No Pixie Dust Yesterday!! I Hate Magic Bands!

[Cee]

Oh my, I am so sorry. When we were there in May, everything worked perfectly. We are going in Oct. for F & W and hope to The Lord it all continues to go well.

Keep the faith!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards

 

[easleymom]

We checked in to our resort early Friday morning. We received our Magic Bands and the Cast Member verified that our tickets were attached. When we arrived at the entrance of MK, the bands would not work! We had to stand in the Guest Relations line for at least 45 minutes. The Cast Member that helped us there stated that our bands were "Frozen"
We were given a FP but unfortunately when we tried to use it, the system did not recognize we had an extra pass. Thankfully, a trip to the FP+ kiosk was able to solve this issue.
All in all, we had a great day at the MK but the whole system needs a lot more work!

 

[disneyfantotheend]

We had issues with a few of ours in November, but at that time someone would instantly come over with a n Ipad and fix it. Guess they needed those good reviews back then, when they were in *test mode*.

 

[mmmbop]

I can understand the frustration. Last October, during our wedding trip (with 20 of our closest friends and family also in attendance), I had a huge issue with my MB. After waiting over 2 hours to check in for free dining, I could not get into the room. I didn't have the time to wait around in line again, because I had to get things around for the wedding the next morning.

After a bit of running around, hubby and I stopped by MK for an early dinner before parting ways. I could get into the park no problem. For some reason, I couldn't use the DP for the meal with my MB. Hubby had no problem.

I didn't go back to the old resort that night - BMs and I stayed at CR. Turns out, I couldn't charge either! Well, it was late and I didn't have ID anyways. So we called it a night.

MKBP & wedding were fine. Got to MK in the afternoon and everyone got in fine. Only some of our guests FP were showing up even though we set everyone up for same FP. Ugh.

When i finally got back to the original resort, we tried to get our refillable mugs and were told they were redeemed. I was like uhh.. when? Long story short, my MB was connected to my grandmother. After getting called a liar by the F &B manager at pop (basically saying we were trying to get 4 mugs and how could we not remember redeeming the mugs), I couldn't even get an apology.

I did end up at the front desk several more times during the stay due to various MB issues. We spent NO time with our guests in the park. And obviously the guests question the next time they will return.

So I definitely feel your pain. Glitches are the worst. Hope you get past this bump and enjoy the rest of your vacation.

 

[Suvadoo]

We had issues with a few of ours in November, but at that time someone would instantly come over with a n Ipad and fix it. Guess they needed those good reviews back then, when they were in *test mode*.

were you there during a slower time? I'm wondering if now that the parks are busy, they do not have enough cast members available to handle the glitches.

 

[Suvadoo]

I seriously had a dream last night that Disney made an announcement that they were going back to the old FP system because the number of "glitches" they were having were unacceptable and unavoidable. They were putting back/opening up all the old FP- kiosks. I was so relieved in my dream.

I'm still hoping this happens! It seems that they need a lot of additional personnel to handle all of the glitches. I wonder how much Disney is willing to continue spending to support MDE

 

[Toffeewoffy]

The trouble with putting everything on computer is that if the computer then dies for any reason, everyone is completely scuppered. That's not necessarily Disney's fault - these things happen, sadly.

Like at work a few months back, workmen at the building site next door cut through the phone line. So, there's an office with all those people couldn't do a thing. IT, in their infinite wisdom, thought it was a bad idea to have stand-alone copies of Word on the secretaries' PCs so if the servers went down we could at least do something. No, when we went over to Office 2010 they took ALL the individual copies of Office off our PCs meaning we just sit around like spare parts when the servers go down.

When we went to Disney in February we had no issues with the MBs at all. Our onlly frustration was going to Epcot on the Sunday (of Presidents Day) and finding the queues to be absolutely huge - and only two small sections of turnstyle open. If that wasn't bad enough, it looked as if everyone who was ahead of us had the plastic cards and they were all having trouble getting in. At that point we'd have killed to have a separate entrance for MB holders!!

