Not going to parks, can I skip MDE & MB fiasco?

[erionm]

Are they going to be giving out Magic Bands for each trip and mailing them out? Seems like that would get expensive.

Most likely. For cash reservations, the cost is built into the room rates. For DVC reservations, the cost might be included in our dues (possibly admin/front desk line item).

 

[bumbershoot]

I'm not interested in spending hours setting up MDE and dealing with "Magic" (Don't Work Half the Time) Bands.

Can I just get a room key? We've already decided to bag Disney Parks and do Universal instead.

Well first, if you're hitting Universal I would strongly urge you to stay at Universal instead. I'm sure it's too late, but in the future, you might think about it. The benefits of being onsite at Uni are so much better than the benefits of being onsite at WDW...

FWIW I don't like FP+, but the MBs have been fine. When we had the new cards to enter the rooms by tapping, last year in February, THOSE were terrible. But the MBs for us have been fine. I don't think it's really the MBs that mess up so much, but what's behind them, and you can't avoid those glitches just by using the cards.

That said, this page says that we can get RFID cards instead of bands.

If you prefer, you may elect to use a card instead of a MagicBand. Cards contain a passive HF Radio Frequency chip and cannot be detected by the long-range readers.

It's so much easier to have the "card" on your wrist than in your wallet. No fishing for a key late at night. Use it for charging at your resort.

Whereas I disagree. It must be a combo of my height and how my arms are, but I don't find it at all easy to open the doors with the MB (I end up taking mine off to open the door), and charging is just weird. I've started moving the mickey head *under* my wrist so I just lay my wrist in a natural position (rather than contorting it) on the reader and then my fingers are ALMOST in a perfect position to do the PIN. In the future I doubt I'll be setting up charging anymore. I never did it much before, and it's just too annoying to do it with the band for me.

I wore a lanyard with my cards in it (still do, since you pretty much still have to bring every single card with you that you did before!) so there was no fishing around for the card for me.

Are they going to be giving out Magic Bands for each trip and mailing them out? Seems like that would get expensive.

Who knows? They are now. Maybe they'll continue. Maybe not.

 

[Desnik]

I have a love/hate feeling with the MB
They didn't work well for us & it was annoying. But, I think the idea of it is really cool, if only Disney had IT that was good enough to handle such a concept, but I digress...

OP, I would love to know if you can get the old room key/card. I am thinking of a non park trip in Aug. We don't use the charging to the room either & we plan on a day or two at US. I don't want the MB. It just doesn't make sense for us for this type of trip. Please keep us posted on what happens.

 

[Sammie]

There is absolutely no reason it should take you hours to set it up, truly it's not that hard.

Even if you are not going to the park, I would want the bands. For one thing in the future if you lose one you will be required to pay to get another.

Yes they come in colors and personalize with names, and they are majorly convenient. I loved using them out last trip.

 

[jodifla]

Well first, if you're hitting Universal I would strongly urge you to stay at Universal instead. I'm sure it's too late, but in the future, you might think about it. The benefits of being onsite at Uni are so much better than the benefits of being onsite at WDW...

FWIW I don't like FP+, but the MBs have been fine. When we had the new cards to enter the rooms by tapping, last year in February, THOSE were terrible. But the MBs for us have been fine. I don't think it's really the MBs that mess up so much, but what's behind them, and you can't avoid those glitches just by using the cards.

That said, this page says that we can get RFID cards instead of bands.



Whereas I disagree. It must be a combo of my height and how my arms are, but I don't find it at all easy to open the doors with the MB (I end up taking mine off to open the door), and charging is just weird. I've started moving the mickey head *under* my wrist so I just lay my wrist in a natural position (rather than contorting it) on the reader and then my fingers are ALMOST in a perfect position to do the PIN. In the future I doubt I'll be setting up charging anymore. I never did it much before, and it's just too annoying to do it with the band for me.

I wore a lanyard with my cards in it (still do, since you pretty much still have to bring every single card with you that you did before!) so there was no fishing around for the card for me.




Who knows? They are now. Maybe they'll continue. Maybe not.

