We are not a family who can visit all the time. We were last in Disney 5 years ago. We have 3 kids: ages 13, 10 and 8.
We stayed 5 nights at Boardwalk and 3 nights at Hard Rock.
We loved the magic bands. Not having to fumble with tickets and money and paper fastpass was really great. We went to Universal and the paper passes/plastic room keys/paper express passes were a little cumbersome, especially after the ease of Disney magic bands. We would split up to do different things and the magic bands were awesome. The paper tickets were not so easy.
We bought memory maker prior to the trip and it was great. I lost my nice camera 2 days into the trip and the memory maker helped use get some great shots. (I don't think my iphone take pics that are good enough to print in photbooks) We did lots of character pics and family pics in great locations as well as the ride pics. This was one of my fave things: no need to go get the ride pic added to your memory maker. It automatically detected your magic band on the ride and added it to memory maker. LOVED THIS!
As for fastpass, there are good and bad things about it. We were automatically notified via email if a ride we had a fastpass for was down. This happened due to rain for BTMR and for whatever reason for 7DMT. It gave us a list of places we could replace our fastpass any time that day if we chose. (or we could keep the fastpass to use later) We chose to replace both times and it was great. Trying to use fastpass kiosks was a disaster, though. They clearly need about 5 times as many throughout the park, especially when it rains and everything thing is down and people are trying to change fastpasses. The app was a little buggy when changing fastpass times. Sometimes it went smoothly, other times not so much. The kiosks are simply inadequate to handle the volume, especially at MK. We still preferred this system to the old system. We are not experienced enough to get as many paper passes as people have said then can get. And sending a fastpass runner was not something we were ever interested in, so the new system was preferred.
We loved the magic bands. We felt that the ease of use for hotel key, park admission and fast passes was awesome. Being able to pay for things (adults only, you can opt for this if you choose) was cool too. Most places accept it, but I think there were carts that did not.
My son’s band broke one night and we were happy to be staying in club level. We discovered this about 8 at night and I dropped it their desk. It was waiting for me the next morning in the lounge (they managed to snag a green one, I guess because it was their fault it broke?) My daughter misplaced hers one day and it was replace too, but with a grey one. But once she found it they could turn the replacement off and the blue one back on.
We missed the ease of the magic bands once we got to US. This is not an overall commentary or comparison of the two places: they both have good and bad, but we really loved the magic bands.
I really appreciate all the help I got on the boards and wanted to share my experience and thank everyone for their advice and input over the past year. It made my trip so much better due to the info everyone shares.
We stayed 5 nights at Boardwalk and 3 nights at Hard Rock.
We loved the magic bands. Not having to fumble with tickets and money and paper fastpass was really great. We went to Universal and the paper passes/plastic room keys/paper express passes were a little cumbersome, especially after the ease of Disney magic bands. We would split up to do different things and the magic bands were awesome. The paper tickets were not so easy.
We bought memory maker prior to the trip and it was great. I lost my nice camera 2 days into the trip and the memory maker helped use get some great shots. (I don't think my iphone take pics that are good enough to print in photbooks) We did lots of character pics and family pics in great locations as well as the ride pics. This was one of my fave things: no need to go get the ride pic added to your memory maker. It automatically detected your magic band on the ride and added it to memory maker. LOVED THIS!
As for fastpass, there are good and bad things about it. We were automatically notified via email if a ride we had a fastpass for was down. This happened due to rain for BTMR and for whatever reason for 7DMT. It gave us a list of places we could replace our fastpass any time that day if we chose. (or we could keep the fastpass to use later) We chose to replace both times and it was great. Trying to use fastpass kiosks was a disaster, though. They clearly need about 5 times as many throughout the park, especially when it rains and everything thing is down and people are trying to change fastpasses. The app was a little buggy when changing fastpass times. Sometimes it went smoothly, other times not so much. The kiosks are simply inadequate to handle the volume, especially at MK. We still preferred this system to the old system. We are not experienced enough to get as many paper passes as people have said then can get. And sending a fastpass runner was not something we were ever interested in, so the new system was preferred.
We loved the magic bands. We felt that the ease of use for hotel key, park admission and fast passes was awesome. Being able to pay for things (adults only, you can opt for this if you choose) was cool too. Most places accept it, but I think there were carts that did not.
My son’s band broke one night and we were happy to be staying in club level. We discovered this about 8 at night and I dropped it their desk. It was waiting for me the next morning in the lounge (they managed to snag a green one, I guess because it was their fault it broke?) My daughter misplaced hers one day and it was replace too, but with a grey one. But once she found it they could turn the replacement off and the blue one back on.
We missed the ease of the magic bands once we got to US. This is not an overall commentary or comparison of the two places: they both have good and bad, but we really loved the magic bands.
I really appreciate all the help I got on the boards and wanted to share my experience and thank everyone for their advice and input over the past year. It made my trip so much better due to the info everyone shares.