My family and I were selected to participate in a test of the MyMagic+ technology during our most recent stay at the Yacht Club. Feel free to move the thread if needed, however I am going to focus my post on the current state of the MyMagic+ testing rather than write a trip report, which is why I am posting this in the current events thread.
To begin, I have always been a supporter of Disney. I haven't agreed with everything upper management has done over the last few years, but those decisions have never jeopardized the fabric of a Walt Disney World vacation, which is spending time with family and friends. So I tend to have a positive outlook on most things.
That being said, how did the test go for us? If we could sum up our experience in one word: Failure
To give a brief overview of what we had noticed, it is apparent that Disney has thrown their front desk into the front lines of MyMagic+ with very little training or comprehension of the technology they are handling. Any issue that we encountered was facilitated by Cast Members who were looking at their computer screens as if they were written in Mandarin Chinese.
Now, we understood that we were engaging in a test, and we expected a few kinks and glitches in the system. However, we expected those glitches to be resolved with time. Here are some troubleshooting issues that the front desk, management, and even hyper care units, cannot solve.
-The system cannot distinguish between two family members of the same name. My father and I are distinguished by our middle initials, which we specifically designated in our reservation, and which the cast members neglected to put into the system. If one of us was in the park, the other could not enter. In fact, one cast member even told my father that he was already in the park, when he was standing right in front of him.
-Magic Band purchases were not able to function because the system could not link a pin code to our bands, thus inactivating our purchase option. Basically, there was no point to having a Magic Band. We used the old form of card swiping instead.
-MyDisneyExperience App could not link fastpass+ to our whole party because it thought that my father and I were the same person. This hindered us from being able to use the app throughout our entire stay, and being able to make fastpass+ reservations. We would have to go down to the front desk every morning and make our fastpasses for everyone but myself, for which they gave me the old paper fastpasses instead.
Whenever we approached the front desk, or management with our issues, their response was that these were "known" issues. If they are known issues, why are they not fixed? Only 4 resorts including the Yacht Club were participating in this test, and every cast member we talked to said that these issues were known throughout. And mostly every cast member reminded us (as if we need to be reminded) that we agreed to this test and that kinks could happen. Yes, we know that. But as a worldwide company and as the theme park "capital" of the world, why are you using excuses? Why don't you fix the issues instead of pinning the blame back on the guest. If it wasn't for the guest, there would be no Disney World.
That was probably the issue that irked us the most. Nobody could give us a straightforward answer to any problem. Everyone walks around in suits with titles, but nobody wants to take responsibility when something doesn't work. Those titles of manager, or assistant to the regional manager, or assistant to the traveling secretary, mean as little as the titles of the comedic characters I'm referencing. Because that's really what our experience with these bands was. A comedic act where nobody had a grasp on the technology and everyone was passing the buck because they were in over their heads.
Ya know, they better be able to fix these issues. We wasted our entire first day fiddling around at the front desk, only to have our bands not be open to purchases, our fastpass+ app not accessible, and not even being able to enter the park without prolonged technological assistance.
Disney better get their act together, and realize that MyMagic+ has a lot of issues. They better fix them. or else when this thing rolls out in 2014, then the comedy is really going to begin.
To begin, I have always been a supporter of Disney. I haven't agreed with everything upper management has done over the last few years, but those decisions have never jeopardized the fabric of a Walt Disney World vacation, which is spending time with family and friends. So I tend to have a positive outlook on most things.
That being said, how did the test go for us? If we could sum up our experience in one word: Failure
To give a brief overview of what we had noticed, it is apparent that Disney has thrown their front desk into the front lines of MyMagic+ with very little training or comprehension of the technology they are handling. Any issue that we encountered was facilitated by Cast Members who were looking at their computer screens as if they were written in Mandarin Chinese.
Now, we understood that we were engaging in a test, and we expected a few kinks and glitches in the system. However, we expected those glitches to be resolved with time. Here are some troubleshooting issues that the front desk, management, and even hyper care units, cannot solve.
-The system cannot distinguish between two family members of the same name. My father and I are distinguished by our middle initials, which we specifically designated in our reservation, and which the cast members neglected to put into the system. If one of us was in the park, the other could not enter. In fact, one cast member even told my father that he was already in the park, when he was standing right in front of him.
-Magic Band purchases were not able to function because the system could not link a pin code to our bands, thus inactivating our purchase option. Basically, there was no point to having a Magic Band. We used the old form of card swiping instead.
-MyDisneyExperience App could not link fastpass+ to our whole party because it thought that my father and I were the same person. This hindered us from being able to use the app throughout our entire stay, and being able to make fastpass+ reservations. We would have to go down to the front desk every morning and make our fastpasses for everyone but myself, for which they gave me the old paper fastpasses instead.
Whenever we approached the front desk, or management with our issues, their response was that these were "known" issues. If they are known issues, why are they not fixed? Only 4 resorts including the Yacht Club were participating in this test, and every cast member we talked to said that these issues were known throughout. And mostly every cast member reminded us (as if we need to be reminded) that we agreed to this test and that kinks could happen. Yes, we know that. But as a worldwide company and as the theme park "capital" of the world, why are you using excuses? Why don't you fix the issues instead of pinning the blame back on the guest. If it wasn't for the guest, there would be no Disney World.
That was probably the issue that irked us the most. Nobody could give us a straightforward answer to any problem. Everyone walks around in suits with titles, but nobody wants to take responsibility when something doesn't work. Those titles of manager, or assistant to the regional manager, or assistant to the traveling secretary, mean as little as the titles of the comedic characters I'm referencing. Because that's really what our experience with these bands was. A comedic act where nobody had a grasp on the technology and everyone was passing the buck because they were in over their heads.
Ya know, they better be able to fix these issues. We wasted our entire first day fiddling around at the front desk, only to have our bands not be open to purchases, our fastpass+ app not accessible, and not even being able to enter the park without prolonged technological assistance.
Disney better get their act together, and realize that MyMagic+ has a lot of issues. They better fix them. or else when this thing rolls out in 2014, then the comedy is really going to begin.
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