new park wristbands?

MITCH 112198

Active Member
My mother and her sister are coming to the world the beginning of March.
Do they have to have the new bands or can they still just get the key to the world card?
Thanks for the info.
 

ExtinctJenn

Well-Known Member
I booked our trip for the first week of March just this morning and asked about this. The woman I spoke to said all they have heard is they are coming but, as Yoda said, no firm dates yet. She said there's a good chance that, just like they've done in the past with testing NextGen stuff, they will do a random beta test with them at some point (randomly selecting guests to participate at check-in) but that was just speculation on her part.
 
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bsiev1977

Well-Known Member
What I've been hearing is that the impulse control nanotechnology is not where it needs to be yet. Disney doesn't want to roll out the bands until they can be used to force you to buy things you don't want to do.
 
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Weather_Lady

Well-Known Member
Can anyone tell me whether they're planning on changing Fastpass at the same time they move to the wristbands? For those who typically send a "Fastpass runner" to the kiosk to get Fastpasses for the whole family, having them run around with a tangle of loose wristbands and then getting them back to the right people seems unnecessarily awkward. Will this be the reason Disney gives for changing over to Fastpass+, or was FP+ always intended to be a complementary service to the existing Fastpass system, rather than a replacement one?
 
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wdwmagic

Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
Can anyone tell me whether they're planning on changing Fastpass at the same time they move to the wristbands? For those who typically send a "Fastpass runner" to the kiosk to get Fastpasses for the whole family, having them run around with a tangle of loose wristbands and then getting them back to the right people seems unnecessarily awkward. Will this be the reason Disney gives for changing over to Fastpass+, or was FP+ always intended to be a complementary service to the existing Fastpass system, rather than a replacement one?
FP+ will be replacing regular FP. The machines will be gone, and all FP+ reservations will be done online, at your resort, in-park kiosks, or on your phone. No news yet on when this will be introduced, or how it will be phased in to replace current FP.
 
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ExtinctJenn

Well-Known Member
FP+ will be replacing regular FP. The machines will be gone, and all FP+ reservations will be done online, at your resort, in-park kiosks, or on your phone. No news yet on when this will be introduced, or how it will be phased in to replace current FP.
I was kind of hoping they'd keep the machines... :(
 
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Weather_Lady

Well-Known Member
I was kind of hoping they'd keep the machines... :(

Me, too. Although I like the idea of not needing a "Fastpass runner" or worrying about FPs for an attraction running out, the machines do allow greater on-the-go flexibility than any pre-selection system could. I'll be a bigger fan of Fastpass+ if they end up allowing you to select your FPs in more than one park if you have parkhopper tickets, or to select the same attraction more than once. It's not going to do us a lot of good if the kids want to do Big Thunder Mtn. three times in the same day, or if a headliner we picked months ahead of time is abruptly down for refurbishment. Also, it was nice to be able to spread a little "magic" by giving out extra Fastpasses to others when we found ourselves with them. I imagine that once the bracelets/FP+ become standard, even trying to share FPs within the family (for example, DH and DD don't do Splash Mountain, but they'd give my son and me their FPs for it so we could go twice) is going to be a virtual game of "memory," unless each bracelet is giving me a readout of what FPs it has recorded for that particular user and when... you know, like a little slip of paper with your return window... why hasn't somebody thought of that? Oh, wait... :p

We won't be making it back until May 2014, so my hope is that by then, the new system will be fully set up, with the kinks worked out, and lots of tips on this forum that I can use to re-educate myself and make the necessary alternations to our touring strategy. Heck, if it ends up being that we're stuck with one park per day in terms of FPs, we'd most likely save some money by foregoing parkhopper tickets and limiting ourselves to one park per day. (I'm an impatient person and when we're paying a fortune for our vacation, time is especially precious: I see no value whatsoever in visiting a park, if I'm going to be forced to stand in a 30 minute-or-longer line for anything. Thanks to careful "strategery," efficient use of Fastpasses and a bit of luck, I've almost never had to, even on whirlwind Easter vacation trips, and I'm not about to start now. Walk into any park knowing there's no option but the standby line? Madness! [Exuent soapbox rant - that got a little more peppery-sounding than I intended! It just seems that if the rumors are all true, then going from a Fastpass every couple of hours to the headliner of your choice, to 3 FPs in one park for an entire day with no "repeats," is a pretty crappy deal.])

Anyway, see there? Saving money by foregoing Parkhoppers! A silver lining! ;)
 
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ExtinctJenn

Well-Known Member
@Weather_Lady that's exactly my thoughts... I love the idea of booking ahead etc. etc. (though I know a lot of people hate the idea of this) but I thought that would all be in addition to using FP the way we do today... walking up to an attraction and deciding to FP it.
 
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