MyMagic+ Efficiency Update

[WDWDad13]

Yes MOST families who use this system use it with few to no challenges. Obviously it wouldn't benefit me to be precise in how I know this.

correct...and you're likely going to hear any negative stories about it rather than positive ones.... most people are more eager to complain than the compliment or promote

 

[ddrongowski]

Did you get an exit survey? Im interested to know how much room they are leaving to give the feedback you are describing. Thanks

If it is like normal exit surveys I have seen... They go a little like this.

1. Did you participate in the MM+ test?
a. Yes and it was awesome.
b. Yes and it was magical beyond belief.
c. Yes and I would pay hundreds extra for it.
d. No but I hear it is the greatest thing in the world.

2. If you could change something about MM+ what would it be?
a. Nothing MM+ is awesome.
b. Nothing MM+ is magical beyond belief.
c. I would make guest pay more for this outstanding benefit.
d. MM+ is perfect just as it is.

3. Did you experience any issues with MM+?
a. No it was awesome.
b. No it was magical beyond belief.
c. No and it should cost more as it is an outstanding benefit.
d. Yes but is was my fault and not the MM+ systems.

Thank you for participating in our self promoting exit survey. We are so pleased that MM+ was an AWESOME, MAGICAL, OUTSTANDING BENEFIT, that we will be glad to make you pay extra for. Have a magical day, if you would like to add additional comments, feel free, but we will just ignore them, unless it promotes MM+.

 

[spacemt354]

And how much money did you pay for your vacation that was wasted on helping them test their system?

While I won't give specific numbers, I will say that this was a family reunion. Usually we travel with our family of 4, however this time grandparents, aunts and uncles were involved as well. So we had a total of 9 using 3 rooms at deluxe prices for 7 days.

We arrived at 11am and fiddled around at the front desk till 4pm, having to make periodic trips to the front desk each day to get fastpasses (which took anywhere from 30-45 mins), or to (attempt to) fix my father's band that has no apparent park admission, or other miscellaneous complaints.

Oh and without streaming too far off topic, another reason why we are so annoyed was because we arrived early to go to the parks during the afternoon, and expected to be back by 3pm when our rooms should be ready. Instead, our rooms were not ready at 3pm and our bands did not give access to the rooms. An hour later, we are given our rooms, only to have one of the rooms contain vomit all of the toilet. Yes, I said it, vomit.

It was disgusting and repulsive. And to claw tooth and nail for hours at a front desk only to be given a room with puke in it, well that's not very "magical" to me.

And needless to say it was a lot of money.

 

[cbsav]

Yes please sign up, after all it might screw up your vacation that you paid THOUSANDS of dollars for, but hey it's only money and you vacation you'll loose out on. Sounds like a great thing to participate in.

I'm interested to see how this works first hand and happy to provide feedback. This is an impromptu trip which i'm actually only spending $300 bucks on (for the hotel stay) as I have business in the area earlier in the week so my company is covering the airfare to Florida and i'm an AP holder so i'm not buying a ticket. If after the first day it is an unmitigated disaster, i'll throw in the towel (or band) and just use my paper media and credit card as i always have...i realize i don't need to be tied to it just because i agreed.

 

[ddrongowski]

I feel your pain. Stayed at Boardwalk last week. Took over an hour to check in. Our cards never worked right for over 5 days. Sometime i could get in the park other times no. DDP would work for counter service then stop working for dinner. I went to the front desk and complained eveyday and just got soory we are having problems. finally after calling DVC i talked to a IT person. The explaind the upgrade to the new bans system had failed, they tried rollong it back. Now that night they would shut eveything down and reload the system. What a pain. Hopefully they will get it figured out before my next vist.

Sounds like it worked awesomely for you also.

 

[spacemt354]

correct...and you're likely going to hear any negative stories about it rather than positive ones.... most people are more eager to complain than the compliment or promote

When there is something to promote, then people will promote it.

However when something goes wrong, people will, and should, complain about it. The word needs to be out there. Otherwise these issues will never be fixed.

 

[cbsav]

Interesting, on the My Disney Experience App, it separates people by user name, and Tickets and bands are linked to each name by number, so why names should even matter is beyond me. Why it would look up a name and not band ID doesn't make any sense. Is there any chance 2 bands got linked to one person? If so that's more input error than anything else, I'm surprised there isn't a quick fix in place for that.

To me, it sounds like that's exactly what happened - the bands were issued twice.

 

[spacemt354]

Interesting, on the My Disney Experience App, it separates people by user name, and Tickets and bands are linked to each name by number, so why names should even matter is beyond me. Why it would look up a name and not band ID doesn't make any sense. Is there any chance 2 bands got linked to one person? If so that's more input error than anything else, I'm surprised there isn't a quick fix in place for that.

2 bands did get linked to one person in a re-booking process, because one room did not have magic band or Key to the World card access on our first day.

The two bands in question were my father's and mine, both with the same name, and both of which after the re-booking process, did not include our initials and thus the computer thought we were the same person.

I even suggested I change my name for the computer's sake just so it could distinguish us. But the hyper tech people said that wasn't necessary and that this was a "known issue". However, it was never fixed throughout our entire vacation despite multiple trips to the front desk.

 

[cbsav]

Read this on another blog today, sounds eerily similar to a number of the comments cited in this thread. But I guess this is against the norm.

