Will deactivating my old MagicBands make for an easier check-in?

[Innkeeper's Club]

On my last trip to WDW this past August there was a minor issue activating our MagicBands at check-in. Anyway when I was talking with another Cast Member he told me I should deactivate my MagicBands from previous stays so their system doesn't see them as still being active on my profile. After coming back home I did just that, so will that mean when I check-in next month there should not be any issues when it comes to activating our new set of MagicBands?

 

[Tom]

No. We have a mountain of old Bands, all active. Our new one's were sync'd to our room just fine last week.

 

[Innkeeper's Club]

Oh really. I'm not doubting what you said I only wonder why I was told that because this Cast Member was the same one who told me about the Purple MagicBands since he trains other Cast Members on how the MagicBands work and etc. Maybe the last time when I checked-in it was just a glitch in their system, however either way I will find out very soon.

 

[Tom]

Oh really. I'm not doubting what you said I only wonder why I was told that because this Cast Member was the same one who told me about the Purple MagicBands since he trains other Cast Members on how the MagicBands work and etc. Maybe the last time when I checked-in it was just a glitch in their system, however either way I will find out very soon.

It's likely that the CM was involved in a situation where doing that for another guest coincidentally worked, and thus it was assumed that was a fix.

But in reality, there's no limit to how many bands can be linked to, and activated on, a MDE account. You should always use the newest ones when checking in, because they have the best battery strength, but you don't have to deactivate any others unless you lose them.

 

[Tuvalu]

But in reality, there's no limit to how many bands can be linked to, and activated on, a MDE account.

Actually there is. If you have more than 8 active at one given time you will have trouble with a new band, it won't work.

 

[Tom]

Actually there is. If you have more than 8 active at one given time you will have trouble with a new band, it won't work.

Oh?

 

[Mukta]

I had a big problem when I checked in on my sept trip. They said it was because I had too many active bands. I had 11 at that time. I came home and deactivated a bunch.

 

[Tuvalu]

Oh?

I was told this by three different CMs on 3 different resort stays (when my new band would not open the room door.) Like @Mukta, I have deactivated all but 4 bands (the 4 most recent plus a specialty band) and have not had any issues since.

 

[HolleBolleGijs]

I was told this by three different CMs on 3 different resort stays (when my new band would not open the room door.) Like @Mukta, I have deactivated all but 4 bands (the 4 most recent plus a specialty band) and have not had any issues since.

I had the same problem but with only 3 bands activated (2 from the current split stay plus a specialty). The CM at POFQ implied that specialty bands often cause problems like that. Another CM theorized it might be because I didn't use my specific band to open the door the first night (which sounds fishy, but he swears by it).

 

[MadMax11]

Probably a stupid question...how does one deactivate a band?

Last one I used was 2 years ago....would it still be active?

EDIT: forget it...I figured it out. Sorry!

 

[Innkeeper's Club]

Actually there is. If you have more than 8 active at one given time you will have trouble with a new band, it won't work.

I was told this by three different CMs on 3 different resort stays (when my new band would not open the room door.) Like @Mukta, I have deactivated all but 4 bands (the 4 most recent plus a specialty band) and have not had any issues since.

Thank you for confirming what I thought to be true and what I was told by the Cast Member. I will say when I was last at WDW this past August I had 13 MagicBands that were still "active" and I'm assuming that's why we had the issue with our new ones at check-in. Although since they got them to work I wonder how that happened since you said they won't when 8 are active.

 

[Monty]

I currently have 16 active Magic Bands on my account and all worked seamlessly last visit. I used two different bands every day without any issues.

I think the system just randomly has a hiccup and CMs tell you whatever comes to mind. LOL!

 

[ford91exploder]

Actually there is. If you have more than 8 active at one given time you will have trouble with a new band, it won't work.

Which genius thought THAT was a good idea plus not disclosing the limit to system users.

 

[Flalex72]

It's likely that the CM was involved in a situation where doing that for another guest coincidentally worked, and thus it was assumed that was a fix.