 

[lindanj]

Oh no! I am so sorry this happened. We are going in a week and you are living my nightmare! You have every right to be upset after all of the money and time planning. I do feel so very sorry for you and others that had to endure this. They really need to check into why this happened and fix it ASAP.

 

[charabby]

Perhaps they can't wave people through anymore due to the people bringing old magic bands in to game the system to get more fastpasses?

Beyond that though, it does suck for people caught in those glitches, which seem all too frequent based on this board. That's a shame.

 

[DisUniversal]

Can't stand Magic Bands. One of the worst things...and perhaps THE worst things on a long list of things I feel Disney has done wrong over the past decade. I think it looks silly having all your guests walk around tagged with little rubber bracelets...though it does present a huge cash grab opportunity for Disney to sell extra bracelets and 'bling' to decorate them with.

I hope they always give out legacy pass cards along with the bracelets, otherwise my days as an AP holder may come to and end. I keep my pass in my wallet so it's nice to know I can always drop in at a park if I happen to be in the area. I don't always carry around my silly looking rubber bracelet.

 

[disnut8]

That's the thing, when they work, they work, great.
But when they don't work, good luck getting it fixed.

And this is true for all computer operated systems which we are going towards. My husband and I were on vacation recently (not at Disney World) and stopped at a fast food restaurant for lunch. There was a sign on the door that said "due to a loss of internet,we are unable to accept credit card purchases at this time". We had cash so no big deal. We walked up and ordered and the counter person was using a calculator to figure out what we owed. The funny thing was she had to look back at the menu to see what things cost. We joked about that for a while with her and she was clearly stressed but eased up a bit with our conversation.

A few years ago, Delta airlines was hit with a huge bug or something and cancelled about 1,000 flights. One of them was our son and his family coming down from Ohio to join us at Disney World. My daughter-in-law's mother ended up having to drive them three hours down to Cincinnati so they could catch an uncancelled flight from there. And then my daughter-in-law's mother drove back the three hours to Toledo. Compensation from Delta? $0.

OP - I hope everything is alright with your vacation and the problems have been worked out.

 

[waltsdream]

I'm so sorry this happened to you - it can definitely suck the magic away from a vacation.

Nearly the same thing happened to us in early may. It was our first day and we also tried to get into MK, like you. One of the MBs for our party didn't work.. The CM at the turnstiles was very curt and suggested the member of our party hadn't actually bought tickets and was sneaking through, and then just pointed us to the long guest services line behind us, everyone standing in the hot sun.

We tried several different turnstiles and none of them worked... Eventually a CM with an iPad near the GS line did something very strange with her MB, sort of just waved it around in the air and tapped it to his iPad and told us to try again.. Finally it worked.

The whole process was very long and put a damper on our vacation as well, so I understand how you feel. It was my friend's first time ever at WDW and this happened to her. Unfortunately none of the CMs we talked to at MK were very magical, or polite..they did seem to think we had done something wrong when in reality it was some weird glitch. Even when we received a signed print out of our FP+ and tickets linked to our MB from the CR front desk, they didn't acknowledge it as valid. The rest of the trip we had green Mickey anxiety, and were seriously worried each time we had to use it...

Definitely something that could use better customer service. I understand working with unhappy guests all day would make anyone frustrated, but still good customer service is what disney fans are accustomed to.

Again, so sorry this has put a damper on your stay!

 

[su_A_ve]

Two trips since the introduction of MBs and no problems at all. Last one was during Weekend 4 of SWW - the busiest of them all. Previous trip was during Xmas.

System is now fully deployed.

But they may have attempted to do software upgrades or something and something obviously went wrong.

I'd request backup cards at check-in just in case.

 

[Suvadoo]

The trouble with putting everything on computer is that if the computer then dies for any reason, everyone is completely scuppered. That's not necessarily Disney's fault - these things happen, sadly.

Like at work a few months back, workmen at the building site next door cut through the phone line. So, there's an office with all those people couldn't do a thing. IT, in their infinite wisdom, thought it was a bad idea to have stand-alone copies of Word on the secretaries' PCs so if the servers went down we could at least do something. No, when we went over to Office 2010 they took ALL the individual copies of Office off our PCs meaning we just sit around like spare parts when the servers go down.