What was most dismaying, however, was the administration of the MyMagic+ test itself. Over the course of four days, my partner and I spent approximately 6 hours at the AKL front desk, MM+ service center, and guest relations at Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Downtown Disney. Room charge would not work on my band. Neither of our APs successfully linked to our bands on the first try, nor on the second or third. Our entry to the parks was held up each and every time on all four days. I had to have three new room keys issued because of RFID problems. I understand this is a test phase, but what bothered me were the many Cast Members who would shrug and tell us that “it’s a test, you have to understand.” We were lucky that this wasn’t our once-in-a-lifetime Disney vacation, like it was for many families. To have that many hours of a vacation spent standing at a service center desk is not something they – or we – should have to endure in the name of testing. This isn’t asking an employee to try new software on her computer; this is a test that greatly impacted our and I’m sure many others’ vacation experience in significant ways. (http://nerdsinwonderland.com/2013/08/14/home-again-and-first-thoughts-on-mymagic/)

 

[ddrongowski]

How is it possible for ALL cast memebers to know the inner workings of the system? If they say it's a known issue and it's being worked on that's all they probably know. If they knew you were upset don't you think they would tell you ANYTHING that may have helped the situation? Or maybe they just liked getting yelled at and withheld information they had. Not everyone works in IT or specifically with Magic + and knows the inner workings of the system. When something goes down on my car i know it's broken and take it to a mechanic to work on it. I know of the issue and know it's being worked on, but i don't know the details on what is being done. I also don't care about the details as long as it gets fixed. Let's say this CM told you the details on how it's being fixed. Would that even had made a difference? The system still wouldn't have worked for you and you would still be upset.

I'm happy you are sharing your experience so others may know of the issues.

And if the mechanic tells you it will cost $10000 to fix it, even though it only is a $129 fix, your fine paying that? Remember people are paying THOUSANDS of dollars (you might be rich and not care about money) to go on vacation and participation in these tests does not give you a discount. ROI is not looking good.

 

[ddrongowski]

Your experience is the exception, not the norm. We know that challenges have occurred for some reservations, but your case is not the typical guest experience. And rest assured these challenges are documented and passed to IT and talked in conference calls. 95% of guest test experience smooth results and that's more than acceptable for a test of a system that integrates several different computer systems and affects most lines of business at WDW. It sounds like there were challenges between the linking of your resort reservation to MDX. Previously the only fix was to rebook, there is already a "relink" function rolling into the live system as a result of testing.

You do know that most percentages are made up... right?

 

[ddrongowski]

I agree with this the most. I too was part of the test (aug 4-11 at Pop) and when things when wrong we were at front desk/guest services for over an hour on 3 different occasions trying to get it resolved. They did remind us we agreed to be in the test. The third time we asked to back out and then CM in the suit with a iPad bent over backward to keep us in the test. At that point they offered us "compensation" for the "interruption to our vacation." Had the invitation to the test clearly stated that there were the possibility of long amounts of investigation and research that would require me to stand in guest services or the front desk, I may not have wanted to participate. It's all about managing expectations and in this case, I think they dropped the ball some. Plus there was wild variances in what different CMs were telling us was the problem\solution. Finally, a exceptional CM named Jeffery at pop Century fixed everything and from that point we had a great time with the MM+. He clearly knew the system better than any other CM we interacted with (he even has the shirt with the new MM+ logo!). He was super patient and really won us back over to staying with it.

Your post made this thought occur.

Yes FP+ and MM+ will get you thru the attraction line faster, but that is after you wait in the guest relations/customer service line for 2 to 3 hours. Great trade off, but it will make the standby line move smoother and faster.

 

[ddrongowski]

What was the "compensation" they offered?

Probably a 20 cent trinket, that they charge $20 for.

 

[ddrongowski]

Ponder this...
All five of George Foreman's sons are named George Foreman. The boxing legend and famous grill salesman George Foreman named all of his sons after him: George Jr, George III, George IV, George V, and George VI. He also has a daughter named Georgetta.

Hope he doesn't plan a trip to WDW any time soon!

If they do some CM's "gonna get knocked out!!!!"

 

[ddrongowski]

Let's stop pretending Disney knows what its doing with this technology, and let's stop giving excuses. Enough is enough.

Heck they can't even fix the Yeti, and they made the dang thing.

 

[devoy1701]

Heck they can't even fix the Yeti, and they made the dang thing.

uhhh. Slow down on the coffee dude.

 

[ddrongowski]

Guys, things like what the OP described with bugs should have never made it out of Alpha testing! They should have been part of test scripts that internal users worked through well before Beta. Not sure why people still insist on defending these things.

Because they don't work in IT (yes I do and have for over 20 years) and don't fully understand the dynamics of IT. But they have to have their "hi tech" fix.

Edit: hi tech is fine and dandy, but it should never be rushed at the expense of the customer. To often in the IT world is the opinion of "dam the customer, they will do what we tell them and they will like it, and pay for it." That is a horrible way to do business, but it is happening.

 

[Chezman1399]

2 bands did get linked to one person in a re-booking process, because one room did not have magic band or Key to the World card access on our first day.

The two bands in question were my father's and mine, both with the same name, and both of which after the re-booking process, did not include our initials and thus the computer thought we were the same person.

I even suggested I change my name for the computer's sake just so it could distinguish us. But the hyper tech people said that wasn't necessary and that this was a "known issue". However, it was never fixed throughout our entire vacation despite multiple trips to the front desk.

That is crazy that should be easy for them to fix. But hey most of the reservations people think you can still add celebrations to dining reservations on the website. If you can its not easy or obvious. Seems like they forgot a lot of fail safes at this point, and I'm excited for MM+, so it's a bit disheartening.

 

[ddrongowski]

uhhh. Slow down on the coffee dude.

Coffee? NO!!!! I do decaf green tea. Now imagine if I did to caffeine.

 

[WDWDad13]

When there is something to promote, then people will promote it.

However when something goes wrong, people will, and should, complain about it. The word needs to be out there. Otherwise these issues will never be fixed.

I'm not denying people should complain about when there is a problem... but we all have to take a deep breath and remember this is TESTING... testing is to learn new things, fix bugs, apply enhancements... all will be well