PVB Tower Charts, Sales Date and more!!!

[PolyRob]

They are reconfiguring the entrance, it may change.

I searched the plans and don't believe I saw that it will be changed, but I would be happy if I was wrong!

 

[MarkNC2Disney]

I loved the resort, but did not like how busy it felt and how many people that were hanging out there that were not staying at the Poly (or even on Disney property at all! We camped out in some chairs on the beach to watch fireworks one night and heard multiple families talking about how nice it is but how they could never pay what it cost to stay at WDW...)

I think Chingy, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg put it well —

(Whachu doin?) Nothin', chillin' at the Polyday Inn…
(Who you wit'?) Me, and my family won't you bring four of your friends…
(What we gon' do?) Watching fireworks with my Lapu Lapu and toes in the sand…
One thing leading to another, then we offsite again

Sorry, couldn’t resist

 

[BigBadBobbyH]

Just curious if you were using Magicband+ or the regular Magicbands. We always have trouble with our regular mb not opening the door and wondered if guests are having trouble with the newer mb+ as well.

Hi. Family of 5. 4 of us have Magicband+ and 1 of us has the regular Magicband. None of them worked. They each had to be refreshed in the system via the employee's tablet.

 

[BigBadBobbyH]

I'm used to all that. The problem was that there was no staff in the Poly Tower when we arrived to fix those problems or even give us a key card. When you're dropped off by Mear's, with luggage, it's not the easiest thing to coordinate with people in the GCH about problems in the Tower.

yes. this was my exact point. 100% agreed. I was annoyed the MBs didn't work but I was more annoyed at figuring out how to fix the problem with my family sitting in the lobby late at night with all our luggage. It was our first time at the Tower and I didn't know there would not be someone there to help us out when we arrived.

 

[DisnEElove]

Same thing happened to me. It was annoying because I arrived late but knew we should be able to get into our room with our Magic Bands. Instead, none of our Magic Bands would work on the elevators nor, as we learned later, our rooms. We ended up searching around the main lobby for someone to help us to no avail. Eventually we found a phone on the wall and had to call over to GCH and wait for someone to come over with a tablet to fix all of our Magic Bands. I thought checking in online would have saved us time by allowing us to go straight to the tower but, in the end, it was a waste of our time.

They are definitely aware of the issues, as we were flagged down by a CM who guessed we were arriving. She said she wanted to ensure ours worked in the elevator because the tech had been glitchy. The question now is if and when they're going to correct the issue.

 

[DisnEElove]

The MB+ are known for this , i have had ones replaced - it is a little known secret that if your MB+ fails and you bring it back to the store they will frequently issue a credit for a new one. This is not written anywhere but I have had success. I have over 30 of them and have noticed 3 fail. 10% failure is not a great rate for such a simple product.

We've had the opposite experience. It was the MB2.0 that we had constant issues with. I've been shocked at how few times we've encountered problems with the MB+.

 

[emchen]

Hi. Family of 5. 4 of us have Magicband+ and 1 of us has the regular Magicband. None of them worked. They each had to be refreshed in the system via the employee's tablet.

Also family of 5 here...trip coming up end of this month through first week of October...

Can people with PIT-check-in experience chime in on current best practices for check-in during regular hours and off hours?

Regular: straight to PIT lobby?
Off: straight to Grand Ceremonial Hall (GCH)?

Can people with NO problems with MB and MB+ chime in? Especially if your MB/MB+ is “bloated” from all the visits to WDW.

Thanks in advance!

 

[DisnEElove]

Also family of 5 here...trip coming up end of this month through first week of October...

Can people with PIT-check-in experience chime in on current best practices for check-in during regular hours and off hours?

Regular: straight to PIT lobby?
Off: straight to Grand Ceremonial Hall (GCH)?

Can people with NO problems with MB and MB+ chime in? Especially if your MB/MB+ is “bloated” from all the visits to WDW.

Thanks in advance!

