General MDE Questions & Linking Family

[weatherdude]

Background info: We have 4 rooms booked at AoA among the 10 of us. Currently, people in 3 of the 4 rooms have MDE accounts. Hopefully, I can accurately portray my problem...

When I made my Dining reservations last week, I was only able to select the people who have MDE accounts or who will be staying in my room. I was not able to select the additional people in our party who are listed on the other rooms' reservations (i.e. managed by the MDE account). For example, when I look at my father's MDE account, I can see my mother and niece listed on their reservation, but I wasn't able to select them to add to our dining reservation. Instead, I just listed their names on the dining reservation.

In order to link the dining reservations to their profiles, do I just need to add the confirmation number to their profile? Will that mess up the reservation (i.e. the system now thinks 11 people are coming) or will the system just replace one of the diners?

Also, does this mean we set up our MDE profiles incorrectly since I wasn't able to add everyone on my father's and sister's MDE accounts? When our 60-day FP window arrives, will I be able to make FP for everyone, not just for the people who have MDE accounts?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Rob562]

At the moment, you're not fully linked together and you won't be able to make FP+ reservations for everyone.

With the Dining reservations it's not a huge deal, since it's not necessary to have everyone listed on the ADR. Linking them just gives the people listed the ability to see that ADR listed in their plans when they log into MDE, and the ability to see who else is planning on going.

But in order to make FP+ for everyone, you have to individually add the people as Friends, not just the primary account person. To do this, go into the Friends & Family section and click "Add a New Guest". Then select "Add through a mutual friend", then select the primary account holder in the drop-down. From there you can select a "managed by them" sub-profile. The primary person will get a notification asking to accept the friend request. Repeat the process for each additional person in the group.

If you want other account holders to be able to make FP+ for others, you'll have to repeat this whole process for each primary account holder. It takes a little effort up-front, but once you get everything set up properly, it makes life much easier down the road.

Also note that for this to work, the other account holder has to make their friend list visible in their privacy settings.

Edit to add: Also, if anyone who currently has a "managed by someone" profile wants to take ownership of their profile, it can be done by the controlling profile owner clicking the "invite to plan and share" link next to their name in the Friends list. I highly recommend this for people who might visit WDW without the person who controls their profile now. It'll allow them to re-use their Bands on the future trip, and keeps things neat and organized.

-Rob

 

[weatherdude]

Extremely helpful, thanks Rob. Definitely a good post to read for people setting up their MDE profile for the first time.