Magic bands- order now or later?

[JnoMoremoney]

Hello everyone! My family has our first trip to Disney scheduled for April 2022. Should we order magic bands now or wait until closer to the vacation? I’m not sure how often technology on the bands updates, or how often new band designs come out. Just curious what you seasoned experts do!

Thank you!

 

[catsinawindow]

I'm also interested to hear about this. Our trip isn't until July 2022 and I'm pretty sure I'll want to order Magic Bands. My travel agent suggested that we wait to order until closer to our trip date unless something new and exciting comes out that we'd want (or need) to use instead. I'm also curious about how likely it would be for the price to increase between now and next summer? I've heard that they recently went from Magic Bands being free for Disney resort guests, to $5 per band, to now $10 per band for solid colors.

 

[shawthorne44]

I've been wondering the same thing for our Jan 2022 trip. We'd be getting one just for DD, mainly for the ride photos. (If a photo doesn't include her, we don't care about it) Bonus is that DD wouldn't have a card to lose. Main reason I haven't bought is because I don't want a band that has been sitting around unsold because of the pandemic. I want one with a new battery. That said I was looking at them this morning. There was a sparkly one that looked really cute.

 

[kanerf]

Order before prices go up again. They were $5 earlier this year and now $10. Will $20 be far behind?

 

[Wandering Oaken]

We are not going until November next year and I've already ordered ours. We wanted two rooms so they forced us to get two reservations. One in my son's name and one in my name. My wife and I will have one room and my son and his girlfriend will have the other room. I already ordered all four MBs and my son and his girlfriend's MBs just arrived today.

 

[Best Aunt]

Sometimes they sell out. If you wait, what you want might not be there.

I'm not sure if you have to order them for everyone in your group at once. If you do, that could impact your decision.

 

[Heather07438]

Everybody on the reservation needs to order at the same time. If anybody in the party doesn’t want one they can decline while the others put in their order.

To get or not to get? My instinct is they will become totally unnecessary sometime in 2022 but they would be useful if you still rather wear and use MB. They’re fun and easy. So it comes down to protecting the price. If you like to use MB regardless of what phone functions are added, then locking in at $10 is probably a good idea.

 

[dhar_disneyfan]

I love MagicBands, but the trend seems to be that they will be going away in an effort to switch users to use their phones for the MDE. my recommendation for you would be to wait to find a design you love! We had a trip in Mid-May and we waited until about 15 days before the deadline to order. We got the designs we wanted, they change out a few almost weekly. For our next trip in January, we both found designs we really liked and ordered them already. Wait til there's something you love.

 

[OpieDoodle]

It depends on you. If you're really wanting specific ones I'd order early. Otherwise I'd wait until closer if you're looking at the plain solid color ones. Sometimes you get deals when you book.

 

[Beckyb3]

I don’t love the move towards using your phone instead. I would be nervous about draining my battery and not having what I needed because I felt even just using my phone for fast passes made the battery drain fast. I like them. I wish they weren’t moving away from them and making them so darn expensive.

 

[shawthorne44]

I don't see the point of using the phone. If they got the ride photos to auto-detect you using your phone, that would be worthwhile. But it doesn't seem to be there yet. But, I'd rather charge directly to a gift card or credit card when I buy something. So, the physical card seems to handle everything else.

 

[Silvarra]

We're going in Oct. 2022. Unless there's a special magicband that one of our party wants, we're going to wait until closer to our trip. It's really a matter of personal choice. If you want a seasonal or holiday one, I would get it as soon as you're able, otherwise I would wait. But, that's just my opinion, you may choose to do whatever feels best to you. Since they no longer include a free band when you book, I don't feel any rush to get all of them at once.

 

[cccory]

I would order them as soon as possible. I have always ordered ours as soon as I made the reservation.

 

[catsinawindow]

Does anyone know if Disney gave a heads-up before raising the price of the magic bands in the past? I'd like to hold off on ordering them so the kids can pick their own colors/designs (we aren't telling them that we're going to Disney until closer to the date), but might consider it if I knew they were raising the prices again.

 

[White Rose]

we are going sept/oct 2021. I am waiting for 50th anniversary magic bands. None of the current models impress me.

 

[tlseege]

Do you think a 50th Anniversary Band will be available ahead of time? I'm thinking that it will only be for sale at the park. I'm holding out too (our reservation is during the 50th) but I'm not sure if I should be.

 

[Beckyb3]

They have to add something soon. I am checking obsessively because I didn't order and the ones my daughter and I picked out are both gone and each day a new one drops from the list and I have only seen one added in the last few weeks. It's driving me crazy. I feel like they should be rolling out a bunch of new options soon! When I first looked there were several I really liked and I was having a hard time picking. Now there aren't really any I am crazy about.

 

[msshaner]

Are we able to re-use old magic bands? They don’t give them anymore right?

 

[DisLiss]

Right now I don't really like the available selections, so I'm kind of waffling between buying some now that I'm "meh"about before they get any more expensive, or waiting and possibly getting stuck with "meh"designs that cost even more, LOL!

 

[Rick195275]

Are we able to re-use old magic bands? They don’t give them anymore right?

You can definitely reuse old bands. Should be good for everything for at least a couple years. And even after that they would be good for park entry, room doors, charging etc, just doesn’t pick up the long range for ride photos.