Split Stay Offsite then Onsite.. Magicband Confusion

[Vandrusiek]

Hey everyone! I've checked around and haven't seen a post about this and I'm a little lost. My husband and I are going to Disney in October for 2 weeks. The first week we will be staying in rental house with his parents, then the 2nd week we will be staying at Pop Century. We get the free magicbands for staying onsite, but they don't ship to Canada. My question is, Is there any way for me to get them at the beginning of our trip while staying at the rental house and not just at check in the 2nd week? Does anyone know if the magicbands arrive at the resorts earlier than check in and we could maybe "pop" into Pop and get them at the beginning of our trip? Or, I live close to the U.S border, would they maybe ship to an address close to there for me to pick up? We do have old bands from 2016, would those work? If we used those would we still get the new ones later? Sorry in advance for so many questions, I just really want to have them the whole trip and not just the last half. We havent called Disney yet, I was hoping to see if there was anyone with previous experience so we could avoid a long distance call. Thanks!

 

[AngelDisney]

What kind of tickets do you have? Did you book a package? If you didn't book a package, you don't need magicbands to access your tickets. More details are needed to answer your questions. I believe your old magicbands should work, but you still need to check in first in order to activate your tickets. Probably you can visit GS to activate the tickets before onsite check in.

Here is a thread I found. Hope it helps:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/using-park-tickets-before-check-in.3341302/

If you use Google Hangouts App to call, you don't have to pay long distance.

 

[Donald - my hero]

Hey everyone! I've checked around and haven't seen a post about this and I'm a little lost. My husband and I are going to Disney in October for 2 weeks. The first week we will be staying in rental house with his parents, then the 2nd week we will be staying at Pop Century. We get the free magicbands for staying onsite, but they don't ship to Canada. My question is, Is there any way for me to get them at the beginning of our trip while staying at the rental house and not just at check in the 2nd week? Does anyone know if the magicbands arrive at the resorts earlier than check in and we could maybe "pop" into Pop and get them at the beginning of our trip? Or, I live close to the U.S border, would they maybe ship to an address close to there for me to pick up? We do have old bands from 2016, would those work? If we used those would we still get the new ones later? Sorry in advance for so many questions, I just really want to have them the whole trip and not just the last half. We havent called Disney yet, I was hoping to see if there was anyone with previous experience so we could avoid a long distance call. Thanks!

1) Yes, they will ship your bands to a US address (not 100% sure how others do this exactly but i know when i ordered my Annual Pass band i was able to input my resort address or a different US address - might require a phone call)

2) I've heard of a few saying they were able to pick up their magic bands early BUT I doubt this since Pop is huge and not sure when they would arrive at the resort --- they are mailed out about 30 days ahead of arrival date so they are obviously ready but when they actually send them , not sure.

3) YES your old bands will work perfectly for all you need them --tickets, photopass, FP+ lines. We took all of our bands with us and even the ones from 2014 worked for opening the parking gate (keep one in the car), opening our room door, checking in at Magical Express AND the first bonus night we added at Music (beating a freezing rain storm) If you look at your MDE account you will see a list of all of your magic bands that are active and as soon as you link a ticket to yourself it will be attached to your band. The only thing they might not work for is the long range features -- ride photos, so if those are important for you to have you'll need to make sure you tap your band on the way out of the rides OR in the case of the ones that don't have a tap (Mine ride & Frozen) you'll need to ride it again. You can check once you get off the ride though -- even if you didn't pre-pay for Memory Maker they will be on your account to view.

4) YES, every on-site stay triggers Magic Bands unless you physically decline them on your MDE account.We just keep ordering different colours of bands so we can match them to our moods, outfits AND they look nice on my desk!

Have a blast, longer stays are wonderful because you don't need to feel pressured if a park is busy you can leave for a few hours and go resort hopping and then head back, OR if you have hoppers, head to a different park

 

[Vandrusiek]

1) Yes, they will ship your bands to a US address (not 100% sure how others do this exactly but i know when i ordered my Annual Pass band i was able to input my resort address or a different US address - might require a phone call)

2) I've heard of a few saying they were able to pick up their magic bands early BUT I doubt this since Pop is huge and not sure when they would arrive at the resort --- they are mailed out about 30 days ahead of arrival date so they are obviously ready but when they actually send them , not sure.

3) YES your old bands will work perfectly for all you need them --tickets, photopass, FP+ lines. We took all of our bands with us and even the ones from 2014 worked for opening the parking gate (keep one in the car), opening our room door, checking in at Magical Express AND the first bonus night we added at Music (beating a freezing rain storm) If you look at your MDE account you will see a list of all of your magic bands that are active and as soon as you link a ticket to yourself it will be attached to your band. The only thing they might not work for is the long range features -- ride photos, so if those are important for you to have you'll need to make sure you tap your band on the way out of the rides OR in the case of the ones that don't have a tap (Mine ride & Frozen) you'll need to ride it again. You can check once you get off the ride though -- even if you didn't pre-pay for Memory Maker they will be on your account to view.

