PaulaVonSchweetz
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2013
- Messages
- 430
I'm one of 'those' Disney people. One of the people who go two or three times a year. One of the people who has eaten in what feels like every single restaurant, but still seems to find a new one to try on every trip. One of the people who tells their son that all of those long walks we go on around the neighborhood are "training for Disney" walks.
My husband and I pride ourselves on being the people to go to when others are looking for advice, guidance or recommendations when it comes to booking their Disney vacations.
Also, we have always known exactly how to maximize our trips when it came to Fast Passes and Stand By lines. It was insane how much my hubby and I could accomplish in that place in 4 hours!!
We are back from another of our standard 6 day Disney trips. The first involving Magic Bands and FP+.
While we weren't overly negative when this whole Band/FP+ thing came about, we thought just booking our trip and customizing our MBs would be all we needed to do.
We were wrong.
1. We learned that you NEED to purchase park tickets in advance and link them to MDE prior to your trip - As early as possible for the best FP+ selections. We chose not to purchase until hotel check in because we were buying Annual Passes and didn't want to have wasted days on them when we were not in Disney. (Now I realize that I could have just bought them and activated them later)
Had I purchased them earlier, I would have had been able to make FP+ selections. I knew that since we were going at a slower week of the year, the stand by lines wouldn't be crazy, and honestly, with our toddler we just kind of wanted to be a little more leisurely and hit up some character greetings on our own schedule.
When we got there and did purchase our tickets, we were able to make FP+ selections for the trip, which was a fantastic thing to be able to do. While we are NOT over schedulers, we do run our entire trip around where we are eating. Make ADR, then we know which park we are in that day and just wing it for the day.
One of our days got royally messed up by one of the travelers in our party, so we wound up in EPCOT instead of HS. It was great being able to change our FP from TOT to Soarin' with just a few taps on my phone.
2. The removal of the turnstiles at the park entrances is epic! Maybe you don't have a stroller to try and push through those gates, but those of you who do, can, I'm sure agree with me that just a tap of the MB and an easy glide to get in is priceless!
3. I had ZERO issues with MB park and FP+ entry. Zero issues with reserving FP+. Zero issues with 'blue' Mickeys..... although I do wish they would light up Red for MB issues instead of Blue. Twice my husband used the wrong finger for the touch pad, and thought he was fine because the blue and green seem so similar.
4. We had a split stay starting at AKL then on to BLT. While we did customize our MBs and brought them with us to the hotels, both hotels had MBs waiting for us. Now with a split stay and 6 people in our party, that's 12 magic bands..... twice. Needless to say I've got a nice little collection going.
5. I am NEVER ever staying at AKL again. This was the 3rd time I have stayed there, and every time it was nothing but non stop problems. From cleanliness in our room at check in, to MB's not linking to our room, to nobody at the front desk able to figure out what the problem was with the MB's - not even supervisors. They gave us a new MB for the 2 that were not linking, but we still couldn't use those 2 for room entry or food purchases. Annoying. Plus, after it taking 90+ minutes (No I am NOT exaggerating) I had a cast member tell me "Whatever, I don't know what to tell you."
Sorry AKL - but that is NOT acceptable. 90 Minutes is a LOT of time in Disney to be just wasted standing in the front lobby.
6. I am so grateful that our home resort is BLT!! Check in for the remainder of our trip was a breeze. I chatted with the desk ladies. They were shocked at the service I got at AKL. That hotel more than made up for my crappy first 2 days by sending surprise goodie baskets up to our room EVERY SINGLE DAY!! In fact, one of the ladies at the front desk was so turned off by my experience at AKL that she said she was going to withdraw her request to change over to that hotel. I told her that was a great idea because from what I've seen there (3 times now) is that it is nothing but a staff full of rejects from all of the other hotels. (I KNOW NOT EVERY SINGLE STAFF MEMBER THERE IS LIKE THAT, please don't yell at me. BUT JUST FEEL MY FRUSTRATION AFTER STANDING THERE FOR 90 MINUTES GETTING NOTHING BUT DEER IN HEADLIGHTS FROM THEM)
Overall, I was happy. Once those few MB issues with room entry were fixed and we were finally able to book FP+ our trip was a breeze.
I do wish that FP+ options were more park specific - for example, offering 5 for a MK day and 3 for other parks. There are just so many more attractions at MK and It would have been nice to have just one or 2 more.
Also, I wish they would allow multiple FP+ for attractions. Why do they care if I want to ride Peter Pan 3 times?? Who cares HOW I use my FP+?? Also, Id never use a Mission Space one, so hook a sista up with 2 for Soarin!
