Recent Magic Band Experience

[Chad819]

I was at Pop for 5 nights during the first week of February. I was concerned about having issue with the band and having to waste time getting problems fixed. But I did not have any problems at all with it. It worked perfectly fine for the room, fast passes, dining plan, park entrance and purchases. I did not have even one minor negative instance. It was rather convenient.

Even though it worked fine I still hate the fast pass plus system. It was very irritating not being able to have a FP in more than one park on the same day. Not to mention being very limiting unless I want to wait in a long lines to ride something a second time. I also hated having to plan out that much and if you change your mind on plans then you have to go and change fast pass times.

I think this will be my last Disney trip for a good while. I will eventually go back again someday. I loved going to Disney but this time it really was not that great of a trip for the money spent. I spent the first half of my trip at Universal and had a much better time there.

 

[FiggieFan]

Sorry to hear you didn't have the best time.
We just got back from 11 nights at POFQ. We really liked the magic bands much more than we could have anticipated. It made things very easy. I had a problem one day entering EPCOT and someone was over immediately with an iPad and reset my band. They said I wasn't using the same finger for the fingerprint scanner, but I know I was. There were a few times in restaurants they had to come back and scan several times because of bad connections, especially at Raglan Road, but overall we thought it was much better than getting out the old cards all of the time. I loved it to get into the resort rooms.
I did find accessing the MDE app from the parks and resort to be difficult. I have never had problems with this at home (South Jersey), but found that using wi-fi in the parks or the app, was not that reliable or efficient. I ended up turning off wi-fi in the parks because I was getting too many errors about "blips in the network". A CM said she had the same issue and thinks too many people are using it at times and she also turns off wi-fi. The app did work better without wi-fi on for me.
I did find that every night I was adjusting my fast passes on the app while at the resort. I am still not 100% sold on the new FP+ system. I think my main concern was that we park hop a lot and I found it to be difficult to plan what time I would be at the second park, and to make FP's accordingly.
I was also glad I stayed on-site. The lines for the FP+ kiosk's at times were rediculous. I can't imagine getting to a park and then waiting in a long line to make my FP+ reservations for the day. Also, there were a few times that the FP+ line seemed crazy long - Buzz Lightyear was one of them. The FP+ line was out the door. On Journey of the LIttle Mermaid the FP+ scanners weren't working so they were telling everyone who approached the FP line to just go in. And we saw a crowd of older kids, who were trying to scope out all FP lines to see if they could cut and bypass standby - they successfully and easily did it at the Haunted Mansion, but didn't get anywhere when scoping out Peter Pan.
I also used FP for the Great Movie Ride just because I wanted the TSM FP and had extra FP's to use for that park. I know this sounds crazy and a bit unbelievable - we stood in the line at the GMR for 25 minutes using a FP - if you can imagine that. It would have been nice to use a FP or two at AK earlier, then just FP TSM at the end of the day, after we hopped. Yes, the standby long for the Great Movie Ride was longer............

 

[carrie1626]

I was at Pop for 5 nights during the first week of February. I was concerned about having issue with the band and having to waste time getting problems fixed. But I did not have any problems at all with it. It worked perfectly fine for the room, fast passes, dining plan, park entrance and purchases. I did not have even one minor negative instance. It was rather convenient.
Even though it worked fine I still hate the fast pass plus system. It was very irritating not being able to have a FP in more than one park on the same day. Not to mention being very limiting unless I want to wait in a long lines to ride something a second time. I also hated having to plan out that much and if you change your mind on plans then you have to go and change fast pass times.

I think this will be my last Disney trip for a good while. I will eventually go back again someday. I loved going to Disney but this time it really was not that great of a trip for the money spent. I spent the first half of my trip at Universal and had a much better time there.

 

[Chad819]

I am not sure what is seen as confusing. I did not have any technical issues which is a good thing but that does not mean I like the overall system. I have no issue with the band itself. It actually can be rather convenient. My biggest issue is with the FP+ and I hate it. I also only use a basic cell phone so that makes making any changes even a bigger issue.