Tracey and I just returned back from a travel conference located at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. While the main purpose of our trip was to attend training, of course we needed to make sure that we tested out the Magic Bands. ;0)
Just in case you are not sure what Magic Bands are click here for a short video.
In order to customize your bands you will need to set up an account on disneyworld.com and click on My Disney Experience. In there you will be able to pick your color, make fastpass reservations and connect any park tickets or dining. This part of the planning process is quite fun and induces even more excitement about your trip. Because Tracey and I do not live together, Tracey sent me an invite to be on her friends list in My Disney Experience. This allowed me to view our reservations as well as make dining and fastpass modifications. One thing was that both of our bands were shipped to Tracey’s house which was a bit of a bummer for me cause I wanted my band…I was excited! I think I could have went in and ordered my band but I did not realize it at the time.
Our trip was a bit unique so here are our stats:
2 adults
4 nights at Pop Century
Quick Service Dining
One of us is an Annual Pass holder.
One of us had a two day park ticket and two one day park hoppers.
When we arrived at Pop Century, the check in process was quick! My band had to be activated…but my pin and Tracey’s pin were both saved on the band being that we set them up when we ordered them. Tracey and I did immediately use our bands to enter our room, which was cool! Then we quickly went down to Everything Pop, food court to pick up our Rapid Refill mugs. The bands worked there as well…yes!
Once we arrived at Epcot this is where things got a bit tricky. Tracey had to renew her Annual Pass and for some reason it would not attach to her band. I was able to attach my park tickets by scanning the QR code on the back of the ticket….SO COOL! I went into the app and the tickets were all there. After some trouble-shooting (okay 1 hour of standing a help kiosk rather than playing in the parks) we got it to work.
Another hurdle we had was as we were waiting we noticed that our fastpasses were totally gone. This was a bit disheartening because we took time to create a schedule around our conference classes and now may not be able to go on anything due to lack of time. Well, Heather a Cast Member saved the day! She not only fixed all of our issues but she gave us anytime fastpasses for each day of our trip. No these were not unlimited, we still had three per day but we could use them as we please. (by the way, Disney if you are reading this I feel it would be much better to load our bands with fastpasses and not have to schedule times…just my two cents.) This was a huge relief for Tracey and I.
We did encounter an issue with Tracey’s pin code for her Magic Band…she had to reset it as if there was never a pin attached. Good thing I was there cause she would not have been able to pay for her food! Being that we stayed in the same room I scanned my band for her dining credit.
All in all, I actually love the bands. I do feel that there are some MAJOR bugs they need to iron out such as , if my kids were with me, standing in a line for troubleshooting would not be very fun AT ALL! In fact, I am not sure I would have been very pleasant if I spent as much time at kiosks and desks troubleshooting as I did if this were a leisure trip. I do really love the fact that once the band works, you really have no need for anything at all! It does EVERYTHING…even Photopass.
I have full confidence that Disney will work out the errors, after-all it is in beta mode so we need to give it some time.
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