My Disney Experience Headache

[MSUmom]

While I haven't been to WDW yet to experience Fast Pass Plus my experience so far with My Disney Experience has not been good. Waited on the phone 2 hours and talked to 3 different people to purchase my APs; then talked to 3 people for over at over a hour each getting them finally linked (3 different days). Then had to call and talk to someone else for over an hour to get my fast passes to work. Good thing everything was shut down in Michigan for a couple of days due to weather.

 

[SandyinMonterey]

I am dreading doing the My Disney Experience. I've been putting if off but I told my husband we MUST do it this weekend. Maybe I need a drink before I begin.

 

[Sammie]

Is there a reason you did not order your tickets online, without calling in.

It is fast and simple and will give you the confirmation number that you need to link your tickets to your MDE. Super easy.

Sandy do not be discouraged, it has not been difficult for everyone. I had no problems at all. I purchased my annual passes online, very easy. Took my will call numbers and linked my tickets to my MDE, again easy.

Then simply went through each day of our trip and booked the Fastpasses+ we wanted, easy and quick.

I changed a few after we arrived and again we had no issues.

I will say MDE works best with Google Chrome, on a fast connection.

 

[MSUmom]

I am able to get 20% off Disney gift cards from Target. When you purchase them online or from member services you can only buy with 2 cards

 

[Sammie]

I am able to get 20% off Disney gift cards from Target. When you purchase them online or from member services you can only buy with 2 cards

Good reason, did you get hit by the Target scam, talk about a mess.

 

[MSUmom]

No thank goodness.

 

[bianca]

We just returned from WDW. My experience with MDE mirrored OP .... On the phone forever. Long story short is that after all that legwork, I was not prepared for just how poorly everything would work. Our last trip was so bad, that after 3 trips to the front desk, I finally gave up on access to our room altogether. We had a GV at SSR in my name and both me and my daughter were unable to access our room ...... The other 8 did okay, though. That was just one of too many issues we faced. I absolutely abhor everything new they have done.

 

[Doug7856]

We just returned from WDW. My experience with MDE mirrored OP .... On the phone forever. Long story short is that after all that legwork, I was not prepared for just how poorly everything would work. Our last trip was so bad, that after 3 trips to the front desk, I finally gave up on access to our room altogether. We had a GV at SSR in my name and both me and my daughter were unable to access our room ...... The other 8 did okay, though. That was just one of too many issues we faced. I absolutely abhor everything new they have done.

Disney really needs to address the room access issues. I had two problems in November. My band would not let me access the room, but the RFID room key did. Now Disney is discontinuing the automatic issuance of the room key.

I also had one other interesting problem. On my first day I attempted to enter DHS 5 minutes after opening and was denied access because the system said I had just enter Magic Kingdom moments earlier. My 10 day PH was not recognized as a PH but as a 10 day, one park with plus features. It took some time at guest services to resolve this issue. When I left guest services I was told that the issue had been elevated but not resolved. Thankfully I had no further problems.

 

[MSUmom]

The first day there we are scheduled for the Keys to the Kingdom Tour at 9:30. I am planning to be at the Gate at 8:30 to get our APs set up. I have the vouchers but I am worried that it will take them forever to get set up properly and we will miss our tour.

Hopefully it will go smoothly but that hasn't been my experience so far

 

[jco_direwolf]

The first day there we are scheduled for the Keys to the Kingdom Tour at 9:30. I am planning to be at the Gate at 8:30 to get our APs set up. I have the vouchers but I am worried that it will take them forever to get set up properly and we will miss our tour. Hopefully it will go smoothly but that hasn't been my experience so far

Disney will not let you miss your tour because of them.

The AP RFID cards I've never had an issue with. MB yes, Cards no.

In nov I got me and my son into Epcot at RD at noon we were meeting the rest of our party at AK. Nether band worked. That is what baffles me. I understand the bands not working one day because the tinkered with the back end data base but I would think production data base would be off limits durning the day for any changes.

Something HAD TO CHANGE between 9:02 and noonish. We didn't go to GS or anything just got into Epcot and rode soarinx2, TT, SSE, and figment.

 

[DisMN]

Not that I'm happy at all that others like you guys have had problems BUT I'm happy to find out that we aren't the only ones. We fully expected a glitch here and there but nothing as bad as it's been. I gave up on the whole thing after our 4th day and am fully dependent on guest services for all our fastpass and dining reservation needs.

I had done what I thought was all the right things from home weeks before we left but none of that mattered once we got there.
Part of our lingering frustration now I think is that we were led to believe there were very few others having issues or problems with either the magic bands or the MDE website/phone app. As the week has gone on we're hearing more and more people expressing disgust, frustration and outright anger at a system that pretty clearly is NOT ready for prime time.

A big question we have now is will our account ever get straightened out? It's mighty messed up and I have my doubts.

I wish all you folks plenty of luck with your upcoming trips. There ARE many people who have had flawless trips using the new system so it CAN work...but it may only be luck that makes it work one day to the next. Lol

 

[MinnieVanMom]

Is there an idea of when the new system will just be the system? I want to return to WDW but with the change in the GAC to DAS, magic band issues and going alone with DS, I just can't see going.