4) YES, every on-site stay triggers Magic Bands unless you physically decline them on your MDE account.We just keep ordering different colours of bands so we can match them to our moods, outfits AND they look nice on my desk!

Have a blast, longer stays are wonderful because you don't need to feel pressured if a park is busy you can leave for a few hours and go resort hopping and then head back, OR if you have hoppers, head to a different park

1) Yes, they will ship your bands to a US address (not 100% sure how others do this exactly but i know when i ordered my Annual Pass band i was able to input my resort address or a different US address - might require a phone call)

2) I've heard of a few saying they were able to pick up their magic bands early BUT I doubt this since Pop is huge and not sure when they would arrive at the resort --- they are mailed out about 30 days ahead of arrival date so they are obviously ready but when they actually send them , not sure.

3) YES your old bands will work perfectly for all you need them --tickets, photopass, FP+ lines. We took all of our bands with us and even the ones from 2014 worked for opening the parking gate (keep one in the car), opening our room door, checking in at Magical Express AND the first bonus night we added at Music (beating a freezing rain storm) If you look at your MDE account you will see a list of all of your magic bands that are active and as soon as you link a ticket to yourself it will be attached to your band. The only thing they might not work for is the long range features -- ride photos, so if those are important for you to have you'll need to make sure you tap your band on the way out of the rides OR in the case of the ones that don't have a tap (Mine ride & Frozen) you'll need to ride it again. You can check once you get off the ride though -- even if you didn't pre-pay for Memory Maker they will be on your account to view.

4) YES, every on-site stay triggers Magic Bands unless you physically decline them on your MDE account.We just keep ordering different colours of bands so we can match them to our moods, outfits AND they look nice on my desk!

Have a blast, longer stays are wonderful because you don't need to feel pressured if a park is busy you can leave for a few hours and go resort hopping and then head back, OR if you have hoppers, head to a different park

What kind of tickets do you have? Did you book a package? If you didn't book a package, you don't need magicbands to access your tickets. More details are needed to answer your questions. I believe your old magicbands should work, but you still need to check in first in order to activate your tickets. Probably you can visit GS to activate the tickets before onsite check in.

Here is a thread I found. Hope it helps:
https://www.disboards.com/threads/using-park-tickets-before-check-in.3341302/

If you use Google Hangouts App to call, you don't have to pay long distance.

We don't have a package, we got tickets with the Canadian ticket deal. I know we don't need to have the magicbands to use our tickets, we would just preffer to have them. It's more fun lol. I'm hoping if we can't get them ahead of time our old ones work! I'll check out that link. Thanks!

 

[Vandrusiek]

1) Yes, they will ship your bands to a US address (not 100% sure how others do this exactly but i know when i ordered my Annual Pass band i was able to input my resort address or a different US address - might require a phone call)

2) I've heard of a few saying they were able to pick up their magic bands early BUT I doubt this since Pop is huge and not sure when they would arrive at the resort --- they are mailed out about 30 days ahead of arrival date so they are obviously ready but when they actually send them , not sure.

3) YES your old bands will work perfectly for all you need them --tickets, photopass, FP+ lines. We took all of our bands with us and even the ones from 2014 worked for opening the parking gate (keep one in the car), opening our room door, checking in at Magical Express AND the first bonus night we added at Music (beating a freezing rain storm) If you look at your MDE account you will see a list of all of your magic bands that are active and as soon as you link a ticket to yourself it will be attached to your band. The only thing they might not work for is the long range features -- ride photos, so if those are important for you to have you'll need to make sure you tap your band on the way out of the rides OR in the case of the ones that don't have a tap (Mine ride & Frozen) you'll need to ride it again. You can check once you get off the ride though -- even if you didn't pre-pay for Memory Maker they will be on your account to view.

4) YES, every on-site stay triggers Magic Bands unless you physically decline them on your MDE account.We just keep ordering different colours of bands so we can match them to our moods, outfits AND they look nice on my desk!

Have a blast, longer stays are wonderful because you don't need to feel pressured if a park is busy you can leave for a few hours and go resort hopping and then head back, OR if you have hoppers, head to a different park

Thanks for answering my questions. I really appreciate it. I will check to see if our old magic bands are still active and go from there. Also will see what I can do about shipping to the store across the border! If there is a good Fall room deal we might ask about the bands during that time if we haven't figured anything else out. Very excited about this trip, we have done split stays before but this is the first time we don't do the disney resort first! Thanks again! Took alot of weight off my shoulders!

 

[Vandrusiek]

Donald - my hero, I just realized it posted my draft response for some reason, so I deleted it since i just replied again lol. I dont know if you had noticed or not. Sorry about that! Im new to how these forums work!