We definitely considered staying at Universal, but we have paid-for rooms at WDW. So we just didn't want the cash outlay.

Our goal was to use as little out-of-pocket cash as possible. We are using FF mile tickets, we used points for our cruise, etc. Also We are going on "moderate" days at Universal, so hopefully it will all be doable.

 

[corpcomp]

You are putting far too much stock in the horror stories. Far more guests have reported having no problems with the new technology. We have used the MBs for three trips which covered more than 20 days and we have had no problems at all.

Before I start let me day we love Disney and the bands will be very convenient when all the bugs are out.

We were there at New Years and for three days the bands would not work.

We went to the front desk a total of seven times, were given three different sets of bands and still could not get into the room, or buy food which was annoying after waiting in line, ordering and then finding out we could not pay with the bands. And we did assign pins to the bands for purchasing. We could get into the parks with them which was strange. The confused look on the faces of the front desk and back room operations people as they stared at the computer screens trying to figure it all out explained it all and they put in a tremendous amount of effort to help us. So kudos to the front desk staff at BCV. They finally gave us old room cards and a whole bunch of paper fast passes and later compensated us for our trouble. They told us about 10 % had trouble and ours was one of the worst. Glad we got the fast passes as the lines for people that did not pre reserve times through MDE were incredibly long.

Just had a friend call me after going last week for spring break saying she hated the ride reserve system and the long waits at the new kiosks although she waited till the last minute and most of the good times were gone. I found that you really need to reserve the fast pass times about two weeks in advance to get the best times as more people are figuring it out.

So as a result, people are buying 20% more with the band system. Disney therefore raises the park prices for the second time in a year. My advice is to Buy disney stock.

 

[corpcomp]

Most likely. For cash reservations, the cost is built into the room rates. For DVC reservations, the cost might be included in our dues (possibly admin/front desk line item).

No you keep them and can use the again for the next trip. In your MDE profile the bands and their individual codes are listed.

 

[Countryrunner262]

No you keep them and can use the again for the next trip. In your MDE profile the bands and their individual codes are listed.

We went in December and are going again in April, and they sent us new bands. I was thinking we could have used our old ones...guess not.

 

[Donut23]

One question.

If you are planning to spend your days away from WDW, why on earth would you want to wear the plastic bands during the day?

We tried them. I am very uncomfortable with jewelry on my wrists, even as a child. My watches have always been very loose bracelet types. The MBs were never comfortable. I kept mine in my purse eventually.

I'm unique, I know. To me, they are shackles.

 

[wdrl]

We went in December and are going again in April, and they sent us new bands. I was thinking we could have used our old ones...guess not.

Yes, you can use your MagicBands from your prior trip. As long as you continue to show a MagicBand as 'active' on your MDE, you can use it on future trips.

 

[corpcomp]

Yes, you can use your MagicBands from your prior trip. As long as you continue to show a MagicBand as 'active' on your MDE, you can use it on future trips.

Exactly

 

[DMKEDM]

We've done two trips w/Magic Bands now...the last one was last month, and we did request (and get) an old-style KTTW card...

We're in the 10%...we had hours' worth of problems on both trips with the new technology (the first trip was to SSR in November; the second to VGF in February)...

Most of the problems were with FP+...had no issues getting into the parks and while it took some finagling to get in to our villa at GFV w/the magic bands, they always did work...and we had the KTTW cards when we ran out of patience w/the "positioning of the wrist" issues to get the bands to work...

