Magic bands?

[Ted in Halifax]

Can someone direct me to a thread that explains the relationship between magic bands and fast pass?

 

[stefanospops]

I don't have a thread to send you to but hopefully personal experience helps.

You only get Magic Bands when you stay on resort. They are linked to your My Disney Experience profile and act as your room key, park passes and fast passes. Each day you are allowed to pre-select 3 rides for fast passes. It gives you time options and those can be changed throughout the day if you like, based on availability. It worked well but adds a layer of scheduling that didn't work well for the way we go to the parks. Is there something specific you wanted to know?

 

[Ted in Halifax]

Thank you. So how do I select my fast past options for a given day?

 

[stefanospops]

You can actually make your selections for the entire trip by logging onto your My Disney Experience account. This is where you can customize your Magic Bands to different colours as well.

Just pick the park and it will give you all the rides that are available. It will then present you with 4 options based on your choices and will try to keep the times close to each other. Once you select a ride you can modify it after as well.

I found that for the most popular rides like Toy Story Mania you needed to plan the Hollywood Studios portion of your trip at least two days in advance or even three. Toy Story Mania was not typically available the day before to be selected as a Fast Pass option.

The other thing to note is to always bring your park tickets with you just in case there is an issue with the Magic band. But additionally, the Magic Bands use a separate system than the fast pass distribution in the parks. SO you can still use the fast pass feature in the parks with your park tickets to give you that 4th fast pass option.

We are DVC members and our recent trip (Oct 16-29th) was split through two resorts and a house rental in between. We got two sets of Magic Bands and they both worked because they link to your Disney Experience profile. Essentially, the RFID on the bands just direct their systems to the correct profile, so whatever is stored there becomes available to you, allowing you as many bands as you like. So you can only ever have three fast passes per day linked to as many bands in your name as you have. Hopefully you could follow that.

Also, even though the bands are only available to those staying at the parks we have annual passes and linked those to our bands. When we rented the house we could still book fast passes and use our bands to get into the parks. The only thing we couldn't do is use the band like our ATM card, another feature. You can buy things with your magic band just like your KTTW card. You set up a PIN number on it that is the same for all people in your party allowed to charge to the room.

Anything else?

 

[Ted in Halifax]

Thanks! Ive now booked most of my fast passes!

 

[DisneyFreak06]

I still wish it were easier to change them. I couldn't change my fastpasses very easily and sometimes I would have gone standby rather than used the fastpass. Of course, I didn't know I was part of the test for the Magic Bands before I got to Pop and was handed them, so that messed everything up. It was the whole Canadian My Disney Experience website not working ant stuff first.

I LOVED the bands for room key, tickets and purchasing though, and for fastpasses, I just wish you didn't need to pick them in advance. I think they should make it so you go to a machine and use your MB to get your FP. And sometimes you forget what time your FP is at because you have to check it on your phone. At least Disney is providing free WiFi now, so it's a little better for us Canadians.

Hope you have a great trip and the MBs work out well for you!

 

[TheBig2na]

I think the preselecting fastpasses is the part that really is worrying. I have done it for my trip and I love planning and all of that, but I dont like being locked into a park for the day essentially. we park hop and this makes it a bit harder. I would rather walk up somewhere and get a fastpass at the park I am at that day. Weather plays a big part with some rides, what you feel like doing that day plays a part. I guess I have to see how it works for us and then see what the full system looks like, but any spontaneity one may have had is pretty much gone unless you like lines.

 

[stefanospops]

I think the preselecting fastpasses is the part that really is worrying. I have done it for my trip and I love planning and all of that, but I dont like being locked into a park for the day essentially. we park hop and this makes it a bit harder. I would rather walk up somewhere and get a fastpass at the park I am at that day. Weather plays a big part with some rides, what you feel like doing that day plays a part. I guess I have to see how it works for us and then see what the full system looks like, but any spontaneity one may have had is pretty much gone unless you like lines.

You can change times on your fast pass anytime prior to the time selected. Having the app on the phone is quite helpful for that. In the end, if I lost a fast pass I wasn't worried about it. It was not easy to make sure we were still at the park or near the ride we had a fast pass for but I didn't care too much. I figure it just allowed the standby line to move a little quicker without me jumping in front with my fast pass.

 

[beakerz]

I just wish they had slightly better wifi reception throughout the parks.

 

[DisneyFreak06]

I think the preselecting fastpasses is the part that really is worrying. I have done it for my trip and I love planning and all of that, but I dont like being locked into a park for the day essentially. we park hop and this makes it a bit harder. I would rather walk up somewhere and get a fastpass at the park I am at that day. Weather plays a big part with some rides, what you feel like doing that day plays a part. I guess I have to see how it works for us and then see what the full system looks like, but any spontaneity one may have had is pretty much gone unless you like lines.

