Pre-Arrival Magic Bands
Before we were set to arrive we had plenty of time to use the My Disney Experience site. If you haven't created and account yet, you'll want to head to StartYourDisneyExperience.com. The first step is to enter your confirmation number. For Lauren and I we had a room only reservation (this is important later). We quickly retrieved our reservation and were able to customize our Magic Bands. You are not only able to pick the color of the band but also have your name inscribed on the back (important if your kids want the same color).
Lauren selected Red and I selected pink. The bands were shipped about 4 weeks prior to our trip.
You have up until about 4 weeks prior to change the colors. Your My Disney Experience account will list the date that you have to.
While you are in your My Disney Experience account you'll want to make sure your dining reservations are linked too. This is more for your benefit and is not info that is currently loaded into your band. Clients who book with me will have all their reservations show up automatically in their accounts.
FastPass+
Starting 60 days before your trip, you can log in to your account and begin selecting your FastPass+ experiences. I have a previous post talking about how to set up your experiences here, so I won't rehash that.
What I want to talk about here is WHO gets to select these attractions. In order to select your FastPass+ experiences you will need to have a Walt Disney World resort package or room reservation linked to your account. If you have just a room reservation you will also need to link tickets.
Only guests staying on-site may participate in FastPass+ in advance. By January 20th, all legacy FastPass machines will be removed from the parks. Offsite guests may select their FastPass+ experiences once they arrive at the parks, at kiosks located through out the parks.
Because Lauren and I were picking up tickets at will call we were NOT able to select our FastPass+ in advance. Once we arrived at the Magic Kingdom we purchased our tickets and immediately logged on to our My Disney Experience accounts on our smart phones.
*Note: I had an old Droid 4 for this trip and I had several problems with the My Disney Experience app. Lauren had an IPhone with no issues. I've recently upgraded my phone so I can't report on how well this new app works.
As soon as we linked our tickets we began picking our FastPass+ experiences right away. It was so easy and there was still plenty available. We set up FastPass's for Buzz Light Year, Character meeting with Mickey and Jungle Cruise. FastPass+ was still in test phase so there was still quite a bit of availability. It was very easy to set up and only took a few minutes!!
Magic Bands at the Parks
I've read lots of good and some bad thing about using the Magic Bands in the park. I'll say that Lauren and I experienced NO problems. We began using our Magic Bands at Magical Express at the airport. They worked instantly and we checked right in.
Once we got to the resort we took a few minutes to have Lauren's band set up with her own credit card and pin number (right now you can only assign one during online check-in). It was fairly simple to do, despite the Cast Member we were dealing with....we think she might have been new and she stumbled through explaining things to us a bit. It wasn't a big deal since we knew how everything worked but for first time guests it could have been a mess.
We quickly learned that the band had to be worn "upside down" in order for them to be comfy. I assumed we'd wear them with the Mickey on top, facing me, like a watch. But in order to comfortably tap the RFID Mickey heads, it had to be worn upside down:
The bands worked flawless throughout the trip. Everything from park access, to purchases, to getting us in our room! It was SOOO nice to not pull our Key to the World card out every time we needed something. We simply tapped, put in our PIN (For purchases and dining) and voila! We were done!
Next up will be the Q&A! Feel free to leave questions in the comments below!
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