People who actually experienced Magic Bands

[FutureCEO]

So there's a lot of threads out there based on the Magic Bands and I'm not seeing if there is any focusing on actually experiencing it. Sure, it's mixed between.

My thought: It was quit a good experience. The Magic Bands seem to be working all the time though my parents friends brother had difficulty using them. If it wasn't for the people who didn't know how to put the Mickey on Mickey and get to the fastpass time early, it would be great. However, I think Disney spent way too much money doing this because according to my uncle (3 times since Magic Bands), you get new ones every time. Seems like a lot of waste to mail them to your house and to give you new ones every time.

As for the fastpasses itself, it worked brilliantly though I wish Disney allowed you to get more without waiting in line. Toy Story Mania and Aerosmith was a 90 minute wait and we got on within 10 minutes. Though I'm not sure why you would get a fastpass for a show? It was nice not not go for a fastpass and then come back for it.

It was great for the kiosk at Epcot and etc instead of fumbling around with your money or credit card. However, did it get me to spend more? I probably spent less than usual. But 75% of people will probably spend more. I used a mixture between cash and magic band.

My conclusion....Based on Disney giving you different magic bands for every trip and mailing them out. I didn't see the benefits. If Disney stopped doing that, I think they would be fine.

 

[dadddio]

I suspect that Disney's cost to send you new magic band is pretty low, however I agree with you that this is a cost that could possibly be trimmed a little. The issue, I suspect, is that some people are going to throw away their bands or lose them and will need new ones, anyway. That and the fact that the bands have a battery that will eventually die, forcing the owner to need a new one. The company can get around these issues by simply adding the nominal cost of a band (plus shipping) to the cost of tickets (or hotel stays, whatever).

 

[PrincessNelly_NJ]

I too would assume that the cost of mailing magic bands was close to the same cost of reprinting plastic cards. Especially since they don't mail them outside the US. (i'm not even sure they mail them outside Mainland US)

We didn't find that we spent anymore than when we charged items using the band. I'm not sure if this is new or not, but midway through our trip they charged off our room charge balance. In the past we have always received one large charge at the end of trip. It sucked because we had GC and weren't able to apply them because they had already charged our card.

 

[Tomi-Rocket]

We loved the MB! Mine and the kids had to all be reset once but they worked fine after that. It was so easy to use them and I think things will get better over time. I think mine may have needed to be reset due to errors I was making, not sure on the kids but I think once the bugs are worked out they'll be great for everyone. I hope there are no problems when I go later this year with my friend, she hasn't used them yet.

 

[graphite1326]

We used them and they worked fine. One drawback was we always get park hopper passes. If you picked three fastpass+ in one park and only used one you are stuck using the other two in that park. We had three in HS but didn't use them the lines were short and didn't need them. So we went to the place where we could change them to EPCOT and got three different fastpass+. However, if we had used one of them in HS we could not have changed the other two to EPCOT.

Hope I didn't confuse anyone on how I explained that.

 

[PrincessMia]

I really liked them, and liked not having to keep track of my money, tickets, and FP's. On a previous trip, I lost my ticket (the plastic KTTW) and a gift card that were in my pocket and fell out. Now, we stick money is a special "vacation" checking account and link the bands to this- no more lost cards! We only had 1 problem with a FP not showing up and had to pull up the MDE app to prove we had one. A minor annoyance for sure, but I was still satisfied overall.

 

[psukardi]

I'm a klutz and have been known to lose things. I've lost a cellphone in a taxi cab, I've lost a wallet buying something, I've gone so far as to lock my keys in the trunk of my car. So for me the Magic Band is a godsend. I limit the chances of things going wrong because the band isn't going anywhere.

 

[DVCPluto]

I think the multiple MB issue will fade over time. Everything regarding MB, MDE, etc is still in transition. My thought is that you will have the option to receive new MB or use new ones. Right now, everyone gets a set for every reservation you have. So, if you have a split stay, you get two sets. It would be silly to continue that in the future, but for now, my guess it is easier to keep it the same for every reservation.

Personally, I like receiving them. We have a set from our last stay and an AP set that came with AP slides (SCORE!!). Disney has me hooked and receiving something from them in the mail is exciting.

 

[flynnibus]

So there's a lot of threads out there based on the Magic Bands and I'm not seeing if there is any focusing on actually experiencing it. Sure, it's mixed between.

Actually the site has a dedicated discussion forum explicitly for the topic

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/forums/using-mymagic-fastpass-and-my-disney-experience.135/

 

[dave&di]

We're next at WDW next Sept so we'll be new to the MB, the main reason it pees me off already is .... Tan lines!!!! I'm English, I'm a kinda grey colour, my WDW trip leaves me a lovely shade of brown, I don't wear watches or bracelets there, just so I get an even tan!!! I'm not a happy bunny!!!!!

 

[KLinder7]

Besides the tan line, thought it worked great! No issues at all to report about it not working. Was nice not to need a wallet, although kept an ID on me. Honestly didn't even know it was on my wrist.

 

[dave&di]

Besides the tan line, thought it worked great! No issues at all to report about it not working. Was nice not to need a wallet, although kept an ID on me. Honestly didn't even know it was on my wrist.

