Linking Magic Bands Question

[pluto77]

Hi! We are going to Disney World in the first week of May. I have been multiple times, but this will be my first time going since the magic bands were implemented. I made my resort reservations, and we are doing the dining plan. The tickets, though, I am getting through my work because I can get the cheaper there than through Disney. Do they make it easy for you to link tickets that you have bought elsewhere to the magic band? Do you have to wait until you get to your resort to link the tickets, or can you do it before you go?

Also, we are also splitting our stay between two resorts, so we had to have two reservation numbers. Technically, this gives us two magic bands, but is it an easy process to combine our 2nd resort to our first magic band once we switch hotels (since our tickets would only be on one of the magic bands, and we wouldn't really want to have to where two bands if we don't have to). I was told that they could link them when we got to our 2nd hotel, but I just wanted to make sure it was an easy process and see if anyone else has had this experience.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Tom]

Your tickets will have serial numbers on the backs of them. As soon as you get them, log into your My Disney Experience account and go to the Tickets section. You can manually link your tickets to each person, using the serial numbers.

Having a split stay is easy. You don't have to do anything except check in at the second resort. You can even use the same magic bands for the entire trip (and on future trips). Magic Bands are tied to a person via their My Disney Experience account.....and everything else (tickets, ADRs, hotel reservations) are also tied to that same account. All the bands do is point to their owner's account - nothing is actually stored on the bands, or "linked" directly to the bands.

We've done two split stays with Magic Bands, and aside from a few minor bugs, everything worked fine. We even had Dining Plans on each reservation, and the credits started over like they were supposed to. And our 7-day tickets worked fine, while only using our first set of bands (and some old bands) the entire time.

 

[pluto77]

Sounds greats! Thanks! Sounds like it will be an easy process then. I just don't want to waste a lot of time figuring things out when we are in the middle of the trip so I just wanted to ask what other people's experiences were like.

 

[Monty]

Make sure to create My Disney Experience accounts for each member of your party. That can be linked to your resort reservation(s), your tickets, FastPass+ and all your restaurant ADRs. You'll be able to customize your MagicBands within your account.

 

[WDWVolFan]

Make sure to create My Disney Experience accounts for each member of your party. That can be linked to your resort reservation(s), your tickets, FastPass+ and all your restaurant ADRs. You'll be able to customize your MagicBands within your account.

Do you have to create an account for each? I have my account and added my wife and son as my guests so when I book something it asks if they are going and I just have to pick their name from the drop down.

 

[thomas998]

No no no it won't be easy. Been there done that, it can be done but I will bet you will be calling customer service.

Link the tickets a head of time or you can't book FP's and if you don't book FP's you will be locked out of popular rides. Everything needs to be done way a head of time.

Very true... The popular rides require you to get a fastpass as soon as the window to get them opens up. If you are staying in a disney hotel you should be able to get fastpasses 60 days in advance... If you wait until 30 days you will be SOL on things like Mine train its still highly popular and passes go quickly... On another note, don't forget to set up reservations as soon as you can because lately they dining reservations to some of the places have gotten more difficult to get at prime times.

 

[Monty]

Do you have to create an account for each? I have my account and added my wife and son as my guests so when I book something it asks if they are going and I just have to pick their name from the drop down.

IIRC you'll find that when you try to book FP+ they won't be eligible unless there is ticket media associated with them. I think that requires they have an account, but I'm not 100% sure, it's been a while since I first started with MDE.

 

[Rob562]

IIRC you'll find that when you try to book FP+ they won't be eligible unless there is ticket media associated with them. I think that requires they have an account, but I'm not 100% sure, it's been a while since I first started with MDE.

You can link tickets to a "managed by you" account. (And since you have to be 13 to create an account, it'd be rather difficult dealing with children if you couldn't)

If one person in a family will *always* be the planner, and no one else will need to access their account to make reservations or changes, then there's no problem having one master account and a bunch of "managed by them" sub-profiles.

But if other adults might want to travel to WDW without the master account holder, or log in on their phones to see or change their plans, they should create their own profile and link together as friends. (Note that this doesn't apply to in-park FP+ kiosks. Someone with a profile managed by someone else can still scan their Band/ticket and access their group's FP+)

-Rob