We checked into PIT just fine the first time because a CM proactively used their pad to re-activate our bands because she knew there was issues. The 2nd time, we just walked in and used the elevator without issues -- arrived from the parks around dinner time.

A CM told us years ago while at Contemporary having MB issues that the system starts having trouble when you have 16-20+ bands on your account... so we all stopped trying to wear a band for each outfit LOL and deactivated the ones we didn't bring on vacation. Have not had many issues since, and we've stayed at 3 different resorts in one visit recently. You can always re-activate easily in the app when you want to switch your bands up.

 

[PolyRob]

We checked into PIT just fine the first time because a CM proactively used their pad to re-activate our bands because she knew there was issues. The 2nd time, we just walked in and used the elevator without issues -- arrived from the parks around dinner time.

A CM told us years ago while at Contemporary having MB issues that the system starts having trouble when you have 16-20+ bands on your account... so we all stopped trying to wear a band for each outfit LOL and deactivated the ones we didn't bring on vacation. Have not had many issues since, and we've stayed at 3 different resorts in one visit recently. You can always re-activate easily in the app when you want to switch your bands up.

Deactivating and reactivating bands and cards in the app does not necessarily mean your MagicBands or cards will automatically work as a room key that trip unless a CM encoded them. If a green MagicBand is encoded on check-in day, but I reactivate purple days later to match my MNSSHP costume that doesn't mean purple will work on my resort room at 1am when I return even though in theory it should.

The systems don't all speak properly with My Disney Experience. I've had MagicBands manually deleted (not deactivated, actually purged) by the IT team and my My Disney Experience account rebuilt back in 2017 (purging all past MagicBands and cards) because I had "too much data" and it is still a problem.

I have not stayed at the Poly IT, but knowing how wonky Disney IT is I would never personally head right to the Poly IT outside of normal operating hours. If it was normal operating hours I would speak with a CM with an iPad in the Poly IT lobby to have MagicBands encoded before attempting to enter an elevator. Outside of normal operating hours I would stop at the GCH and do it with the front desk before proceeding to the Poly IT.

It's hard when Disney pushes direct to room access and cuts down on front desk staffing. I prefer being proactive and knowing my band on my arm will work and that I have a backup card rather than heading to my room with bags and having to double back to the front desk anyway.

 

[MarkNC2Disney]

In a pinch, just use your phone if your MB isn’t working.

 

[bakerworld]

When we checked into the Tower, the CM checked our bands but also gave us a key card.

 

[DisnEElove]

Deactivating and reactivating bands and cards in the app does not necessarily mean your MagicBands or cards will automatically work as a room key that trip unless a CM encoded them. If a green MagicBand is encoded on check-in day, but I reactivate purple days later to match my MNSSHP costume that doesn't mean purple will work on my resort room at 1am when I return even though in theory it should.

Except that is not how we do it. We only activate those bands we intend to take on the trip with us... before we complete online checkin. We've stayed at PIT 2x and will head back soon. That CM's advice has helped us tremendously, and as I stated earlier, we don't really have issues anymore with our bands not working anywhere. It went from almost every trip to 1x out of every 10 trips.

You can definitely be proactive and check at the Ceremonial House before you head over to PIT, but we're often tired after a park day and don't feel like standing in line to see someone about some bands. Reducing the number of activated bands our family has during the trip has helped us save time and given us more time for enjoyment.

 

[Xalthon]

We checked into PIT just fine the first time because a CM proactively used their pad to re-activate our bands because she knew there was issues. The 2nd time, we just walked in and used the elevator without issues -- arrived from the parks around dinner time.

A CM told us years ago while at Contemporary having MB issues that the system starts having trouble when you have 16-20+ bands on your account... so we all stopped trying to wear a band for each outfit LOL and deactivated the ones we didn't bring on vacation. Have not had many issues since, and we've stayed at 3 different resorts in one visit recently. You can always re-activate easily in the app when you want to switch your bands up.

I'm glad this worked for you, but while our family has many magic bands, I only have one activated for each person, and it still did not work at the PIT on our last vist.