Help Understanding "Managed" or Own MDE Account

[Cosmic Commando]

We have a group of 10 (+baby) going down in November. My wife and three kids are managed by me, along with my mother-in-law. My brother-in-law and his family are all managed by him. I know it's recommended that all the adults have their own MDE accounts, but I guess I don't quite understand the difference. If my MIL goes around with BIL's family, will they still be able to make same-day FP+ for her? We're all friended up on MDE. What exactly are the drawbacks of having an adult be "managed", instead of having their own account?

 

[Rob562]

We have a group of 10 (+baby) going down in November. My wife and three kids are managed by me, along with my mother-in-law. My brother-in-law and his family are all managed by him. I know it's recommended that all the adults have their own MDE accounts, but I guess I don't quite understand the difference. If my MIL goes around with BIL's family, will they still be able to make same-day FP+ for her? We're all friended up on MDE. What exactly are the drawbacks of having an adult be "managed", instead of having their own account?

As long as everyone who will want to log into MDE and make plans has their own MDE account, and those people are linked as friends to every other person's profiles (both the primary login people and the "managed by them" sub-profiles), you'll be OK.

The problem would come if your Mother in Law wanted to go around by herself one day. She wouldn't be able to log into MDE, though I think she'd be able to use a kiosk in the park. And what if MIL wants to go down to WDW next year with a friend of hers? Having her own MDE account would allow her to make sure her MagicBand(s) from this trip will work properly with her next trip.

And I'm not saying this will be the case, but if you need to remove a listing from your friends list for some reason, the system won't allow you to delete a managed-by-you profile that has things linked to it like a MagicBand. If your MIL is on your account as a managed-by-you profile, she'll be listed on there forever, even if this is your only trip with her. However, if she has her own account, you could un-friend her to clean up your account, and then re-friend her down the line if need-be. (I do that with people I've gone on trips with, but with no immediate plans for future trips. I just leave the "usual suspects" as friends on my account )

I had to go through a bit of rigamarole trying to get my friend's now-ex-wife's managed-by-me profile off of my account. She never connected to me with her own account, and since there was a MagicBand it wouldn't let me simply delete her. SO I had to create a dummy MDE account for her with a disposable email address that I could friend-request to, get connected and then finally remove her from my friends list...

-Rob