Was given another wrench today. 3 of the adults have now backed out of the trip. My question is are their MBs and tickets useless now or will I be able to use them at a later date? ( They have no desire to go at a later date )
Yikes. There's a lot of "ifs" and "it depends" in the answer to your questions...
First, if the MagicBands have already shipped (which I presume they have, since in the first post of this thread you mentioned you were 2 weeks out), then the Bands shipped for the hotel reservation are permanently linked to those users with no way to change them. If they don't want them, then they're useless to you. You can throw them out, or bring them to Disney and the front desk can recycle them for you.
The Bands are just "pointers" back to the associated MDE profile, so there's nothing to worry about that's actually linked to the Band itself. Assuming the hotel is cancelled and the tickets are dealt with (see below), the Bands will all point to an empty MDE profile with no active plans or reservations.
Tickets are the tricky part... Were tickets purchased separately? Or were they part of a package reservation?
If they were part of a package, obviously you're cancelling whatever reservation those 3 people are associated with, which would also cancel the tickets. This close to the trip they'll pay a cancellation penalty (probably $200) but the rest of the package would be refundable. (Don't quote me on that, double check the terms of the reservation)
If tickets were purchased separately and they have *not* been linked to anyone's MDE profile, then they can be assigned to (and used by) anyone. These unlinked tickets may be refundable (minus a fee) from some ticket resellers like Undercover Tourist. I do not know what Disney's policy is.
If tickets were purchased and linked to a MDE profile, it gets more complicated.
First, I do not know of any ticket reseller who will take linked tickets back. I believe the person who actually did the assigning of the ticket has the ability to move a totally-unused ticket from one person to another. The person who has the power to do this would be whoever logged into MDE, entered the ticket serial numbers and then chose who to assign that ticket to. (Since you're the obvious planner of this trip, that's presumably you) If so, you *might* be able to go in and move the tickets over to your (or another friend's) profile in MDE.
Though after all that, my first instinct is to let the people who are cancelling on you worry about it. Unless there's a valid reason to cancel a major trip like Disney less than 2 weeks out (illness, sudden financial hardship, etc), it's incredibly inconsiderate of these people to cancel. As long as you're not out any money yourself, I say let them deal with it. They cancelled on you, they should be the one to scramble to see if they can get their money back.
-Rob