I totally agree! And sometimes the wait time. I ended up with a fastpass when the ride was basically a walk on... talk about embarrassing!

You can change times on your fast pass anytime prior to the time selected. Having the app on the phone is quite helpful for that. In the end, if I lost a fast pass I wasn't worried about it. It was not easy to make sure we were still at the park or near the ride we had a fast pass for but I didn't care too much. I figure it just allowed the standby line to move a little quicker without me jumping in front with my fast pass.

You can change them, but I had a hard time doing it. It was in August, so hopefully they have worked out some of the kinks that were making it difficult to do. For example, if I had used ONE of my three fastpasses, it told me my fastpasses were used and I could not change any of them.

I just wish they had slightly better wifi reception throughout the parks.

Either wifi or the app. I found the app extremely slow too, not sure if it was reception or the app. I didn't use wifi too much otherwise, but the app was slow for sure! It was handy though.

 

[tgropp]

I think the preselecting fastpasses is the part that really is worrying. I have done it for my trip and I love planning and all of that, but I dont like being locked into a park for the day essentially. we park hop and this makes it a bit harder. I would rather walk up somewhere and get a fastpass at the park I am at that day. Weather plays a big part with some rides, what you feel like doing that day plays a part. I guess I have to see how it works for us and then see what the full system looks like, but any spontaneity one may have had is pretty much gone unless you like lines.

We park hop also and this system works perfectly for us. We go to a park in the morning by 9-9:30, get 3 fastpasses for the major rides that we want and are out of there by 12:30, free to go to another park or back to the hotel for a swim/rest. Then we are free to do what we want . And since we are there over Christmas, I am sure that there would be wait times and no walk ons for those rides. I can see how it might not be worth it during a less busy season.

 

[TheBig2na]

You can change times on your fast pass anytime prior to the time selected. Having the app on the phone is quite helpful for that. In the end, if I lost a fast pass I wasn't worried about it. It was not easy to make sure we were still at the park or near the ride we had a fast pass for but I didn't care too much. I figure it just allowed the standby line to move a little quicker without me jumping in front with my fast pass.

But I hear the lines for other rides are much longer now. Disney wants to spread the crowd out. But I guess its all just guessing. I think if you go into anything with a negative attitude you will tend to look for that only. And as I always say at the end of the day I am in WDW so waiting in line or missing a ride one day isn't a big deal. If I don't like one aspect of something but enjoy the rest that isnt too bad in my opinion.

I will have the app on my ipod so if i want to change I can try which in a way is an advantage over the system now where you cant change them

 

[pampam]

You can actually make your selections for the entire trip by logging onto your My Disney Experience account. This is where you can customize your Magic Bands to different colours as well.

Just pick the park and it will give you all the rides that are available. It will then present you with 4 options based on your choices and will try to keep the times close to each other. Once you select a ride you can modify it after as well.

I found that for the most popular rides like Toy Story Mania you needed to plan the Hollywood Studios portion of your trip at least two days in advance or even three. Toy Story Mania was not typically available the day before to be selected as a Fast Pass option.

The other thing to note is to always bring your park tickets with you just in case there is an issue with the Magic band. But additionally, the Magic Bands use a separate system than the fast pass distribution in the parks. SO you can still use the fast pass feature in the parks with your park tickets to give you that 4th fast pass option.

We are DVC members and our recent trip (Oct 16-29th) was split through two resorts and a house rental in between. We got two sets of Magic Bands and they both worked because they link to your Disney Experience profile. Essentially, the RFID on the bands just direct their systems to the correct profile, so whatever is stored there becomes available to you, allowing you as many bands as you like. So you can only ever have three fast passes per day linked to as many bands in your name as you have. Hopefully you could follow that.

Also, even though the bands are only available to those staying at the parks we have annual passes and linked those to our bands. When we rented the house we could still book fast passes and use our bands to get into the parks. The only thing we couldn't do is use the band like our ATM card, another feature. You can buy things with your magic band just like your KTTW card. You set up a PIN number on it that is the same for all people in your party allowed to charge to the room.

Anything else?

See, I understood it that the bands were not mailed to Canada, and had to be picked up at check in. Also, the only colour available at check in was grey.

 

[beakerz]

See, I understood it that the bands were not mailed to Canada, and had to be picked up at check in. Also, the only colour available at check in was grey.

You can still customize them through the MDE website (as long as you do so far enough in advance).

The only difference for non-US folks is that instead of them shipping the customized bands to your house, they send them to your resort (where you'll get them upon check-in)

 

[Disneylover99]

See, I understood it that the bands were not mailed to Canada, and had to be picked up at check in. Also, the only colour available at check in was grey.

You choose your own colours when you customize. If you don't customize your bands ahead of time, you will get grey at checkin.