We had a great time and we are only 122 days away from our next one, and now that I fully understand how the system works Im ready to go back with the proper planning and get the most out of our trips again!
My husband and I pride ourselves on being the people to go to when others are looking for advice, guidance or recommendations when it comes to booking their Disney vacations.
Also, we have always known exactly how to maximize our trips when it came to Fast Passes and Stand By lines. It was insane how much my hubby and I could accomplish in that place in 4 hours!!
We are back from another of our standard 6 day Disney trips. The first involving Magic Bands and FP+.
While we weren't overly negative when this whole Band/FP+ thing came about, we thought just booking our trip and customizing our MBs would be all we needed to do.
We were wrong.
1. We learned that you NEED to purchase park tickets in advance and link them to MDE prior to your trip - As early as possible for the best FP+ selections. We chose not to purchase until hotel check in because we were buying Annual Passes and didn't want to have wasted days on them when we were not in Disney. (Now I realize that I could have just bought them and activated them later)
Had I purchased them earlier, I would have had been able to make FP+ selections. I knew that since we were going at a slower week of the year, the stand by lines wouldn't be crazy, and honestly, with our toddler we just kind of wanted to be a little more leisurely and hit up some character greetings on our own schedule.
When we got there and did purchase our tickets, we were able to make FP+ selections for the trip, which was a fantastic thing to be able to do. While we are NOT over schedulers, we do run our entire trip around where we are eating. Make ADR, then we know which park we are in that day and just wing it for the day.
One of our days got royally messed up by one of the travelers in our party, so we wound up in EPCOT instead of HS. It was great being able to change our FP from TOT to Soarin' with just a few taps on my phone.
2. The removal of the turnstiles at the park entrances is epic! Maybe you don't have a stroller to try and push through those gates, but those of you who do, can, I'm sure agree with me that just a tap of the MB and an easy glide to get in is priceless!
3. I had ZERO issues with MB park and FP+ entry. Zero issues with reserving FP+. Zero issues with 'blue' Mickeys..... although I do wish they would light up Red for MB issues instead of Blue. Twice my husband used the wrong finger for the touch pad, and thought he was fine because the blue and green seem so similar.
4. We had a split stay starting at AKL then on to BLT. While we did customize our MBs and brought them with us to the hotels, both hotels had MBs waiting for us. Now with a split stay and 6 people in our party, that's 12 magic bands..... twice. Needless to say I've got a nice little collection going.
5. I am NEVER ever staying at AKL again. This was the 3rd time I have stayed there, and every time it was nothing but non stop problems. From cleanliness in our room at check in, to MB's not linking to our room, to nobody at the front desk able to figure out what the problem was with the MB's - not even supervisors. They gave us a new MB for the 2 that were not linking, but we still couldn't use those 2 for room entry or food purchases. Annoying. Plus, after it taking 90+ minutes (No I am NOT exaggerating) I had a cast member tell me "Whatever, I don't know what to tell you."
Sorry AKL - but that is NOT acceptable. 90 Minutes is a LOT of time in Disney to be just wasted standing in the front lobby.
6. I am so grateful that our home resort is BLT!! Check in for the remainder of our trip was a breeze. I chatted with the desk ladies. They were shocked at the service I got at AKL. That hotel more than made up for my crappy first 2 days by sending surprise goodie baskets up to our room EVERY SINGLE DAY!! In fact, one of the ladies at the front desk was so turned off by my experience at AKL that she said she was going to withdraw her request to change over to that hotel. I told her that was a great idea because from what I've seen there (3 times now) is that it is nothing but a staff full of rejects from all of the other hotels. (I KNOW NOT EVERY SINGLE STAFF MEMBER THERE IS LIKE THAT, please don't yell at me. BUT JUST FEEL MY FRUSTRATION AFTER STANDING THERE FOR 90 MINUTES GETTING NOTHING BUT DEER IN HEADLIGHTS FROM THEM)
Overall, I was happy. Once those few MB issues with room entry were fixed and we were finally able to book FP+ our trip was a breeze.
I do wish that FP+ options were more park specific - for example, offering 5 for a MK day and 3 for other parks. There are just so many more attractions at MK and It would have been nice to have just one or 2 more.
Also, I wish they would allow multiple FP+ for attractions. Why do they care if I want to ride Peter Pan 3 times?? Who cares HOW I use my FP+?? Also, Id never use a Mission Space one, so hook a sista up with 2 for Soarin!
We had a great time and we are only 122 days away from our next one, and now that I fully understand how the system works Im ready to go back with the proper planning and get the most out of our trips again!
