MyMagic+ To test or not to test?

[StarWarsGirl]

Hello everyone!
I'm going to WDW in January and am staying at Pop Century. In order to get a discount, I had to book it as two separate reservations. For the first two nights, we've been invited to test My Magic+. I'm trying to decide whether to do this or not. Reasons I am thinking no:
1. I don't feel like wearing the Magic Band. I really don't.
2. I'm taking a friend who hasn't been in four years. I'd like her to have a good time and not have it be mulled by my learning curve with a new system.
3. We both have passes separate from our reservation (I have an annual, and she purchased her pass separately).

It's only for two days, and it would guarantee us getting on TSM and Splash Mountain, which will be closed for the majority of the trip. I'm going to talk to her and call Disney with some of my questions, but I'd like some opinions as well, especially since a lot of you have tested MM+.

Other things to know:
1. I have 43 times (yikes), but my friend has only been a handful of times
2. Dates for the test are January 3-5
3. Both of us have Smartphones with My Disney Experience, and I've already been using the app for several trips.

EDIT: Now it's for the whole time. I think I'm just going to do it. At least when I went to customize the band I could get it to say my nickname instead of my full name. Never going to let my dad customize it though; with my luck he'd put one of his stupid pet names for me on it!

 

[Tuvalu]

I would do it in order to have FP+. Assuming the regular FP machines are still around in January, you and your friend can continue to get paper fastpasses with your APs in addition to any FP+ you may have ("double dipping.") If the FP machines are gone, FP+ guarantees you can bypass 3 standby lines.

You can make FP+ changes when you are in a park, just beware your options may be limited. We have made changes several times after making our original FP+ selections.

And just like with a paper fastpass, you don't HAVE to use your FP+ if the timing doesn't work out.

You don't have to wear your band. My husband carried his in his pocket. You will need your band to use FP+.

We are AP holders and tested MM+ in August and October and will do so again next month.

 

[CaptainJackNO]

Why not? You have nothing to lose. Plus, you can come back and tell us all about it.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

I would do it in order to have FP+. Assuming the regular FP machines are still around in January, you and your friend can continue to get paper fastpasses with your APs in addition to any FP+ you may have ("double dipping.") If the FP machines are gone, FP+ guarantees you can bypass 3 standby lines.

You can make FP+ changes when you are in a park, just beware your options may be limited. We have made changes several times after making our original FP+ selections.

And just like with a paper fastpass, you don't HAVE to use your FP+ if the timing doesn't work out.

You don't have to wear your band. My husband carried his in his pocket. You will need your band to use FP+.

We are AP holders and tested MM+ in August and October and will do so again next month.

Can I just use my pass for FP+? It's RFID enabled

 

[Tuvalu]

My husband tried his AP and it did not work. (And then the CM scolded him for not using his band!)

 

[StarWarsGirl]

My husband tried his AP and it did not work. (And then the CM scolded him for not using his band!)

*facepalms* The CMs have been rude about some of this stuff. My dad decided he didn't want to switch over to the RFID card (out of pure stubbornness) and instead used his paper pass. Some of the CMs were rude about it. Granted, he wasn't exactly being jovial about it himself, but still.

 

[Prince-1]

We are going in 2 weeks and opted out with using it.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

We are going in 2 weeks and opted out with using it.

How come?

 

[Prince-1]

I still hear to many complaints and problems. It seems that until most of the bugs and kinks are ironed out I will wait. I do not like the whole idea to begin with but I won't pretend it doesn't exist either but we had friends who had a really bad time with it so until they force us to use it I will stick with the old ways.

 

[Roo Bear]

I would give it a go! Fingers crossed for you. I am actually looking forward to using them when we go in October 2014, although I guess by then a lot of the bugs will be ironed out. It doesn't worry me wearing a band - i would imagine you would forget it's there after a while. Good luck!

 

[asialeigh]

Magic Bands are live at all resorts so you're going to get magic bands regardless.

 

[EvilQueen-T]

My husband and I just did 3 nights/4 days and did the test. I'm an ap holder but he isn't so we had the same ticket mix as you. We purchased a 4 day park hopper for him. I didn't have any problem putting him in under my friends and family list and linking his ticket to his band. I don't know what that would be like if we had had to wait until we got to the park to purchase his ticket, we did that ahead of time. We weren't able to make changes to the fp+ we'd booked mainly because it was sooooo incredibly slow loading I kept getting an error message and never saw the kiosk's/cm's that are in the park to help with that (i have a droid not an iphone). It just wasn't worth searching for them or standing in a long line at the main guest services. Overall, I go frequently so we did it so we could give our input in on the system not because I'm enamored with the idea of change.

 

[Phonedave]

We just got back (Wed night to Sun morning). We had F+ and both purchased APs at the parks (and had the bands ahead of time)

No issues what so ever. We bought the APs and used them to enter the park and then sat down on a bench and linked them using our smartphones. Worked flawlessly.

I will say, using the app on the phone, while not hard, is sometimes a pain. It was a lot easier to arrange things using an iPad back in the room.

You could stick the band in your pocket if you wish, but we wore them.

The slickest thing? Walking around and having my phone vibrate an alert. When I looked they were notifying me that one of the attractions I had a FP+ for was currently not operating, so they change the FP+ for that attraction to an "anytime" FP+ for a list of other attractions. Pretty slick.

I really don't understand what all the resistance is to the bands. They worked perfectly for us. Adding admission media, listing F&W reservations, charging to the room, scheduling FP+, not a single problem.

They really are not uncomfortable to wear. I stopped wearing a watch a few years ago (it broke and I never fixed it) and I had the band on my left wrist. I kept glancing at it, execting it to tell me the time. Clearly I need to get my watch fixed.


-dave

 

[Phonedave]

My husband and I just did 3 nights/4 days and did the test. I'm an ap holder but he isn't so we had the same ticket mix as you. We purchased a 4 day park hopper for him. I didn't have any problem putting him in under my friends and family list and linking his ticket to his band. I don't know what that would be like if we had had to wait until we got to the park to purchase his ticket, we did that ahead of time. We weren't able to make changes to the fp+ we'd booked mainly because it was sooooo incredibly slow loading I kept getting an error message and never saw the kiosk's/cm's that are in the park to help with that (i have a droid not an iphone). It just wasn't worth searching for them or standing in a long line at the main guest services. Overall, I go frequently so we did it so we could give our input in on the system not because I'm enamored with the idea of change.

Odd, I have a Droid too and had no issue speed. I did have issues trying to see the screen in sunlight, but thats a different issue.

-dave