When we went to Disney in February we had no issues with the MBs at all. Our onlly frustration was going to Epcot on the Sunday (of Presidents Day) and finding the queues to be absolutely huge - and only two small sections of turnstyle open. If that wasn't bad enough, it looked as if everyone who was ahead of us had the plastic cards and they were all having trouble getting in. At that point we'd have killed to have a separate entrance for MB holders!!

I can understand computer software upgrades at work. I really hate them because it takes me twice as long to perform a task. Also, I am not paying for the "upgrades". With MDE, people are losing vacation time while Disney tries resolving the glitches. Not a good situation and really I don't see that there is good guest recovery.

 

[ShannonMB]

OP, that sounds AWFUL! I almost can't even imagine how mad I would be standing there in the heat waiting for 2 hours while they peddle water for us to buy. I hope your posting this to vent isn't your last action on the subject. I would be expecting something for my trouble for that one. Yeah, I know, I know, it's not Disney's fault that a technical difficulty happened, but THAT kind of experience is unacceptable. Unacceptable.

 

[Suvadoo]

Two trips since the introduction of MBs and no problems at all. Last one was during Weekend 4 of SWW - the busiest of them all. Previous trip was during Xmas.

System is now fully deployed.

But they may have attempted to do software upgrades or something and something obviously went wrong.

I'd request backup cards at check-in just in case.

I'm glad your vacations were great, but from what I'm reading there's problems with both the cards and the bands.

 

[jazzgirl]

OP, that sounds AWFUL! I almost can't even imagine how mad I would be standing there in the heat waiting for 2 hours while they peddle water for us to buy. I hope your posting this to vent isn't your last action on the subject. I would be expecting something for my trouble for that one. Yeah, I know, I know, it's not Disney's fault that a technical difficulty happened, but THAT kind of experience is unacceptable. Unacceptable.

I think it absolutely is Disney's fault. This is their system, and as a customer I would expect it to work properly. And when it doesn't, I would expect a better experience than what happened....Disney claims to base themselves on their care for customer service, this is NOT it.....

We haven't been to Disney since fall of 2012, I think right before MBs. I'd be lying to say I'm not a little nervous about our upcoming trip this fall....I'm kind of a bad luck magnet....

 

[unbeknownst]

I've been here since Thursday 6/26 and have had no issues with the magic bands. It even recognized my harambe nights tickets at AK yesterday and I was a little worried about that. Just wanted to give a positive experience for those with upcoming trips.

Your experience sounds awful though and unacceptable. I hope you get a better resolution.

 

[ariane37]

What good is breaking your neck to get to The MK if you can't get in??? Yesterday, I saw hundreds if not thousands of people get sent to guest relations because their magic bands didn't work! The turnstiles in front of GS don't even hold a thousand, so it looked like they masking tape and made rows on the ground... Very nice! Complete chaos! They had 3 cast members handling the crowd control, and they had no idea how to handle it! We waited for 2 hours to get it fixed! What do we get for our troubles??? A fastpass! We are supposed to go to HS today and are scared to death it will happen again. What is scary is that my husband just went to get breakfast and his mb wont open the door to our room!!! BACK TO THE FRONT DESK!!!!!

DH and I totally feel for you and I HOPE you got in HS today with no problems. We had a similar issue in Feb. trying to get in to EPCOT on the 8th day of our visit, after having been to the parks 7 days. Over an hour at GS and got an extra FP wonderful. We had gotten up early to get to RD in enough time to be at front of the crowd, and a CM also suggested we didn't actually have vaild tix. I'm going to be holding my breath every time we enter a park in Aug! Pixie dust for the rest of your trip

 

[SOnotLayuh]

I keep my pass in my wallet so it's nice to know I can always drop in at a park if I happen to be in the area. I don't always carry around my silly looking rubber bracelet.

That seems a bit dramatic. We keep ours in the glove compartment just in case we want to swing by whilst in the area. Not very difficult.