On my last couple of trips to Walt Disney World I’ve used the new Magic Band —
A couple of months before your trip starts, you have the opportunity to “customize” your band — that is, you get to choose the color and you can have a name inscribed on the inside. My first time I chose Blue
You always remember your first one.
On my next trip, I was with a larger group and I didn’t make the reservations and we got the generic grey bands when we checked in to the resort.
Now that I’m heading to Princess Weekend, I decided to get all kinds of girly and got my pink Magic Band!!
Time to get my Princess on!!
It’s always fun to get mail and this is no exception!
What a GREAT package!!!
Now, while not actual “Magic”, the band does do some magical things! It opens doors – specifically, your resort room door! It buys you things. Well, it let you buy you things without fumbling around with credit cards or cash (though, if you’re an Annual Passholder or a Disney Visa Card holder, you may have to show those cards for any savings). It holds pictures for you — the Disney Photopass photographers simply have to scan your band and you can look your pictures up online, almost immediately!
And, it holds your FastPass+ reservations
A Day in the Life…
You can see it also keeps track of your Dining Reservations (see Making ADRs )
But. FastPass+ — what is it and why do we care? Once upon a time, long ago, when you wanted to go on a ride at Walt Disney World, you had to wait in line. Sometimes, that line could be HOURS long! Then the Disney folks introduced FastPass. With your park ticket you could go to a machine and get a ‘reservation’ to get in line for a ride. This line tended to be a bit shorter than the normal line and you may have gotten a little smug feeling as you sped past everyone waiting in the serpentines…This was a great process – one person in your group could grab all the tickets and race to the machine to make sure you were all able to get FastPass at the same time frame.
Then, last year, they started introducing FastPass+ as part of the whole new MyMagic+ (Magic Bands+MyDisneyExperience+FastPass+). Now you can secure your place in line before you even leave home! BUT…you can only get 3 a day in one park. There are also “tiers” of attractions – so, for example, I cannot get FastPass+ for Tower of Terror AND RockandRoller Coaster. So, more decisions!!! Some people are not thrilled with the new system which I can understand. As someone who does a lot of “single” traveling to Walt Disney World, I often use the “single rider” lines (and don’t get me started on the abuse of THIS system!!) so I end up spending less time in lines, generally but it’s nice to have the FastPass backup. Especially if there are attractions or rides that you MUST go on!!
I kind of like the MagicBand system in general. I haven’t had issues that some folks have had and it really does make life easier. For me.
Now, if only I could get it to do my packing 🙂
I chose pink, but mine came in grey. (But I understand we can buy bling for them when we get there!) We got our restaurant reservations and FP’s reserved and I’m excited to see how these work. See you in a few days!
Yes, I got to use the new Fast Pass system in November and thought it was pretty clever. There were a few times that we got to the attraction and found that we didn’t need to use our FP because there was no line. We were easily able to take that FP off our list and choose a new one!