But in reality, there's no limit to how many bands can be linked to, and activated on, a MDE account. You should always use the newest ones when checking in, because they have the best battery strength, but you don't have to deactivate any others unless you lose them.

This is incorrect. There is no hard limit, but having too many bands can cause issues.

I had the same problem but with only 3 bands activated (2 from the current split stay plus a specialty). The CM at POFQ implied that specialty bands often cause problems like that. Another CM theorized it might be because I didn't use my specific band to open the door the first night (which sounds fishy, but he swears by it).

Specialty bands are identical to the regular bands inside, but since they weren't setup with a hotel stay when they were first used, there can be issues because the hotel door locks are encoded onto the bands separately from the MDE account info. It only takes the front desk a moment to re-encode them, and it sometimes happens to bands that came with hotel stays as well. Encoding errors are probably the biggest issue with magic bands that the hotel front desks deal with.

Until mid-summer 2015 the reservation system would not consider guests to be "in-room" until the primary guest had tapped their band, or midnight. This was an issue, as for many families the kids always open the door the first few times. It wasn't a big deal, since it didn't affect anything important, but it screwed up the hotels remaining arrival counts for the day. This issue has been corrected and any guest entering the room changes the room status.

Thank you for confirming what I thought to be true and what I was told by the Cast Member. I will say when I was last at WDW this past August I had 13 MagicBands that were still "active" and I'm assuming that's why we had the issue with our new ones at check-in. Although since they got them to work I wonder how that happened since you said they won't when 8 are active.

So here's the issue. The bands operate on two distinct systems. The first system is the custom-built MDE system. I haven't heard a limit to how many bands per person it can support, but it's practically unlimited. This means you can have 100 bands, choose one, go to the parks and expect it to work.

The other system is the hotel door locks. These are just standard Assa Abloy door locks, with a mickey head stuck on them. They are designed to be used in a standard hotel room, with a few guests in it. The issue arises when a family of DVC members shows up with 5 people and 22 bands each. The reservation system sends the list of authorized keys (bands and cards) to the door lock and sometimes they just freeze up or act completely unpredictably with that many authorized users. Deactivating the bands removes them from the list of keys and makes the door locks happy. The front desk staff I dealt with used a limit of 12 bands/cards, but there are a number of factors at play and this is just playing it safe. The KTTW cards did basically the same thing, but they weren't re-used so this was never a problem.

 

[Tuvalu]

This is incorrect. There is no hard limit, but having too many bands can cause issues.



Specialty bands are identical to the regular bands inside, but since they weren't setup with a hotel stay when they were first used, there can be issues because the hotel door locks are encoded onto the bands separately from the MDE account info. It only takes the front desk a moment to re-encode them, and it sometimes happens to bands that came with hotel stays as well. Encoding errors are probably the biggest issue with magic bands that the hotel front desks deal with.

Until mid-summer 2015 the reservation system would not consider guests to be "in-room" until the primary guest had tapped their band, or midnight. This was an issue, as for many families the kids always open the door the first few times. It wasn't a big deal, since it didn't affect anything important, but it screwed up the hotels remaining arrival counts for the day. This issue has been corrected and any guest entering the room changes the room status.



So here's the issue. The bands operate on two distinct systems. The first system is the custom-built MDE system. I haven't heard a limit to how many bands per person it can support, but it's practically unlimited. This means you can have 100 bands, choose one, go to the parks and expect it to work.

The other system is the hotel door locks. These are just standard Assa Abloy door locks, with a mickey head stuck on them. They are designed to be used in a standard hotel room, with a few guests in it. The issue arises when a family of DVC members shows up with 5 people and 22 bands each. The reservation system sends the list of authorized keys (bands and cards) to the door lock and sometimes they just freeze up or act completely unpredictably with that many authorized users. Deactivating the bands removes them from the list of keys and makes the door locks happy. The front desk staff I dealt with used a limit of 12 bands/cards, but there are a number of factors at play and this is just playing it safe. The KTTW cards did basically the same thing, but they weren't re-used so this was never a problem.

Thank you for your clarification points. I now understand why I could use any band for park admission/FP+ but could not use the same band to open the hotel door.