Two families in one room, do I understand how Magic Band and G+ will work?

[bettymae1121]

Currently planning a trip for June 2023 for my daughter and me, along with my friend and her daughter (who is also DD's BFF). We are all staying in a single room and of course are on the same reservation booked via my Disney online account, my friend doesn't currently have one.

Naturally we want to split costs like meals, G+ costs, and other purchases made via our MBs or MDE accounts so want to make sure I understand this correctly. My friend will need to make her own MDE account for herself and link the package (hotel and base park passes) and add her own credit card for payments. Once we have our MBs for the trip I link our two MBs to my DME account and my friend links her MBs to her account. Then anytime we use our MBs or MDE to pay for things, the correct credit card is charged. Is this correct, am I missing a step (or two), or did I totally misunderstand everything?

Two questions I do have - first, is once her account is created and we've all purchased G+ for the day, can either of us book LL for the whole party (all four of us) or do we have to do that separately? And second, we already included Memory Maker in the package so how does that play in to each of us having separate MDE accounts?

 

[subtchr]

You have a few misunderstandings.

First of all, does she have a profile under your account at this time? I assume so, since you said the reservation is booked under your account.

If that is the case, and she creates her own account, it's not quite as simple as her just linking the reservation to her account. She will need to merge the profile under your account, with her new one. There are ways that can be done online, but honestly, it's easiest to just call Disney IT to accomplish this.

But unless she really wants/needs her own account, she doesn't need to do that at all. You can continue to manage everything for everyone under your account. Of course she may WANT to have her own, in which case I'd do what I suggested above.

If she does create her account, she will want to link a credit card to it, to be able to mobile order food, buy Genie+ & ILL, etc. But this has NOTHING to do with MagicBand charges for Disney resort guests. Those charges go to the room folio, not directly to the credit card. So unless you want all the MagicBand charges for all 4 of you to go to your folio, and be charged to your credit card at the end of the stay, you will have to stop at the front desk when you arrive, and specifically set it up so that her charges go to her card, not yours. There is no way to do this in advance of arrival.

If you buy your MagicBands through MDE (which I recommend, for the $10 savings on each one), they will automatically be linked to the registered guests you choose them for. You don't have to link anything.

For Genie+, that is correct. You could each purchase Genie+ for the day, and then either one of you can book attractions for the entire party. For Individual Lightning Lanes, it will be easiest if one person buys them for everyone, then the other one reimburses later.

For Memory Maker, whoever purchases the MM package will be the only one who can see all the pics without the watermark. But that person can see and download the pics from everyone on her Friends and Family list.

 

[Miffy]

"So unless you want all the MagicBand charges for all 4 of you to go to your folio, and be charged to your credit card at the end of the stay, you will have to stop at the front desk when you arrive, and specifically set it up so that her charges go to her card, not yours. There is no way to do this in advance of arrival."

The blue text above is a quote from the previous post.

I have a warning about this. About a year before the pandemic, my sister and I were staying together at AKL and when we checked in, I linked my MB to my credit card. My sister was the lead on the reservation (I mention this only so what follows might make sense).

The first thing I used my MB for was charged to my credit card so I assumed this would hold true going forward. However, except for that first charge, everything else I used my MB to charge was charged to my sister's cc, not mine. Since I didn't check on this until the end of the stay, it was too late to do anything about it.

Of course, this is my sister and we worked things out. Not a big deal. But since then I've used my actual credit card to pay for things at WDW, not my MB. I do not trust this system.

However, MDE is a totally different thing. We have separate MDEs and when I mobile order, for example, it's automatically charged to my cc. Same with hers.

 

[bettymae1121]

Ok thank you both! I'd forgotten that the MBs charge the room not the CC linked to the app, but that shouldn't be a big deal, she can always just pay by pulling out a credit card or using Apple Pay rather than her MB.

I'll ask her if she wants to do her own MDE account - she might as we could split up at some point so we each have some dedicated Mom/Daughter time and that way we can manage our own LL, or she may decide it's not needed - I can buy G+ for all four of us and she can just reimburse me her half. Me being the only one with Memory Maker access isn't a big deal, I can download everything and get copies to her easily enough.

The trip isn't until June so plenty of time to figure things out, that's why I'm asking now - to make sure I understand how it all works so we can decide the best way to proceed.

Thanks again!