Warning about magnets and room keys

[minnieandmickey]

Not sure if this has been posted in the past, but I wanted to share and experience that I had.

I had purchased some great travel purses through a shopping club on tv. They have magnetic closures on them, well the magnets would demagnatize my room keys, and then I would have to wait for a CM to go and get me a ticket to enter a park, on top of having to get me a new room key. This happened twice before we realized (a great CM at Epcot figured it out) what the problem was. And I guess this is becoming a more frequent problem at the parks. Seems alot of things come with magnets on them, and the machines were made before the whole "magnet" revolution. The Epcot CM told me that he has had women with purses, to men who put them in there pocket with their "magnatized" clip on sunglasses (I have these also). So now I am on a search for something small and stylish that do not have magnets in them for my disney trips. Just a warning......

 

[Gymbomom]

Demagnatizing (in our case our AP's) was a HUGE problem for our family. The 4 of us never had a problem with our AP's demagnatizing, but my sister and bro in law had it happen 4 times. It was a huge pain for them. They were keeping them in her diaper bag, then they switched them to my bil wallet, still they kept getting demagnatized.

 

[UrsulasShadow]

I was told that cellphones mess them up as well, so don't keep them in the same pocket as your cellphone.

 

[bunnysmum]

This was an unexpected and very unwelcome glitch in our plans. Mom and I had purchased quilted backpack purses especially for this trip. I could NOT figure out how our cards were becoming demagnitized because we were keeping them around our neck in a little plastic card holder attached to a lanyard.

The cards were NOT near our cell phones or cameras, which were inside our purses on our backs, and our cards were on the lanyards on our, um...fronts.

I couldn't figure it out until I opened my purse once and realized that every time I opened it or closed it, I held it against my body and the magnet rested right on top of the card.

After that, I made a conscientious effort to keep the purse AWAY from my body when opening and closing it (hard to do!), and we had no more demagnitizing problems after that.

Yeah, I was surprised NOT to read more about this nasty problem on the boards prior to our trip, too. It happened to us every day for 4 days 'til we figured out what the problem was. Kinda slow on our part...

 

[mattsdragon]

Magnets will also kill credit cards. This isn't a new development, it's been a known ever since they went to magnetized strips on cards in the 80s.

 

[byoung]

Thanks for the info.

 

[iNTeNSeBLue98]

Interesting, my handbag has a magnet closure but I have not had any problems with the mag-striped cards in my wallet that I keep insdie the handbag. My cell phone is inside my handbag a lot of time too.

Are you placing the tickets/room keys directly in the bag with magnetic closure and not inside another protective accessory?

 

[ruttie]

I have ad to replace all my cards in my purse 2x plus my disney passes... first though it was phone, then my purse, finally on teh 3rd go around we were told that putting your room key/anual pass in with your credit cards will kill them... I am sure that is the case becasue this last time all i had woth me were my credit card, room key and seasonal pass... and they all got kille di think they zappedeach eother....

 

[bunnysmum]

One more thing...my dd5 had two really cute backpack purses that she used on the trip that we had made by an eBay seller who uses velcro strips instead of magnetic closures. Not only were they just adorable and incredibly well-constructed, but she got lots of compliments on them since hers were one-of-a-kind and no one had seen any like them.


I think I'll have my own bag made next time with velcro!

(We did not keep our cards near any credit cards, btw, they were carried individually inside plastic sleeves on our lanyards. I think the purse's magnetic closures were particularly strong...)

 

[fran99999]

Not to hijack the thread but a friend of mine was nice enough to have a picture of my DS made on a magnet for my desk at work. OK great. Well I keep my CPU on my desk as it is a tower. You guessed it she surprised me by putting this lovely picture ON the side of the CPU. I had to explain to my boss why MY hard drive was erased, demagnetized whatever, without getting my nice friend fired for her help

 

[Princessmom2]

Yes, I demagnetized my pass without realizing it when I kept it in the same part of my fanny pack as my sunglasses, which are the magnetized clip kind. My teenager immediately knew what I had done! So now I have to make an effort to keep them apart.

 

[salmoneous]

Just to continue with the hijack - the good news is that there is absolutely no way consumer magnet on the outside of a tower case could damage a hard drive. If you boss got mad at you or your friend, tell them to appoligize

 

[KS Jeff]

You can add me to the list of people who accidentally demagnetized their pass with magnetic clip-on sunglasses. DD figured it out when I couldn't get the Fastpass machine to work at Test Track.

 

[disneyaggie]

Thanks for the heads up, folks!

 

[minijeanie]

I demagnitized also,...so did all my family members. DH kept cards in his wallet so we couldn't figure out what happened. It was a pain in the butt every day having to go to guest relations to bring it up to snuff.

Quite honestly, I think in this day of technology, someone could come up with something better. Between the AP's not working and the stupid finger identification, It seems you can get through airport security more easier than wdw these days