Links to verify, or verification from Disney everything on your list please, thank you.
Jimmy Thick- Queue Jeopardy final question theme.
You want verification? Go to the parks. Seriously, most of the list I've compiled here can be gathered from just visiting the parks and talking to the cast members who use the technology everyday. Now, if you want me to elaborate on the actual problems with everything that I've posted, well, I'll be more than happy to show you...
- No localized servers? Check.
This is well known, because when the servers go down in Florida in the middle of the night, they go down at midnight in California and 9 or 10pm in Hawaii... and I don't know the time difference in Tokyo. Bottom line is localized servers would have fixed this problem. (Yes, many of Disney's servers do need to go down nightly for required maintenance, if you want proof, just try and check-in in the middle of the night at any Disney hotel.)
- Incomplete functions of My Disney Experience Website? Check.
Ever try to renew your annual pass on the site? It directs you to an omni-ticket website and then tells you to print off a paper voucher to bring to a Disney ticket window to exchange. Not the seamless experience we were hoping for. Already have a magic band from a previous resort stay? The system will send you a new one anyway. The mobile version of the site is usually far too slow to use in the parks, and the way the entire site was built, it reloads the entire page if you make any change to the page at all. It's very strange, ask a web design coding expert if you want verification.
- Purchase of badly designed (custom designed for Disney mind you) devices for Magic Band Terminals at all hotels, guest relations, and merch and food locations? Check.
Credit cards have to be swiped upside down. The devices fall off their bases, which aren't heavy enough anyway. Just pure bad design of these devices. Ask anyone who works with them on a daily basis and I assure you that you're not going to hear good things.
- Continual printing of extra unnecessary RFID enabled cards for guests? Check.
The system was designed for everyone to have 1 magic band and 1 card. Disney World decided to start printing things on the RFID cards (Like Annual Passholder and the like) for no apparent reason, since nothing can be verified anyway without scanning them. The extra cards and magic bands are overloading the system.
- No way to actually read magic bands at toll plazas? Check... though eventually fixed.
Yeah, there are countless threads on this... you know this one to be true just by reading WDWmagic.
- No way to book DVC Open House times into myDisney Experience? Check.
This isn't so much a guest issue as it is for DVC. Because everything is planned ahead of time with FastPass+ and Dining reservations that have a cancellation fee, getting a guest to a DVC open house is a pain in the next to schedule now, and the amount of no-shows at these things has almost doubled since the launch of MyMagic+. (This is all coming from a friend who works in DVC who shall not be named, but I'm sure you could ask anyone at the booths in the parks how the open house reservations are going and you'll get a pretty dismal answer.)
- No way to verify anything about status of a guest at any register on property? Check.
Yeah, you have to have a system that can show that information to the cast member. Every time I use my Annual Pass for a discount they want to physically see the AP card (which is pointless to carry, because I could just use my magic band) and my photo ID to compare the name I scribbled on the back of the card (which can easily be erased and re-written, btw) to the name on my Govt. ID. If they had a way to verify anything on the register, they wouldn't need to do that.
- Mixing the names of FastPass and FastPass+? Check. (I was issued paper FastPass+ to ride the mermaid ride a week ago.)
I guess you should just go get a paper FastPass for the Mermaid ride? You'll see it's printed on FastPass+ paper.
- Telling the guys in Burbank that things were going well and hiding the fact that the rollout has been iffy at best? Check.
This is happening, and I have no way for you to verify that it is, so you're just going to have to take my word for it. Maybe you could call Tom Staggs and ask him how the project is going, and talk to him about the construction of the DVC at the Grand while you're at it.
- Activation of Magic Bands in resorts not working properly from the get go? Check.
Try to use your Magic Band to enter the resort that you're staying at for the first time you get there. It won't work. Try to buy something at the gift shop with the pin you created online ahead of time. It won't work. Then, try to use it to get into the building at Art of Animation where your room is located. It still won't work. Only after you touch every single magic band in your family to the door lock of your actual room will the magic bands work properly. Why? Not a clue. The only way around this is for them to manually activate them at the front desk. (Which they were trying to avoid, the entire point of the system in the hotels is to allow you to skip the front desk entirely.)
- Iffy wifi coverage in the parks because wrongfully trained Cast Members are checking the signal strength with lackluster tools? Check.
I saw a cast member with the MyMagic+ team walking around the park. But she walked 5 feet, then stopped, looked at her phone, then moved another 5 feet, stopped, looked at her phone, then kept doing this. Curious, I asked her what she was doing. She said she was checking wifi signal. I asked how. She said they were just recording how many bands they got at various points in the park. I couldn't believe it. They weren't looking at speeds, ping time, or anything that would actually give you real data. They were looking at the wifi bands on an iPhone. (For those of you not in IT, this is NOT a good indicator to use when rolling out a network)
Anyway, I think I've more than satisfied your request, so get to the park and start verifying what I'm saying.
