We love Magic Bands!

[lawgator]

We haven't even been here a full 24 hours yet but we love the Magic Bands so far.

We've used them to get into the rooms, buy food at the F&W kiosks, buy food at restaurants, and buy gifts.

The FP+ is awesome - we like Soarin and Toy Story but not enough to stand in line OR race for FP's. But we like them enough to arrange FP+ for them.

I know it will go away once testing is over but we've been able to "triple dip" for FPs - magic bands for FP+ and we've been able to use both our AP's and our KTTW cards (which do not have any tickets linked to them) to pull legacy FPs.

Anyways, I just wanted to share my two cents amidst all the negative reports or anxiety about upcoming trips. For us, the Magic Bands have been awesome!

Just got back from a 4 night stay at OKW where we tried the magic bands and I have to agree that although it was a bit of a pain to set up everyone's account (duplicate profiles and other problems), it was nice in the long run to have the convenience of the fp+. I got right on the Toy Story ride this morning while watching a mob of people race for the only 2 fast pass dispensers they have open now. The cast member I spoke with while waiting a few minutes for my entry time told me that ride is the most popular ride in all 4 theme parks and most the paper fast passes are gone now before 10am...if not sooner. They dispense fewer paper fast passes now and only use 2 dispensers because of the magic bands fp+. We did have some problems with not all of our family (who are connected on the mde site) not showing up in the account for some of us (making it impossible to order fp+ for everyone in our group) and another issue arose when the cast member I renewed my annual pass with somehow reported to the system that my magic band was "lost" (it was always on my wrist) so it stopped working and took another trip to guest services for them to finally sort that out. We tried the triple dipping for just one of the rides to see if it worked and it did...at least for now. Oh, and I totally agree with the other comments that the mde app is really slow and freezes up frequently. It seemed to work a bit better on my sister's iphone than my Samsung Galaxy phone. It was much easier to do all the internet stuff in the room beforehand, but sometimes one needs to change the times of the fp+ on the fly. I do think it is a great idea and will be even better when some of the problems are worked out and both the users and the cast members become more familiar with the system.

sorry for the double post. can the moderator please delete one? thank you

 

[LisaS]

We've had a very good experience so far with our Magic Bands and have been surprised at all of the ways in which they can be used. In addition to using them to get into our room and the parks and to pay for things in the shops, at the F&W booths and counter service restaurants, we've used them to open the gate to the hotel parking lot and the stairway doors into the building, and even to pay for table service meals. The wait staff have portable readers that they bring to your table to read your band or room key. They then hand you the device so you can enter your 4-digit code.

Tonight we drove over to AKV for dinner. We pulled up to the guard hut and said that we had a dining reservation. The guard asked DH to stick out his arm and he used a portable device to read DH's Magic Band and then opened the gate for us.

Every time we use the bands to open a gate or a locked door, they really do feel like magic bands.

ETA: Since we don't get into the parks really early in the morning, we often miss out on FPs for popular attractions so FP+ is great for us. I don't find the FP+ application very easy to use however. It takes several iterations to end up with fast passes for convenient times. Quite often the app offers me FP+ times that conflict with my ADRs so I have to use the "change time" feature to set them up the way I want them. I also don't see the point in forcing me to set up 3 fast passes if I only want one or two.