The problems w/FP+ were huge, time-consuming and very annoying...but ultimately resolved. The CMs at the GFV were particularly nice & tried very hard to be helpful (I also tried (but failed) to resolve the issues, over the course of multiple hours and phone calls prior to leaving home)--

As far as my experience goes, if you have a straightforward reservation with everything you're doing done thru Disney, you should be fine--one of our problems was w/the UT park hopper my friend had--I could NOT link it to My Disney Experience (and thus could not get her any FP+ reservations)--as it turned out the CMs at GFV couldn't get it to link either...after several hours, they just issued my friend a new ticket, which they linked and copied my FP+ reservations to--so it worked out, but took all of our check-in day--we got the new stuff that night. If, however, you have any "unusual things," there may be issues. E.g., for my upcoming trip in June, I have 2 nights on points, one night on cash and 2 nights on points, plus an AP that expires mid-trip (the plan is to renew while I'm there). So, I will either have to plan on lots of time to sort things out, or just do without ... my choice is to do without--I'm not planning on using FPes at all this upcoming trip...no way I'm gonna spend all that time, particularly while I'm on site, trying to make the "buggy" system work!

For me, that's ok...I go to Disney a lot and a trip where I ride few (maybe no?) rides isn't a huge problem for me...

But for me, the issue is "My Disney Experience" and FP+...I use a different email address for "commercial" purposes and Disney has my two email addresses completely (and seemingly irrevocably) confused...makes using MDE really painful. So my "solution" is to just not use it.

I very much dislike this new system. But there appears to be little or no choice about using it. Either you do without "the goodies" it provides when it works, or you put up with the (many) bugs (unless you have a very simple trip plan)...

As for charging...I decided under no circumstances will I ever put my credit card information "on file" (or on MDE or on a magic band) for any reason...the convenience is so not worth having my credit card connected to a system with so many bugs and flaws...

That said, when the magic bands work, they are quite convenient (if you don't find something on your wrist annoying)...I particularly liked it when coming back in from a swim or hike...mine did come off, once, altho I noticed it right away and refastened it and it was fine...and it is probably no more of a risk to lose a band than it is to lose a KTTW card...

As for staying at Disney while going to US/IOA--I did that last year and it worked out really well...my friends did book a room at a US hotel, and the room was nowhere near as nice as our OKW villa...the "early access" was nice (they put me on the room w/them, altho I went back to OKW to sleep), but the days we went we didn't need it (even for Harry Potter)...and there's much to be said for not paying for a hotel room when you have points to use! Of course, getting to US from Disney is an issue if you don't have a car...it's a pricey cab ride, or a time-consuming (reserving/getting there) bus ride...still, at over $200/night for the US hotel room, those points villas at Disney are mighty appealing!

 

[bumbershoot]

As for staying at Disney while going to US/IOA--I did that last year and it worked out really well...my friends did book a room at a US hotel, and the room was nowhere near as nice as our OKW villa...the "early access" was nice (they put me on the room w/them, altho I went back to OKW to sleep), but the days we went we didn't need it (even for Harry Potter)...

Going from OKW to the Loews resorts is hard. We went from a 2 bedroom then 1 bedroom at OKW over to Royal Pacific on our first stay, which was definitely difficult!

But for us it's the perks (and staying at Portofino if possible, not RPR) that make it for us. Even if it's a difference of 2 minutes waiting in line vs 5, that adds up at the end of the day. Makes us happy.

We definitely considered staying at Universal, but we have paid-for rooms at WDW. So we just didn't want the cash outlay.

I totally understand.

We went in December and are going again in April, and they sent us new bands. I was thinking we could have used our old ones...guess not.

You can absolutely use the old ones. Right now they are sending new bands for each unique reservation number. That means that in January when I was stringing "free" nights through hotels.com and our remaining few DVC points together into FOUR resort reservations, we got four sets of bands. We brought them all (including the set from an October stay and the grey band I got during that Oct stay b/c I thought I had forgotten my band) and used them interchangeably with no band-based issues.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

I think you are putting too much on the horror stories of MBs. The reality is that they use RFID technology just like the old resort keys did. You can probably ask for a traditional RFID key, but there's no real difference between having it on a card or in the band.

Not that Disney room keys were ever reliable. The new system just makes the issues worse.

 

[jodifla]

As an update: We did get the Mickey bands personalized, since they were coming to us anyway! And just in the knick of time. So know we have two sets in fun colors.

We told our son today about our trip, and that we would be going to Universal instead of Disney theme parks. He took it pretty well, I thought.

We haven't told him yet about the cruise! We'll do that on Friday.