It has be easy for me as I have to deal with DS. There is no way I could keep getting him to go back and forth to the front desk. It would be the total autism melt down and not pretty.

We want to return but must know that things are working properly so it can be enjoyable. When will the kinks be worked out.

 

[Msmithmd]

We want to return but must know that things are working properly so it can be enjoyable. When will the kinks be worked out.

On the one hand, you're asking the $1.5 billion dollar question. No one really knows for sure.

On the other hand, I think that a small and very vocal minority have major issues and post these to disboards.

To be clear, as would I, if I had the horror stories some members have experienced. But by and large, the bands do seem to be working very well for most members the majority of the time.

Now GAC going away, and FP+? Those changes are here to stay, it seems. Additional changes could and will occur, but nobody thinks either of these systems will return to anything resembling what they were a couple years ago.

 

[hmillerbarilla]

I feel your pain OP.

Disney thought I had 9 children, but I really only have 3. It took almost 3 hours on the phone for them to eliminate the extra children.

Then, we went to the World, and I try to get fast passes and suddenly I have 5 children.

We went to the Guest Services at DTD and again, spend over an hour with them. They think it's old accounts that are tripping us up. (why????) She also said anything booked and done with DVC adds to the confusion as the two computer systems don't "mesh" well together.

I've given up.

I feel like MDE was created for the family of 4 that buys regular park tickets and stays in ONE room. All the rest of us seem to be screwing the system up.

 

[com_op_2000]

Please, everyone that is having issues with MBs, room access, and FP+.
Let dvcmembersatification@dvcmember.com know the issues you are encountering. Be as specific and detailed in your e-mail as possible. I have already complained multiple times, a complaint was suppose to be sent up the chain-of-command , and nothing appears to have been done to correct my issues .
If DVC is not aware of ALL issues and how many are having them they will not do anything to correct the problems.

 

[wench]

It's so sad to hear how many issues everyone is having with their magic bands & MDE. When my son & I stayed at AKL last October, it all worked perfectly.

We had two 5 day PH that I received as part of the DVC signing bonus. I linked those to MDE & was able to make my FP+ reservations for all 8 days of our stay, even though the tickets were for 5. It did make it a little harder for guest services to upgrade my tickets. They had to take them off of the magic bands, change them to 8 days & then put them back on the bands. But, even that only took 10 minutes or so. And taking the tickets off the bands, did not mess up any of our FP+ selections.

As far as I know, both bands worked to open our room the entire trip. I say as far as I know because I didn't get to use mine much. My son thought it was so neat, that he would race ahead of me in the hall, so that he could use his band to open the door each time.

We had the Deluxe DP & the bands always worked to use our meal credits. Although some of the servers did seem confused about how to scan & apply the credit using the handheld scanners they're now given. But, they all seemed to figure it out in the end. When using our snack credits, I sometimes had to scan the band more than once for it to process, but the CM's all seemed to attribute that to a problem with the touchpoint scanners at the registers. In fact there was a very strong concensus from them that the touchpoint scanners weren't very reliable, even when I was swiping a credite card on them. I can't really comment on using the magic band to make purchases. I prefer to use my credit card for all purchases, so I can log into my account & check my spending as I go.

As for MDE, other than being slow I was always able to use it ok. Certain things seem way easier using the app, rather than my PC. For example, I preferred booking dining reservations on the PC & FP+ on the app. But, both would work for each in a pinch.

I even found that I like FP+, when I was pretty sure I was going to hate it. Since we eat at almost exclusively at TS, I had to make my dining reservations 180 days out anyways. Knowing where we would be at one time of day made it pretty easy to book FP+ ahead of time too. I found that all in all, we did so much less backtracking around the parks than we used to. And my feet were so thankful for that! Plus, if we got to an attraction with our FP+, only to find the standby time was really short, it was super easy to hop on my app & change that FP+ to something else.

Still, even though my experiences were great, I'm fearful for my trip this October. Hearing so many issues from everyone now.... It seems like the technology worked better when fewer people were testing it. And now that it's out there for everyone there are a lot more problems. I guess I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed & hope that most the bugs are worked out by October. And for everyone that's having a hard time right now, please try to hold out hope. When everything works as it should, this system really can make your trip, so much easier!

 

[hmillerbarilla]

Glad to hear your trip went well with MDE.

I know the majority of my personal MDE issues are because my kids don't always stay in my room. Say we book 2 moderates. Instead of choosing the kids listed on my MDE, they "create" additional kids and put these new children in the other room with my sister or my husband or me. I have 3 kids, so when we're not staying DVC, we're in 2 mod rooms with my sister as well.

Suddenly, she was managing 4 of my 9 children when in reality I only have 3.

As I said, MDE seems to be created for the family of 4 that is all in the same room, with tickets especially for the trip.

ahhhhh! I hope mine is all straightened out by this summer.