. It is still in the Alpha phase. Anyone I've talked to who has used the magic bands creatively has had massive issues. We had linked two reservations and a split stay together. Our tickets would appear and disappear. Some times we could get into our room and other times one would not work. We were able to fix these issues but each one took over an hour. The FP+ could not be linked between the reservations. Each party had to do their FP+ selections separate and get them to match up. To do that took about a half an hour for each park day and changing any plans the night before took even longer. At least we were able to double dip with our fast passes and were able to get back some of that time. If I were staying at POP this coming week I'd be beyond livid and changing resorts. I like the idea of the magic bands and think they will be great but right now there's a ton of bugs that need to be ironed out.

It's interesting how perspectives/experiences differ, isn't it? I haven't talked to anyone who didn't like the bands. Sure, there are plenty here on the DIS, but I haven't talked to anyone in person who didn't like them.

I'm sorry that you had so many issues on your trip. We are the other side of the coin. We also had a split stay and had no issues. We were each able to use our multiple bands for everything...park entry, room access, FP+ redemption, purchases, etc...for both of our resort stays. We each have four. We would choose which color we wanted to wear each day and the bands worked perfectly. We changed things on the fly via my iPhone three or four times with no issues.

We have linked to our friends for our NYE trip. We have been able to make all of our FP+ selections together. I handled it for everyone and had no problem booking for all of us. Some of us wanted to do different things and I have had no problem modifying our existing FP+s for those who wanted a different experience.

Again...sorry you had issues. Hopefully your next trip will go more smoothly.

 

[ruthma]

Issues or problems who cares. I'm going to Disney.

 

[MouseMomx2]

Issues or problems who cares. I'm going to Disney.

 

[Twin Dad]

It's interesting how perspectives differ, isn't it? I haven't talked to anyone who didn't like the bands. Sure, there are plenty here on the DIS, but I haven't talked to anyone in person who didn't like them.

I'm sorry that you had so many issues on your trip. We are the other side of the coin. We also had a split stay and had no issues. We were each able to use our multiple bands for everything...park entry, room access, FP+ redemption, purchases, etc...for both of our resort stays. We each have four. We would choose which color we wanted to wear each day and the bands worked perfectly. We changed things on the fly via my iPhone three or four times with no issues.

We have linked to our friends for our NYE trip. We have been able to make all of our FP+ selections together. I handled it for everyone and had no problem booking for all of us. Some of us wanted to do different things and I have had no problem modifying our existing FP+s for those who wanted a different experience.

Again...sorry you had issues. Hopefully your next trip will go more smoothly.

I liked the idea of the bands but did not like how buggy they were. We went in mid-October when they were just starting the testing at CSR. That could be part of the reason why we were having so many issues. First the room keys didn't work. Then they worked but we could not get into the park right away. After that we couldn't get back into our rooms. Then we had trouble at the parks again later that day. Once we were on the second half of the split stay those issues disappeared. DW is in IT and was approached by Disney Research about the bands. She spent over an hour filling out the survey and went into great detail about the issues we were having. I hope that helped those who came later. I'm also worried about the tiered system being tested at EP and now HS. And like I said in PP I'd be livid if I was at POP and couldn't double dip. I'm curious to see where the FP+ system lands when all the testing is done.

 

[CTdaizy]

We are leaving next Friday for a 10 night stay, got our Magic Bands and planned FP+. Hoping everything goes easy-peasy!

Here's a question for everyone that my kids have asked. When we got to customize our bands, we all picked fun nicknames for them, instead of our real names.. so, did you customize with real names or fun nicknames?

 

[MouseMomx2]

We are leaving next Friday for a 10 night stay, got our Magic Bands and planned FP+. Hoping everything goes easy-peasy!

Here's a question for everyone that my kids have asked. When we got to customize our bands, we all picked fun nicknames for them, instead of our real names.. so, did you customize with real names or fun nicknames?

We just used our regular names. We are traveling with a large party and each have multiple bands due to a couple split-stays so I thought real names would work better.

 

[MarkyMouse]

We are leaving next Friday for a 10 night stay, got our Magic Bands and planned FP+. Hoping everything goes easy-peasy! Here's a question for everyone that my kids have asked. When we got to customize our bands, we all picked fun nicknames for them, instead of our real names.. so, did you customize with real names or fun nicknames?

We were going to use fun names but then I remembered that it's possible that some of the cast and perhaps even Mickey himself may refer to you by your name on the magic band. But I guess thAt name would likely be whatever your name is with your ressie. Not necessarily what's on your band.

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[ckrisie]

We were going to use fun names but then I remembered that it's possible that some of the cast and perhaps even Mickey himself may refer to you by your name on the magic band. But I guess thAt name would likely be whatever your name is with your ressie. Not necessarily what's on your band. Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

We got mr and mrs bride and groom belle and beast. Three sets for our split stay for our honeymoon.

 

[Zim]

We were going to use fun names but then I remembered that it's possible that some of the cast and perhaps even Mickey himself may refer to you by your name on the magic band. But I guess thAt name would likely be whatever your name is with your ressie. Not necessarily what's on your band. Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

Actually, the names are not visible on the band. They are printed in small gold text on the underside of the band. The only thing visible on the band itself is the raised Mickey symbol and the holes for adjusting the band or for 'bling'. The names are also printed on the inside of the box so it's a nice presentation keepsake if you opt for cute names.