Us women worry about tan lines! I'll miss not having an KTTW card though

 

[Animaniac93-98]

The biggest advantage of the magic band is not having to pull out a card when you're carrying stuff into your hotel room. Beyond that, most benefits (FP+, the new turnstyles, the app) can be used with the new RFID cards instead. It's nice to have all your FPs loaded on to it, but it doesn't fit my wrist as well as a watch, so wearing it all day isn't so great. I got a free bit of "bling" to go with it and that only made that problem worse.

In the end it's OK. Nothing terrible, but nothing amazing.

 

[Rob562]

We used them and they worked fine. One drawback was we always get park hopper passes. If you picked three fastpass+ in one park and only used one you are stuck using the other two in that park. We had three in HS but didn't use them the lines were short and didn't need them. So we went to the place where we could change them to EPCOT and got three different fastpass+. However, if we had used one of them in HS we could not have changed the other two to EPCOT.

Hope I didn't confuse anyone on how I explained that.

This has (somewhat) been addressed in the recent change to include the "floating" 4th FP+ reservation. If you use the first FP+ and then wait for the other two to expire, you can then hop to another park and use a kiosk to get a 4th FP+ in that park.

-Rob

 

[Brickcity Pauly]

I didn't know what to expect, but my daughter and I really enjoyed the Magic Bands. I liked that there were no Tiers at MK. I really liked using the MDE app and booking our FP+ on there and not having to run around the park getting FP's from the Kiosks. Selections were easy to change if your schedule changed at all. Loved having the MB's linked to my credit card and being able to use it for EVERYTHING. I wish we had a different color than gray though.

Great experience with them.

It should be noted, we are NOT park hoppers.

 

[Cesar R M]

in my case, they were very useful for our dinner plans (aka buy food, snacks..etc..).
not so much for anything else; as our POR room couldnt read magicbands then (we had to use our card)
also the FP+ wasnt even working.

as for physical feeling.. they have this rubbery feeling like those cheap CASIO watches.

 

[Gabe1]

Most of the time the MB worked fine. Mine never worked to get into the MK in almost a two week span, DD did not have any issues, nor did I anywhere else.

One morning there were major issues at the Studios at rope drop. It looked like a skit with all the CMs waving their hands in the air for an iPad carrying CM.

In reality the only thing I absolutely loved about the MB was I could open the resort door without digging a card out and putting the coffee down. The MB was strong enough to go through my heavy weight Northface in the Morning.

 

[Ember]

We had a great experience with them. The only downside was that they do make your wrist really sweaty and gross. I think I am going to make a little terry cloth cover for mine next time. But other than that they were a great tool. The kids loved that they could easily open the door with them and fastpass was a breeze. I thought for sure that we would spend way more because they are so easy to use, but we actually spent less than we normally do. I was also worried about the kids losing them or them falling off easily, but we had no issues with that.

 

[skimbob]

I used mine in January and had two problems. One my room would not open with it and two getting my passholder discounts required me to first tell the cm I had one and two I had to present it to use it. They were not linked to the bands at that time. I do not know if that has changed or not.

 

[PUSH]

Here's my experience with them when I used them in March:

The MagicBands themselves worked great. Never once did I have an experience where they did not work properly. The main cause of error that I noticed were guests not being educated in how to use them. The first time I used them I was confused on what to do, but after I used them once I was able to use them properly the remainder of the trip.

The wristband format is both good and bad in my experience. Let's start with the good. It was nice not having to dig the plastic cards out of wallets whenever we had to use them. It was convenient to have them on the wrist. Now let's go to the bad. I do not like wearing things on my wrist; it's just personal preference. I found myself playing with it a lot, and moving it around a lot. It kind of bugged me the majority of the trip, but the last day I found myself getting used to it. Unfortunately it was annoying most of the trip. Also to those who do not want to wear it on the wrist, it is not as easy to carry around as a plastic card. The bands are bulky, which makes carrying them anywhere but your wrist a pain. The shape to them is awful, too. They do not sit nicely on a wrist, which meant the Mickey head was never in a convenient spot to use on turnstiles, hotel room doors, etc.

Now let's talk about FastPass+. Again, we'll start with the good. The good is you don't have to rush to get FPs in the morning, or when you first arrive at a park. Another good aspect is you don't have to run across the park to get a FP for a certain attraction. And now let's move on to the bad. My biggest complaint with FP+ is the lack of spontaneity. My family is not a "super-planning" family. We like to go and have a "wing it" attitude; it makes the vacation more enjoyable. We decided to go a week in advance of our arrival, but we had our hotel reservations for a few month. We got our MagicBands at Port Orleans Riverside upon our arrival, so we planned our FP+s the night before. Some attractions we were able to get decent times for, and other were either not available or terrible times. The new FP+ system does not allow for people like my family to continue the way they like to do Disney. My next complaint is planning FP+s between multiple groups. Halfway through our trip we had relatives join us. Planning FP+s between our group of 3 and their group of 4 was a huge pain and stressful. There is supposed to be a way to link the groups together in order to make FP+ selections together, but it did not work for us, so we had to do it over the phone with each other. We were not able to get the same FP+ times for each FP+, and it was just a big pain. Another complaint would be the FP+ lines. They are constantly backed up because of how much slower it is to get through the beginning of the line. While it's not a problem once you get through the scanners, it creates a problem in the middle of the pathways because of everyone backed up trying to get in line.

I had one other complaint with FP+, but I forgot it as I was typing.

Overall it was not a terrible experience, but I would not say it was a good one, either. I would take the old system of a plastic card and FP over the new system any day.